Let us take a moment then to pause and come to God in prayer before we think about His word. Let us pray:

Holy Spirit, come and reveal to us the heart of God.
Holy Spirit, come among us and help us to follow after Jesus.
Holy Spirit, come with power and deep conviction, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

Today I feel God has three things for us. I think He wants to reveal His heart, His power and His invitation. I think God wants to reveal His heart, His power and His invitation within our passage today there is a repeated idea that comes across in several of the verses. We read ‘The Lord appeared to Abram and said ‘I am God Almighty I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers’’ and then just a few verses later He goes on and says ‘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 a father of many nations.’ I’ll make you very fruitful. I will make nations of you, and so in these verses we see God confirming His covenant, His binding promise, His binding agreement with Abram and it includes here the promise of fruitfulness, and in case that sounds familiar, then it should hopefully, because if you journeyed with us for a few years here at Brightons you might remember our teaching series on the kingdom of God, and in that in that series we looked at genesis 12 where there is a very similar promise and God says that he will make Abram into a great nation but here in chapter 17 God goes even further he promises that from Abram will come many nations and so it’s only fitting that his name should be changed from Abram to Abraham which means the father of many and i would suspect that would be startling for anyone to hear never mind a 99 year old when he only has one son but before we get into that let’s pause and ask a question why does God make this promise why this promise why not something else

I wonder what your answer would be? I won’t get you to turn this week, some of you’ll be relieved with that, but if you were to answer that question what would you come up with. My thinking is that it reveals something of the heart of God in the giving of this promise I think it reveals his heart to have a people of his own and God doesn’t do that because God is in need he is after all God he’s self-sufficient but out of the overflow of father son and Holy Spirit what we call the trinity out of the overflow of their love God’s heart is to have a people of his own and that’s what he tries to show from the beginning of the bible to the very end through all the covenants and the old and the new God is seeking to show humanity the depth of his love the depth of his grace and of his invitation to us it’s there at the beginning of creation that God creates mankind, humankind, male and female in His image set apart from the rest of creation to have that unique relationship and that unique intimacy with God himself but then we mess it up don’t we Adam and eve they make our wrong choice and it breaks the relationship yet God doesn’t stop and so with Abram he begins working out his purpose again so that his purpose of having a people of his own this this motivation that beats within him will come to fruition and from Abraham eventually comes Israel but they too mess up they are wayward they sin and we wait centuries upon centuries to see how it will unfold through the scriptures and you might want to revisit that teaching series on the kingdom of God you can get it from our website or you can get a copy on CD or DVD if you wish but eventually the scriptures show that in the coming of Jesus God is ready to fulfill his promise through His son then the life death and resurrection of Jesus God is still about drawing a people to himself and we read this in the new testament our great God and savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are his very own God’s heart is to have a people of his own and that promise made to Abraham is now fulfilled through Jesus and so we might we aren’t descended from the Abraham but through faith in Jesus who was a descendant of Abraham who was also the son of God through faith in Jesus we become part of God’s own people we enter into the heart of God and so that’s why it’s right that our purpose as a congregation is to seek to invite encourage and enable people of all ages to follow Jesus it’s all about Jesus because through Jesus we enter into God’s purposes we enter into the heart of God but people to know that must be invited into it and to be invited into it they must hear about it doesn’t just happen you’re not born naturally into the family of God you’re turning up at church being baptized being nice or religious doesn’t take the box it’s only through faith in Jesus and for people to take that step as i say they must hear of God’s heart a heart to have a people of his own so when you imagine sharing your faith or you imagine inviting people into something what do you imagine seeing what are you inviting them into what is your vision of that is it simply to attend church more is it to make them a nicer person are more religious

or do we share the heart of God do we know the heart of God for ourselves do we know that God’s heart beats for each of us that you are so precious to father God that he sent his son to die for you God died for you died to make this possible for you to know him and to be in relationship with him God’s heart is to have a people of his own and it began with a promise to Abraham almost 4 000 years ago and if he had been able to look into the distant future he would have seen the countless millions even billions of people who over time and even now believe in this God who know this God and follow this God who belong to the Christian church that’s what we are a part of brothers and sisters that’s what we share this is our purpose this is the heart of God

I hope that stirs something in you i wonder what it stirred in Abram i wonder if he said if he heard this and was a wee bit boggled by it we know he didn’t doubt because the scriptures tell us he believed and it was credited to him as righteousness he believed the promise of God but still such a promise and for that to come from this old man really it’s beyond human comprehension and what’s more if you look at the promise in more detail it includes a land and that land is owned at that time by a people who are more numerous and powerful than Abraham’s little puny family God what are you about making such a promise what are you doing making such a promise i think God is revealing something as well he’s revealing his power we read just before what we looked at God says I am God almighty before he even gets into reaffirming the promise he says I am God almighty in Hebrew it’s El Shaddai and it’s a name of God which refers to his all-sufficient power and might particularly in comparison to human vulnerability and weakness God was saying to Abram that he had the power God had the power and himself to do what he was promising to Abraham he didn’t matter that Abram was 99 years old God had the means to fulfill this promise and that would be the basis upon which Abram could pay his trust so what about in our day where is our trust what in our day is going to see the heart of God fulfilled through Jesus well if you’re still reading the new testament reading plan it’s eight months in and it’s been a bit of a slog at times if you’re still reading that then just last week you came across these words then Jesus came to them the disciples and said all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me therefore go and make disciples of all nations timely words timely words Jesus has all authority and he claims the power of El Shaddai and indeed earlier in the same gospel he also says I tell you that i will build my church and the gates of hades will not overcome it Jesus will build his church Jesus has the power and authority to build his church so that the heart of God to have a people of his own will be fulfilled and the promise to Abraham and the great commission given by Jesus we see God revealing his power his power to accomplish his purpose the church I know that two weeks ago i had a hard challenging message for us and i still stand by that I stand by the challenge of questioning whether our traditions will pass on a flame of faith or only of ashes but know this Jesus will build his church he has the power and authority to do that and he calls us to trust in his power to trust in him if you were to go on in chapter 17 of genesis and read further you would see that God says he will accomplish his promise through Sarah, Abram’s wife, not through the son they already have Ishmael who was Abraham’s slave Hagar because what we see here is that Abram and Sarah had tried to go out alone they had tried to go alone they had tried to see God’s promise fulfilled in their strength and their means by human means and in some ways I can understand that they had waited years and nothing had happened and it’s 25 years at this point since that original promise that’s a long time to wait for God to fulfill his promises and so they took the bill by the horns but God says ‘No, no, no, no, it doesn’t matter that Sarah’s over 90 years old and has never conceived through her I will fulfill this promise’ because our way is often not God’s way and he does have the power to fulfill his promises and we are called to trust in that because church God’s heart is to have a people of his own through Jesus and we don’t need to come up with our own clever ideas we don’t need to rely simply on our own resources when it comes to seeing his church grow or when it comes to sharing our faith Jesus will build his church and the gates of hades will not overcome it for God’s heart is to have a people of his own and his power will accomplish it

so God has revealed his heart he’s revealed his power but he now reveals also in this passage to Abram his invitation he says I am God almighty walk before me faithfully and be blameless and those words that have highlighted you walk before me faithfully and blameless are not about sinless perfection they’re actually about wholeheartedness Abram is invited into wholehearted relationship of trusting God radically deeply forever a whole giving over of himself to God’s cause and it was going to be seen in a number of ways we’ve already touched on how his name was going to change from Abram to Abraham can you imagine that can you picture yourself in the scene imagine going down the marketplace oh hey Abram eh actually God’s told me that I have to rename myself Abraham and they would know what that meant by the way so they would be like hold on he’s got one child he’s the father of many Gods told him to do this I don’t know about you but I’ve been looking at this guy thinking what are you on really how embarrassing must have that been for Abram how embarrassing but God calls him to wholeheartedness even at the cost of public embarrassment and what is more in this passage God also institutes a sign of circumcision now that was a wide practice in the ancient nearest of the time most often used as initiation into um puberty or marriage but God reworks it here so that it’s a sign of passage into the covenant community but the key thing is this would have been known sure it’s a very private thing but it would have been known these folks they circumcised their kids on the eighth day and their God told them to do it that would have been known around them they would have been known as following that God and belonging to that people

but it doesn’t matter God was calling them into wholehearted commitment unconditional commitment to a way of life where there is literally no going back

but that’s what biblical faith is biblical faith requires to be put into practice it’s not about head knowledge it’s not about it being purely private and personal biblical faith must be put into action it must be lived out and made concrete if it is true faith it must be made public somehow some way now clearly in the new testament and under the new covenant with Jesus circumcision isn’t required but God still calls us to wholeheartedness our faith is not to remain private and personal our faith must be seen and shared and so yes Jesus does say he will build his church but he also commanded go you go and make disciples it’s both and not either or pick the one you like best Jesus commanded and if we will heed that if we will trust that if we will give ourselves to that then he says he will build his church from obedience comes fruitfulness from sacrifice comes fruitfulness from trusting in God and his ways comes fruitfulness because obedience trust and self-sacrifice are marks of wholeheartedness as seen in the life of Abram and so church God invites us into wholehearted commitment even in the sharing of our faith and I reckon if I was to pull you and say what is the scariest thing about following Jesus I could almost guess that the top thing would be sharing our faith it’s the thing we shy away from the most the thing we’re scared of the most we are hindered by fear now I am not please hear me I am not saying you have to go out there today and talk to the first person you find about Jesus okay sharing our faith is a process and I’m really excited that the discipleship team are going to be looking at that more in the coming months and trying to equip us in that and I look forward to what those conversations are yield but we’re held back by fear and if nothing else I pray that this teaching series might help us be equipped to overcome that fear doesn’t just go away I still get scared come on up here in the pulpit and how many sermons has it been I’m literally just about shaking every time I feel that God’s saying to issue a call to come to faith and if you were to talk to the greatest evangelist I’m pretty sure that they would say every time that they’d done it they were still scared that they were still a nervousness fear doesn’t go away often what we need is courage to overcome our fear and not let fear drive us or dominate us

and if we are to give ourselves to making disciples which includes the sharing of our faith we can’t let ourselves be held back because if we don’t obey that command we’re not going to see Jesus build his church here because fruitfulness comes from obedience

and so let’s just reflect on what’s being said this morning as we close

God’s heart is for him to have a people of his own a people of his own and that’s what you’re part of, you’re part of a worldwide movement, you’re part of something that’s been there for 4,000 years, who cares if your neighbor thinks you’re a loony

you’re part of something bigger, you’re part of something more and it’s with the God of the universe. Allow that to sink in. God has chosen you to be part of that

that’s not scary news to share that’s the greatest privilege to have the opportunity to share that that is God’s heart or when we feel unable and weak to share our faith let’s remember God’s power his power that is available and ready to help you share your faith and to put your faith into practice so that his purposes can be achieved allow that to become part of your consciousness and maybe that might equip us more to overcome our fear as well

So will we be a people who take up this invitation God’s invitation will we be a people who know his heart and know his power and so commit ourselves to inviting encouraging and enabling people of all ages to follow Jesus will we be that people. I pray that we will and that this series mi