"God's Covenant with us Results in a Name Change"
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. [Amen.]
"The God of Abr'ham praise, At whose supreme command
From earth I rise and seek the joys At His right hand.
I all on earth forsake, Its wisdom, fame, and pow'r,
And Him my only portion make, My shield and tow'r."
(Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
798:2)
Old Testament Reading............. Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 (Esp. 5-7, 15-16)
5No 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. 6I will make you
exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come
from you. 7And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your
offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting
covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you . . 15And God
said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai,
but Sarah shall be her name. 16I will bless her, and moreover, I will give
you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of
peoples shall come from her."
Prologue: "During the forty days of Lent, God's baptized people cleanse
their hearts through the discipline of Lent: repentance, prayer, fasting,
and almsgiving. Lent is a time in which God's people [penitentially]
prepare with joy for the Paschal Feast (Easter). It is a time in which God
renews His people's zeal in faith and life. It is a time in which we pray
that we may be given the fullness of grace that belongs to the children of
God." (Treasury of Daily Prayer, Scott A. Kinnaman, General Editor.
Copyright © 2008, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Page 26.)
Lent is about change . not merely a seasonal change in which the
coming springtime shows itself by longer periods of daylight . but more
importantly change that renews life, sustains life, and endures life. Now I
realize that many of us (myself included) don't particularly or always like
change . unless it's a chiropractic adjustment that changes us from pain to
comfort. The idea and activity of change itself goes against our inherent
German Lutheran nature . not to mention our inborn sinful human nature.
It's much more comfortable to keep on doing, thinking, and saying
what's familiar to us even in the face of evidence that there may be
something better. That's especially true with sin. The reality of
inherited or original sin reveals itself by the fact that rebellious
disobedience against God and His Holy Will as summarized by the Ten
Commandments is much more fun, exciting, pleasurable, and secure than
changing to a lifestyle of obedience to God's Holy Will. Change definitely
goes against our natural grain and is uncomfortable.
Well, as I referred to at the beginning of this sermon, Lent
(along with Advent) are times for us to review and rehearse what God desires
us to do every day of our lives . change! We prepare during Advent to
joyfully celebrate our Savior's nativity and during Lent to joyfully
celebrate His resurrection. We do so by examining and practicing repentance
so that it hopefully becomes a part of our fiber and we then do it each and
every day of our lives.
You see, repentance is all about change as we evaluate our lives
in the light of God's Holy Law and His gracious Gospel. As we do so, we
realize that we are truly sinful and unclean, we mourn that wretched
condition, we honestly and humbly confess our grievous situation, and we
look to the empty cross and the vacated tomb that remind us that Christ is
"the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins
of the whole world." (1 John 2:2 ESV) That heartfelt conviction then leads
us with renewed spiritual vigor to energetically strive by the Holy Spirit's
power to change from Satan-serving sinful ways to God-pleasing sanctified
ways. In fact, what we learn from today's Old Testament Reading is that .
"God's Covenant with us Results in a Name Change."
That name change occurred at our Baptism when God gave us our new
most-significant name . "Christian" . "little Christ." The Old Testament
man whom we most commonly know as Abraham underwent two major changes in his
life. The first was when God gave him the command and promise, "Go from
your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I
will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you
and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless
those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all
the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen 12:1-3 ESV) In other
words, God told him to take his wife; leave his comfortable heathen and
pagan location, relatives, and acquaintances; and relocate in a place that
would not be revealed to him until he arrived at it.
The other major change in Abraham's life was what's recorded in
today's Old Testament Reading. "And God said to him, '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.' And God said to Abraham, 'As for
Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her
name.'" (Gen 17:3b, 5, 15 ESV) Now, just to clarify, "Abram" means "high,
lofty, or exalted father" whereas "Abraham" means "father of a multitude."
"This name change was a seal of the covenant, a guarantee that God would
keep the promise he had made." (John G. Jeske in People's Bible Commentary:
Genesis. Copyright © 1992 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
Page151.) On the other hand, "Sarai" means "princess or woman of high rank"
and, likewise, "Sarah" also means "princess." (Incidentally, Abraham was
ten years older than Sarah and they were half-siblings, having the same
father but different mothers.) Just for the record, name change isn't all
that unknown in our own time and culture. One of Sally's and my junior
college friends changed her last name from an uncommon
difficult-to-pronounce German name to a common easy-to-pronounce American
name. She made her decision primarily on the basis of practicality and
convenience.
Names certainly serve to identify persons. So it was with our
Savior about which we heard in today's Gospel Reading, "And Jesus went on
with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he
asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that I am?' And they told him,
'John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.'
And he asked them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter answered him, 'You
are the Christ.'" (Mark 8:27-29 ESV)
Okay, here's the divine deal that brought about Abram's name
change. God was reestablishing His gracious covenant with him that He had
formerly made with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden after they had
introduced sin into God's perfect creation. But along with the name change
came an awesome expectation. Abram, like us who are Baptized into God's
holy family of faith, was to .
I. Represent God in a Complete Way. (1-2)
1When 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, 2that I may make
my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly."
That's right. God expected . no . demanded that Abram live a
blameless life. Well, actually, "The translation '. and be blameless' is
misleading (as is also the King James Version's '. be perfect'). The word
really means 'be complete.' What El Shaddai [the God who displays violent
power] was asking of Abram was to live his whole life before God in the
confidence that God's unlimited power could compel even nature to do what is
contrary to itself." (Ibid. Page 150.) By the way, for you Bible trivia
buffs, this is the first time in the Bible that God is referred to as "El
Shaddai" . "God almighty."
The sad simple reality is that Abram, later Abraham, didn't live a
complete whole life before God in the confidence of His unlimited power .
and neither do we. Abraham's shakable faith manifested itself by sinning
against God with thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions that transgressed
God's Holy Law. In all brutal honesty, we do the same thing on a daily
basis.
There's just no squirming out of it. No matter how hard we try to
blame someone or something else, or rationalize them away, the stark truth
is that our lives are dismally stained with all kinds of sin. Because God
is a just and righteous God (attributes that we reviewed in a recent sermon)
He cannot sweep our iniquities under the proverbial carpet. He must deal
with them by doling out appropriate punishment. And appropriate punishment
for breaking even one of God's commandments is His temporal anger and
eternal damnation, separating us from Him in the everlasting fires of hell.
In the face of that certain truth, our only "hope is built on
nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness" (Lutheran Service Book.
Copyright © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Hymn 575, 576.)
which we trust because .
II. God Gives Us Sure and Certain Promises. (3-4)
3Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4"Behold, my covenant is
with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.
A covenant is a contractual agreement of trust in which two or
more individuals make promises to each other. Marriage is perhaps the
greatest earthly example. The man and the woman each promise to live with
the other for a lifetime . no matter what. (By the way, since the topic of
marriage came up, let's be reminded again that a God-ordained marriage is
between one man and one woman no matter what our politically correct
contemporary culture claims, our elected governmental officials promote, or
our judicial courts and judges declare! In addition, shacking up or sexing
together outside the bonds of marriage is also outside of God's design and
will.) Now, all of us know all too well that all too many marriage
covenants are not taken seriously . at least not seriously enough to make
marriage the lifetime relationship God intended. We thank and praise God
for the many such relationships that do remain intact "till death us do
part" (Lutheran Service Book. Page 276.) and commend them to us for the
God-pleasing example they give us to follow.
Our relationship with God also involves a covenant between Him and
us. He stated it clearly to Abram when He declared, "And I will establish
my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their
generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your
offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you
the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting
possession, and I will be their God." (Gen 17:7-8 ESV) He repeated it to
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and the Israelites through His prophets, exemplified
by both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who recorded God's gracious covenantal
promise, "And you shall be my people, and I will be your God." (Jer 30:22 &
Eze 36:28 ESV)
Notice, however, that God covers both ends of the covenant. He
makes us His people through faith in Jesus Christ, who fully atoned for our
sins with His holy life, innocent suffering, crucifixion death on Calvary's
cross, and majestic resurrection from the dead in victory over sin, Satan,
and death itself. He is our Father-God by virtue of having created us and
having adopted us by the power of the Holy Spirit, who gave us saving faith
in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. That saving faith is the hands by
which we grab hold of His atonement-gifts of forgiveness of sins, spiritual
healing, and eternal life with Him in heaven. He also goes the extra
immeasurable mile by keeping us His own through the hearing and reading of
His Holy Word, the reassurance of forgiveness in Holy Absolution, and the
Real Presence of Christ's body and blood in Holy Communion for us to eat and
to drink.
In summary, "The covenant was not here established, for it was
already in power, but it was now to be realized, the Lord on His part
decreeing that Abram was to be the father of a multitude of nations. The
almighty Lord always fulfills in due time what He promises to His children."
(Paul E. Kretzmann in Popular Commentary of the Bible: The Old Testament
Volume I. [The Historical Books of the Old Testament: Genesis to Esther.]
Copyright © 1923 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Page 86.) In
other words, "This was not Abram's first encounter with God. The covenant
God chose to have with his people had been earlier revealed, but Abram and
Sarai were convinced that the time for the fulfillment of God's covenant
promise was long gone. The covenant was now becoming real, sealed, and
intended as the sacred pledge that would foreshadow the gift of salvation
God planned through Jesus Christ." (Paul Devantier in "Concordia Journal"
Winter 2012, volume 38, number 1. Copyright © Concordia Seminary, St.
Louis, MO. Page 65.) The Apostle Paul testified to that glorious Gospel
truth when he wrote in today's Epistle Reading, "For while we were still
weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely
die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare
even to die-but God shows his love for us in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom 5:6-8 ESV)
In conclusion, the Gradual that we are using throughout Lent
reminds us what Lent is truly all about, "[O come, let us fix our eyes on]
Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith . ." (Heb 12:2a ESV) As we
repentantly recognize our sins let's even moreso focus on Jesus with
spirit-given confidence that He is the sum and substance of our salvation.
In that context let's realize and celebrate that .
"God's Covenant with us Results in a Name Change."
In view of that adjusted identity, let's joyfully proclaim in the
words of today's Introit, "The Lord has remembered us; he will bless us; he
will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron; he will
bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great. We will bless
the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord!" (Ps
115:12-13, 18 ESV) In so doing, let's .
I. Represent God in a Complete Way. (1-2)
As we strive to do so, let's also pray in the words of today's
Collect, "O God, You see that of ourselves we have no strength. By Your
mighty power defend us from all adversities that may happen to the body and
from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul . ." Let's do so
in the comfort and security that .
II. God Gives Us Sure and Certain Promises. (3-4) . and He keeps them
thereby demonstrating His reliability and faithfulness and His everlasting
mercy and grace.
God grant it all for the sake of Jesus Christ, His humble Son, our
holy Savior. [Amen.]
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
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