ACT 3: PROMISE AND PURPOSE. Genesis 17:1-5

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2 ACT 3: PROMISE AND PURPOSE Genesis 17:1-5

3 We were not just created and then given a covenant; we were created as covenant creatures partners not in deity, to be sure, but in the drama that was about to unfold in history. As covenant creatures by nature, every person has a relationship with God. Michael Horton

4 Genesis 5 stressed that death prevailed in the race, whereas Genesis 11 stresses a movement away from death toward the promise, and it stresses life and expansion. Kent Hughes

5 What is often present in these ancient treaties and missing in modern analogies is the fact that these were not merely legal contacts but involved the deepest affections. The great king was the father adopting the captives he had liberated from oppression. Consequently, he was not simply to be obeyed externally, but loved; not only feared, but revered; not only known as the legal lord of the realm, but acknowledged openly as the rightful sovereign. Michael Horton

6 Abraham, I m putting My very deity on the line here. I m swearing to you by My holy nature. If I don t keep this word, I will no longer be God. And God made a covenant with Abraham. He made a promise, and He backs up that promise which is not just to Abraham To all of God s people He makes a promise that He seals with an oath based upon His own very nature. There is no conceivably higher guarantee than that. R.C. Sproul

7 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. Genesis 17:1-5

8 [Abraham] grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Romans 4:21-25

9 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. Deuteronomy 7:6-9

10 No sacrifice that Moses could offer could possibly have been adequate or appropriate. The only hope lay in a broken and contrite heart and in the character and promises of God. Christopher Wright

11 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. Hosea 2:14-15

12 God sees us as we are, loves us as we are, and accepts us as we are. But by his grace, He does not leave us as we are. Tim Keller

13 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

14 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. Ezekiel 36:25-29