050424
Big Idea: As God reveals himself as Almighty, we can change and experience a new name and heart.
One time my grandfather and I and some of my cousins were walking down a street in Tokyo, with my grandfather at the front.
My 80 something year old grandfather was walking somewhat slowly, and I started to walk ahead of him.
My grandfather, barked and said something like (translating roughly from Japanese to English), “What the hell do you think your doing? Get behind me!”
Like when the president of the U.S. is being filmed for the news, my grandfather, a corporate ceo didn’t want his punk grandkid walking in front of him in public.
All of my siblings and my cousins, were all intimidated my grandfather. When we’d all go to dinner, we are trying to avoid sitting next to my grandfather because we are afraid to be scolded. We are like Blaik (my super-laid back cousin from Hawaii), you’re sitting beside grandpa.
But when my grandfather was in his 80s, he was experiencing some serious business challenges and this humbled him to some extent, he heard the Gospel and made a commitment of his life to God.
My cousin Blaik (the super laid back one from Hawaii), was amazed to witness this 85 year old man changing. He didn’t become perfect, but he became gentler, more considerate, and for the first time his life—he started doing dishes!
Some people raise the question can people change? And in particular, can those who are older and set in their ways change?
My grandfather’s life demonstrate even people in their 80’s can change.
And Abram, of the Bible demonstrates that even people in their 90s change.
Abraham is considered a man of great faith, but he has his seasons of struggling to trust God.
In Genesis chapter 16, as we saw last week from Mardi’s message, we find Abram trying to “help” God.
God had promised Abram a child, but he figures he and his wife are too old and they figure it’s going to be too difficult for God to give them a child. So they decide Abram should sleep with the maid-servant Hagar. They don’t really believe that God can deliver in this way for them. 13 years pass and God reveals himself again to Abram and we’re going to see how this becomes a foundation for a new and transforming work.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Genesis 17.
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."
3 Abram fell facedown, (Abram bows down in the presence of God and at the close we’re give you an opportunity and to come kneel before God in prayer) and God said to him, 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."
9 Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner-those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."
15 God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."
God comes to Abram when he is 99 years old and says, I am El Shaddai i.e., I am God Almighty, the God who can do all things--walk before me and be blameless.
Abram for the last 13 years or so has been struggling to trust God; instead of waiting for God to fulfill the promise to him that he would have a son through Sarai, he has taken his wife’s maid servant Hagar and has had a child with her. Abram and Sarai are so desperate to have child that they engineer a plan that this is outside of God’s will to have a baby. And while the child is blessed, the child ends up causing all kinds of complications.
After 13 years of struggling to trust God, God reveals himself to Abram, and says in vs. 1 “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.”
It’s as God reveals his character to Abram and says, I am El Shaddai, the God Almighty, the one who can do all things that Abram can really walk before God and become blameless.
It’s as God reveals himself to us that we can learn to walk with God and become blameless.
Thomas Merton was a transfer student at Columbia University in the 1930’s. He had been kicked out of Cambridge for getting a young woman pregnant, so he leaves the U.K. and comes to the U.S. and enrolls at Columbia in New York.
Merton was bright, but he was a “player” and quite a heavy drinker and smoker. One day he walked into a bookstore with some extra money in his pocket. He was taking a class in medieval literature and he saw a book on the shelf called the Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. He bought it along with a number of other books when on the train ride home he discovered it was written by a Catholic he wanted to throw the book out of the window.
But he opened the book up on the train and began reading. He was expecting a notion of God that was superstitious and vague.
Instead, he found a definition of God that was deep, precise and simple.
He read for the first time about a concept called the aseity of God. The doctrine that God God as a being requires no cause to exist, he reads that it’s God’s very nature is to exist.
Merton has this conception of a God who was vague and jealous creature but this book on Medieval philosophy described God as the perfect being.
This new understanding of God becomes a foundation for Merton to later come to God and experience change.
As was true for Abraham and Merton, as we come to understand God as Almighty, as the one who can do all things that we too can experience change.
God says, I am El Shaddai, the God who can do all things walk before me and be blameless. Blameless does not mean absolute sinful perfection, it does mean having God at the center of our lives and each part of our life is oriented toward God, it means that we walk with God in trust and obedience.
It is as God reveals his himself as Almighty that we too can become blameless.
Again to illustrate from Thomas Merton, some time after giving his life to God in the context of a Catholic church, he was walking with his college friend Bob Lax. Bob says, what do want to be Tom? Merton’s real desire? To be an esteemed writer for the New York Times. But he wanted to answer in a more “spiritual” way so he says, “I want to be a good Catholic.”
Bob responds, “Do you know you should have said?”
You should said, “I want to be a saint.”
Merton says, “How could I become a Saint?”
Bob says by wanting to.
Merton, “Can’t be that simple.”
Bob says, “Don’t you believe that God could make you what he created you to be, if you would consent to let him do it?
When we understand that God is El Shaddai, i.e. Almighty that he can do all things, we can believe that God can make us in the kind of people who walk with him are blameless.
Then God says to Abram in vs. 2, I will confirm my covenant between me and you will greatly increase your numbers.
Vs. 4 As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations: No longer will you be called Abram, your name will be Abraham, for I have made you the father of many nations.
So, God reveals his character to Abram as God Almighty and says be blameless, he then reiterates his promise to Abram about being a father then re-names him.
In this ancient near eastern culture, a name was more than a label; a name was a revealer of one’s character and destiny.
Abram means father, Abraham means father of a many…
When we understand that God is El Shaddai, i.e. can all do all things we believe that when he gives us a new name, he can also give us a new name and a character and a new destiny.
He comes to Sarai, whose name meaning is not certain, but scholars believe it means contentious! If you were here last week or if you’ve read Genesis 16, you realize she was contentious, particularly in relationship to her maid-servant Hagar, her maid-servant’s son Ishmael, and to her husband!
God says you will now be called Sarah, which means princess…
God renames, Abram to Abraham, i.e. from father to father of many, he renames Sarai to Sarah, i.e. from contentious to Princess… Years also Jesus renames Simon this impetuous, shifting person to Peter which means rock…and in all these cases the renaming sets in motion a process of transformation their character and destiny change…
When El Shaddai, God Almighty renames us and change us…
From Fool to wise, from coward to courageous, from despairing to hopeful, from rejected to received, from break of things to builder…
As God reveals himself as Almighty, we can change and experience a new name and a new character.
Then in our story we read about God instructing Abram and his males that belonged to him to undergo circumcision as a sign of God’s covenant to them, i.e. as sign that He would increase Abraham’s numbers and give his descendants land.
Circumcision was a ritual that involved the cutting of the foreskin of the male sexual organ as a sign that the person belonged to God.
Why the sex organ? Some scholars have pointed out that God had Abraham mark the foreskin of his sexual organs because it was a sign that through Abraham God was going to create a people for himself.
As Philo et al have pointed out, circumcision also done to foster literal hygienic, purity and to symbolize purity of heart.
Like baptism, circumcision was a sign that God plans to raise a people for Himself who are set apart and purified.
Later God in the Scriptures, particularly in the prophets, God speaks of how he will circumcise our hearts, of how he will make to a people for himself who hearts are purified by water, the by writing his laws on our hearts by his spirit.
Paul later in the Bible would talk about how physical circumcision had no real value unless it was accompanied by circumcision of the heart.
The God who can do all things gives us a new name which signifies a new character, but he also who spiritually circumcises us by cutting our heart.
C.S. Lewis says God’s intent is not to make us into “nice” people, but new people.
If God wanted just wanted to makes us nice people, it wouldn’t cost him much. He could us send to an etiquette course with Miss Manners (aka Judith Martin).
But he wanted to make us new. This will cost him considerably more.
In order of to make us God sends us his son Jesus Christ to die on a cross.
His body cut so that our hearts could be cut and made new.
He was absorbed our sins in his body so that we could be free of them.
He was crushed so that we could be made whole.
As we see as himself as Almighty and the all loving one, who gave us his son Jesus Christ we can receive a new name and heart.
As we close this service, I want to point out that Abram in response to God’s revelation bows down before God.
In this posture of worship and receiving, Abram receives a new name and a new heart…
If you’re here and you want God to change you, I’m going to invite come and kneel and simply yes Lord, change me, help me to walk with you and make me blameless.
Bob Lax said to Tom Merton, “(If God can do all things) don’t you believe that God could make you what he created you to be, if you would consent to let him do it?
So, if you’re here and wanting God to change you, rename you and renovate your heart, come and bow and by coming and kneeling you’re say El Shaddai, God who can do all things I consent to your work in me. If you’re shy, but wanting to come, come.
In Ezekiel 36:24-27 God says:
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my
One time my grandfather and I and some of my cousins were walking down a street in Tokyo, with my grandfather at the front.
My 80 something year old grandfather was walking somewhat slowly, and I started to walk ahead of him.
My grandfather, barked and said something like (translating roughly from Japanese to English), “What the hell do you think your doing? Get behind me!”
Like when the president of the U.S. is being filmed for the news, my grandfather, a corporate ceo didn’t want his punk grandkid walking in front of him in public.
All of my siblings and my cousins, were all intimidated my grandfather. When we’d all go to dinner, we are trying to avoid sitting next to my grandfather because we are afraid to be scolded. We are like Blaik (my super-laid back cousin from Hawaii), you’re sitting beside grandpa.
But when my grandfather was in his 80s, he was experiencing some serious business challenges and this humbled him to some extent, he heard the Gospel and made a commitment of his life to God.
My cousin Blaik (the super laid back one from Hawaii), was amazed to witness this 85 year old man changing. He didn’t become perfect, but he became gentler, more considerate, and for the first time his life—he started doing dishes!
Some people raise the question can people change? And in particular, can those who are older and set in their ways change?
My grandfather’s life demonstrate even people in their 80’s can change.
And Abram, of the Bible demonstrates that even people in their 90s change.
Abraham is considered a man of great faith, but he has his seasons of struggling to trust God.
In Genesis chapter 16, as we saw last week from Mardi’s message, we find Abram trying to “help” God.
God had promised Abram a child, but he figures he and his wife are too old and they figure it’s going to be too difficult for God to give them a child. So they decide Abram should sleep with the maid-servant Hagar. They don’t really believe that God can deliver in this way for them. 13 years pass and God reveals himself again to Abram and we’re going to see how this becomes a foundation for a new and transforming work.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Genesis 17.
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."
3 Abram fell facedown, (Abram bows down in the presence of God and at the close we’re give you an opportunity and to come kneel before God in prayer) and God said to him, 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."
9 Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner-those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."
15 God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."
God comes to Abram when he is 99 years old and says, I am El Shaddai i.e., I am God Almighty, the God who can do all things--walk before me and be blameless.
Abram for the last 13 years or so has been struggling to trust God; instead of waiting for God to fulfill the promise to him that he would have a son through Sarai, he has taken his wife’s maid servant Hagar and has had a child with her. Abram and Sarai are so desperate to have child that they engineer a plan that this is outside of God’s will to have a baby. And while the child is blessed, the child ends up causing all kinds of complications.
After 13 years of struggling to trust God, God reveals himself to Abram, and says in vs. 1 “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.”
It’s as God reveals his character to Abram and says, I am El Shaddai, the God Almighty, the one who can do all things that Abram can really walk before God and become blameless.
It’s as God reveals himself to us that we can learn to walk with God and become blameless.
Thomas Merton was a transfer student at Columbia University in the 1930’s. He had been kicked out of Cambridge for getting a young woman pregnant, so he leaves the U.K. and comes to the U.S. and enrolls at Columbia in New York.
Merton was bright, but he was a “player” and quite a heavy drinker and smoker. One day he walked into a bookstore with some extra money in his pocket. He was taking a class in medieval literature and he saw a book on the shelf called the Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. He bought it along with a number of other books when on the train ride home he discovered it was written by a Catholic he wanted to throw the book out of the window.
But he opened the book up on the train and began reading. He was expecting a notion of God that was superstitious and vague.
Instead, he found a definition of God that was deep, precise and simple.
He read for the first time about a concept called the aseity of God. The doctrine that God God as a being requires no cause to exist, he reads that it’s God’s very nature is to exist.
Merton has this conception of a God who was vague and jealous creature but this book on Medieval philosophy described God as the perfect being.
This new understanding of God becomes a foundation for Merton to later come to God and experience change.
As was true for Abraham and Merton, as we come to understand God as Almighty, as the one who can do all things that we too can experience change.
God says, I am El Shaddai, the God who can do all things walk before me and be blameless. Blameless does not mean absolute sinful perfection, it does mean having God at the center of our lives and each part of our life is oriented toward God, it means that we walk with God in trust and obedience.
It is as God reveals his himself as Almighty that we too can become blameless.
Again to illustrate from Thomas Merton, some time after giving his life to God in the context of a Catholic church, he was walking with his college friend Bob Lax. Bob says, what do want to be Tom? Merton’s real desire? To be an esteemed writer for the New York Times. But he wanted to answer in a more “spiritual” way so he says, “I want to be a good Catholic.”
Bob responds, “Do you know you should have said?”
You should said, “I want to be a saint.”
Merton says, “How could I become a Saint?”
Bob says by wanting to.
Merton, “Can’t be that simple.”
Bob says, “Don’t you believe that God could make you what he created you to be, if you would consent to let him do it?
When we understand that God is El Shaddai, i.e. Almighty that he can do all things, we can believe that God can make us in the kind of people who walk with him are blameless.
Then God says to Abram in vs. 2, I will confirm my covenant between me and you will greatly increase your numbers.
Vs. 4 As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations: No longer will you be called Abram, your name will be Abraham, for I have made you the father of many nations.
So, God reveals his character to Abram as God Almighty and says be blameless, he then reiterates his promise to Abram about being a father then re-names him.
In this ancient near eastern culture, a name was more than a label; a name was a revealer of one’s character and destiny.
Abram means father, Abraham means father of a many…
When we understand that God is El Shaddai, i.e. can all do all things we believe that when he gives us a new name, he can also give us a new name and a character and a new destiny.
He comes to Sarai, whose name meaning is not certain, but scholars believe it means contentious! If you were here last week or if you’ve read Genesis 16, you realize she was contentious, particularly in relationship to her maid-servant Hagar, her maid-servant’s son Ishmael, and to her husband!
God says you will now be called Sarah, which means princess…
God renames, Abram to Abraham, i.e. from father to father of many, he renames Sarai to Sarah, i.e. from contentious to Princess… Years also Jesus renames Simon this impetuous, shifting person to Peter which means rock…and in all these cases the renaming sets in motion a process of transformation their character and destiny change…
When El Shaddai, God Almighty renames us and change us…
From Fool to wise, from coward to courageous, from despairing to hopeful, from rejected to received, from break of things to builder…
As God reveals himself as Almighty, we can change and experience a new name and a new character.
Then in our story we read about God instructing Abram and his males that belonged to him to undergo circumcision as a sign of God’s covenant to them, i.e. as sign that He would increase Abraham’s numbers and give his descendants land.
Circumcision was a ritual that involved the cutting of the foreskin of the male sexual organ as a sign that the person belonged to God.
Why the sex organ? Some scholars have pointed out that God had Abraham mark the foreskin of his sexual organs because it was a sign that through Abraham God was going to create a people for himself.
As Philo et al have pointed out, circumcision also done to foster literal hygienic, purity and to symbolize purity of heart.
Like baptism, circumcision was a sign that God plans to raise a people for Himself who are set apart and purified.
Later God in the Scriptures, particularly in the prophets, God speaks of how he will circumcise our hearts, of how he will make to a people for himself who hearts are purified by water, the by writing his laws on our hearts by his spirit.
Paul later in the Bible would talk about how physical circumcision had no real value unless it was accompanied by circumcision of the heart.
The God who can do all things gives us a new name which signifies a new character, but he also who spiritually circumcises us by cutting our heart.
C.S. Lewis says God’s intent is not to make us into “nice” people, but new people.
If God wanted just wanted to makes us nice people, it wouldn’t cost him much. He could us send to an etiquette course with Miss Manners (aka Judith Martin).
But he wanted to make us new. This will cost him considerably more.
In order of to make us God sends us his son Jesus Christ to die on a cross.
His body cut so that our hearts could be cut and made new.
He was absorbed our sins in his body so that we could be free of them.
He was crushed so that we could be made whole.
As we see as himself as Almighty and the all loving one, who gave us his son Jesus Christ we can receive a new name and heart.
As we close this service, I want to point out that Abram in response to God’s revelation bows down before God.
In this posture of worship and receiving, Abram receives a new name and a new heart…
If you’re here and you want God to change you, I’m going to invite come and kneel and simply yes Lord, change me, help me to walk with you and make me blameless.
Bob Lax said to Tom Merton, “(If God can do all things) don’t you believe that God could make you what he created you to be, if you would consent to let him do it?
So, if you’re here and wanting God to change you, rename you and renovate your heart, come and bow and by coming and kneeling you’re say El Shaddai, God who can do all things I consent to your work in me. If you’re shy, but wanting to come, come.
In Ezekiel 36:24-27 God says:
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my
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