FEB 12 2023 | Genesis: Behind the Curtain S3E3 | Behind The Curtain – Season 4

Sea Change Church · Genesis: Behind the Curtain S4E3 · "Behind The Curtain - Season 4" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · February 12, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning. Good morning church welcome. My name is Adam. Bojie AKA 2.0. I have the privilege and honor to serve with the hospitality and security Ministry in the back and I just want to do a shout out to if you're enjoying your coffee or your pastries when you walk in you agree with a smile. Our team gets here early doing the coffee getting it set up so we can just give a round of applause to our awesome team. You see him out there maybe shooting my high five.

And anybody that wants to get plugged in we're always looking for for help. With that said we're going to Dive Right In the scripture. We are going through the Book of Genesis starting in chapter 17 verse 9. Then God said to Abraham as for you, you must keep my Covenant you and your descendants after you for generations to come. This is my Covenant with you and you're descendants after you the Covenant you are to keep every male among you shall be circumcised.

You were to undergo circumcision and it will be the sign of the Covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised including those born of your household or bought with money from a foreigner. Those who are not your offspring. Whether born of your in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised my Covenant in your flesh is to be an Everlasting Covenant.

Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised In the Flesh will be cut off from his people. He has broken my Covenant the word of the Lord. Good morning. If you have your Bibles get ready for episode three genesis 17 9 through 14 open those up. So excited when I saw that we get to preach on the Covenant of circumcision today, so pretty excited about that.

You'll see I named it the Covenant that was a late-minute change. I had called it skin in the game is what it was called. It's true, and I did eraser, but I wanted to know. I didn't want any written evidence of that. It's true when I was getting ready for this week. I was Going through the idea of Covenant and Covenant is this massive? I mean massive idea in the Bible. It's a massive idea. It's this agreement with God and Mankind to change the world and he has these agreements and he's covenants and there's so many different ways. You can look at it. There's so many I would say to use the British rabbit Warrens that you can go into as far as you can and and do you know, you do a you know, a 10-week study on the idea of Covenant. So first thing I want to do is I want to serve that back into your court or hand it back into your court, um for the purpose that you can dive deeper and one of the things you're going to want to search or Google search or whatever search engine you use is the difference between the old Covenant.

And the New Covenant that is going to give you a voluminous amount of study in regard to what these Covenant means and why they're important and the Covenant in the Old Testament with the Covenant with Jesus and how that even represents our marriage covenant and all these other things that God does and I thought we could do this incredible Bible study. I could, you know, do the kind of Deep dive into that and begin to ask God. What though?

Do you actually want me to say and I felt like God gave me A message for this church. And for you that has more about us getting to the business of partnering with God on bringing the kingdom to life through your dreams and his dreams which we talked about last week then going into all the minutiae of some of that study even though it is fascinating. So as I was studying one of the things that came that I found on a YouTube video as I was kind of going the and doing some of the research was that when we think about God we often see him as he's different metaphors, right?

He's King and we are his you know, we are the people of his subjects and he is a king. That's one of the metaphors the primary metaphor in the Bible with God is God as father. And I love some of the theology. We saw in the Junior High video as the one kid said, you know, I always seen God the father is kind of huggable and Squishy or whatever words he used and I thought that kid must have a great father to illustrate that and there's all these different conqueror that we could see our Warrior God.

But one that it said that in this video we often miss out on and we often don't think through enough or lean into enough. Is God as partner? Is God is actually wanting to be in a partnership with you separate of all the other metaphors that are all true about you and your kingship and your sonship or you know, daughterhood or whatever. Those things would be that God wants to partner with you and according to this video. We don't think about that enough. We don't see ourselves in a partnership with God.

So the first question that I wanted to start with today, and I want you to write this down on your notes. If you would I'm gonna get my pen as well write down on your notes. Where am I partnering with God? It's right down right there if you have your notes. Where am I partnering with God? Where is the place? Beyond just what I want for myself because it's really easy right to partner on the new house you want or the thing or the and all those other things and God wants to partner with you those on those as well.

But something that is in your desires or perhaps beyond your desires because you don't need to desire everything God wants to partner with you in let me say that again. You know, it's countercultural. So the Western thought that you don't have to desire. everything that God wants to partner with you in What has God called you to partner with him in?

And are you working on that partnership for the purpose of bringing God's kingdom God's kingdom is expansive. It's love. It's Joy. It's peace. It's all that goodness where God says, I want to partner with you. I want to give you my dreams. I want to hear what your dreams are. I want to run with you. I want to I want to partner with you. I want to sing songs with You Dance dances. I want to save you know, the Universe I want to save them. I want to do Planet. I want to do all of these things. So he comes to Abraham here and he starts with a partnership agreement last week. I asked what's the dream? And after you have a dream the next question is how are you going to go about the business of partnering with God in that dream? Here's what I wrote in your notes a partnership with God in the Old Testament.

God sets out a series. of covenants with mankind you can Circle this I underline it all of these were broken Circle that that's key. the Covenants That God has has made with Mankind and our own covenants with God as we've tried to follow him. No one has been able to keep the Covenant. All of these covenants were broken there had to be response right when a covenant is broken. When A promise is broken. There's a response.

Oftentimes it's just the end of the relationship, right? There's been a broken Covenant. Someone's lied to you. Someone's cheated on you. Something's Happened all the sudden it is broken off. But not with God God is a redeemer God and so he has to find a way to bring the Covenant to life because he is a God who has made his promises and even when we fail God is faithful and that's true for the promises that he is made with you and the plans that he has for your life.

So in response, it says God instituted a New Covenant Circle New Covenant. There's two covenants. You're going to study this week in your own time. There's the old Covenant. Has to do with works of the law works of the flesh all the treadmill stuff of trying to become perfect like God and try to please God with all of your actions. That is the Old Testament the old Covenant.

And then there's this New Covenant which has to do with a new character coming into the story that character's Christ that character is God himself. He's almost like God saying look at what has happened. You know, what hold my communion. I can take care of this and so God steps into mankind. He steps into the human form and he actually does what we cannot do and so I put God in response.

God instituted a New Covenant through Jesus Which was kept. You see Jesus kept not only the spiritual elements of it the emotional the mental by not sinning by not bending to Temptation like all the other covenants had been broken. But he fulfilled that Covenant hence by doing so breaking the curse. Of sin and offering eternal life for all because here was the Covenant God gave covenants and those covenants were meant as a series of agreements that if you kept those covenants you could have a eternal life with God but it was impossible. So those early covenants that were just going to mention here in a second. Those were a placeholder those were the things that were put in place for a moment so that Jesus could come and fulfill that now why is that important? I'm going to give you a little spoiler alert.

The reasons it's important because when you partner with God you're going to fail. I mean he's going to succeed he's going to bring you into the place. He wants you to go to but we have to understand that we'll never keep that up. And sometimes we will never keep our end of the bargain. So sometimes we just stop partnering with God.

We start partner. We stop partnering with him on the dreams. We stop partnering with him on the Ambitions of our heart which are the positive Ambitions of our heart. We just stop. And we either go into just waiting for God to do it all. Or we give up all together. I loved in the video. Once again great theology Junior High Middle School theology. He said, you know God's reaching out.

But I got to reach out to and that is the partnership and that is the agreement. How's your agreements with God? Do you even know the agreements you have with God are you partnering with anything on God other than the things you want for yourself. Are you partnering with God on anything that perhaps you don't want for yourself?

So I think that's when Faith, you know really makes a dent in our spiritual lives when we start partnering with God on something. You might not want that could be the Forgiveness of somebody to step out. I remember back when I was a kid God, you know, the the joke was if I give everything that God he's going to send me to some Far Away island or distant world to be a missionary and to live in the jungle and be a missionary and so I don't really want to devote myself because he's going to do that. I've met so many missionaries like please God send me and God wouldn't send them and they had the opposite thing happening.

Here's the thing. Let me just talk about a couple of covenants. I mentioned that there was a whole bunch of covenants. Now, I want to tension before I mention this Covenant which we're all broken and these early covenants. I want to mention a covenant I had with Joey I'm not gonna give you his last name because it's I'm gonna protect the innocent but Joey and I went to Briar Patch Elementary any school elementary school and we were like Pirates. Okay. We were like the pirates of the elementary school. We just sailing the black top playing, you know, handball and chasing, you know, Other kids around and he was chasing this one particular kid named Lisa and we were just starting to learn that girls were attractive. We were like fifth or sixth grade and Joey said to me. Hey, I'm really I I want I want to go with Lisa now if you are Millennial, I don't know if you had that or but below or a limit if you remember the term to go with you you didn't I love you. Remember that you would go up to a girl and you would actually have your friend go up to the girl. You wouldn't go yourself. And you would say would you would you would you go with Adam or would you and I don't know where they were going. But nonetheless you would go with them. And so Joey said to me tonight, we're gonna be at Aquarius now Aquarius roller rink was out in La Mesa.

Well, the premiere 80s roller skating rink and it was 1979 or 1980 whatever it was and we showed up and he there was a couple skate time and I'm telling Joey Joey you got to go ask Lisa to do a couple skate. Okay, because Joey could skate backwards. He could do everything super cool except one thing ask a chick a couple skate with him and that was out of his range of expertise.

So I was going to take matters into my own hands and we went home that evening and I I called up Joey now what Joey didn't know is it in late? 1979 Pacific Bell had this new thing that you they started and if you called somebody and then double click because you would this kind of phone you double clicked on the thing you could actually bring another person into the conversation. So you could call two people at once it was totally crazy. And so it was like 1979. I had Pac-Man and ESPN. It just started because I remember that and I call up Joey.

But it was after I had called Lisa and patched her into the phone call, right? I was doing Joey a favor. Okay? No, seriously. I was helping Joey do what he couldn't do on his own and so I began to ask Joey Joey. Tell me about your just Reveal Your Heart to me about Lisa and please speak. speak sweet nothings about Lisa and and he did And she was on the phone the whole time and we hung up and then on Monday it went around the school. I would I was a no good dirty dog is what I was he never ended up with Lisa because of that. I was a no my daughter looks flabbergasted right now. She's like this like looking at me right now. Like, how could you do that Dad? I broke that agreement. I broke the Covenant Joey and I were never friends again. After that. We weren't really good friends before then.

Anyways, the reason I tell you that Is because we so often break the agreement and every agreement that was ever made that God ever made with mankind has been broken every single agreement and there has to be another way. Let me just share a couple agreements between God and show you the agreements. There's four major agreements in the Old Testament, four major agreements. The first is called the adamic agreement. That's what Adam it's also called the edenic like Eden so Eden Adam the adamic and the edemic and that is found in Genesis. 2:3. God says I want to partner with you. I want to partner with you and here's your part of the bargain want you to procreate and I want you to fulfill to fill the Earth with mankind that I can partner with and love.

One deal and I want you to care for the Earth as well. I want you to care for the Earth and God has not taken away that Covenant from Believers. God still wants us to care for the Earth. He said one more thing. Don't touch that tree. Just there's one thing just one little thing. Don't touch that tree, but Adam and Eve broke that Covenant and because of that from taking it right by by taking of the forbidden fruit. Our flesh was corrupted and our spiritual nature was corrupted and a curse. They stepped into a curse did God curse them know but they stepped into a curse.

And so that was from not following God. The next was the noic coming it now Noah had this Covenant where actually God did not ask anything of him. It's one of the few covenants where God doesn't ask anything. The reason we feel that God didn't ask anything because remember it says that Noah was a righteous man that he was still following the adamic Covenant the way that it was supposed to be but he said the thing that I will promise I'll never destroy the Earth again in this way. So you had the Covenant with Adam you had to come with Noah. And then the the next Covenant was the abrahamic abrahamic Covenant which you see right here which God has this and that is sealed through circumcision. And then also with David he has these covenants go to verse 9 and 10.

Then God said to Abraham. As for you, you must Circle must must. Keep my Covenant. Keep Circle keep. You and your descendants after you for generations to come. Let's stop there for a second before we read verse 10. one of the things this verse implies is this there is a must and keep must keep is a burden. Must keep is something that you have to do.

Because man now could no longer be with God. They had soiled the Perfection that God had brought them into now they were broken and could not be with God in the same way. And so God said I need to find a way to get you back. And the way to get you back is for you to become perfect and I'm gonna give you a chance to become perfect. I'm going to give you a law. I'm going to give you a covenant the problem. Is that mankind cannot keep that and so this first old Covenant this Covenant with Abraham is something that we cannot do now. Let's jump back to you and your dreams and you and your partnering.

Have we stop partnering sometimes because we don't keep up our end of the bargain God's mad at us. He's no longer wants to partner with us. We're no good. We're not worthy or because we just want the fruit of the tree. We just want those other things in our life. And so we avoid our partnership with God. All the time. God is saying I have another way. We'll talk about that New Covenant in just a second, but he says You must Maybe we could call it must keeping this idea that you have to be on this treadmill to God With God. Do you feel that way in your relationship?

That you have to do these things to please God there is nothing you can do to please God. Especially if you were in Christ God has already pleased with you god already loves you. You don't have to do anything for God out of obligation. That is one thing pastor. Joe regularly says when he shares about giving a church, he says now you no longer need to do anything out of obligation. You can do it on a freedom because you love God and you want to give to him the Bible says it is for freedom.

That we have been. Set free. It is for Freedom that we have been set free. What does that mean? Why be so redundant because some people are let out of prison and they still live like prisoners. Some people have been let out of prison and they still live like felons. You see it is for Freedom that he has set you free that he can set you free that you could go live in Freedom. No longer having to please God.

How many times have you been doing something for god? I think I'm just not doing a good enough. You want to know what you're right you're not. You're not doing it. Well enough there's no way you can do it but through the blood of Jesus who fulfilled it in a New Covenant you can now walk in Freedom as God men's those wounds. So it says we no longer have to keep we no longer have must keep it and then the final thing it says in that it says and you and your descendants after you for generations to come.

We underestimate. how our lives impact Generations we underestimate the generational curses that come when we begin to take the fruit of the things of Temptation and we underestimate the blessings that come in the favor that comes on a family for Generations. Procreative Generations was a big thing in these covenants in all of them.

Why is procreation and generations important to God? Because they always LED somewhere. They led to his son and they led to eternal life you see God is a god of life and in all of these whether it be Adam the endemic Covenant the noit Covenant, they abrahamic Covenant the davidic Covenant all of those say in the end you will have Generations that will be Eternal why?

Because through Abraham through David through Noah through Adam. Jesus comes through that entire line. Jesus is born through that line. And so every time our families are meant to be Eternal families. Our families are meant to have an eternal component that is lived in Generations are big you see marriage isn't so much about attraction even though our cultures made it all about attraction.

Sometimes it's just about bringing life in eternal life and continuing to procreate in a way that brings more more people who God loves and he wants to partner with and love and bring them into his purpose. It is so important as we see that so here's the thing. I said in the notes as our go to verse 10. I'm sorry verse 10 This is my Covenant with you and your descendants after you.

The Covenant that you are to keep and there's that keeping again. Now, here's the problem the catch. the catch humans are I erase this. I'm gonna put it back in fully. unable or incapable to keep I did put fully to fully keep up their end of the bargain. We cannot keep up our end of the bargain. So someone has to do it for us. You cannot keep up your end of the bargain and finding that balance and understanding the existential thought of that like I can't keep up my end of the bargain. But if I believe in Jesus, he will sort that out on his own. It's mind-bending.

And that's why it takes faith. We could do a weekend on this and you might have some more understanding on it, but it's something we'll never grasp that can only be grasp through faith, but it was spoken about early. You see God always has a plan in partnering and so in the book of Jeremiah, I found this little nugget and I'd never seen it before it is such a new testament nugget of scripture.

That talks about this coming Covenant in such a dramatic and Divine Way in such a way that gives hope it's surprising for me to find it in the Old Testament, but it's speaking about the transition the handoff from the UN from the old Covenant to this New Covenant and I would say with your dreams and your desire and your partnership with God. There's gonna have to be the handoff for where you're doing it for the wrong reasons or you're doing it to please God and you're gonna in the old Covenant and in the old Works, you're gonna have to hand the Baton to a New Covenant where you can actually partner in Freedom.

You see it is for Freedom that you've been set free. It is for Freedom when I finally got to the place. Where I just love to preach the word of God because I love teaching the word of God and seeing people's lives be blessed as opposed to how big my church is going to be if I'm gonna get a book deal all these things that were burdening me down that can be good things.

But when I finally let that go and you start stepping into the freedom of just loving to hear the stories. Hey that word of that word that you preached last week. It did this in my marriage that word that you brought and all of a sudden you start getting filled with what God's doing. As opposed to what you're getting from it.

You see that is the handoff of the Baton from the Old Testament the Old Testament the old way of doing things and being a partnership with God and that new way of Freedom. We found this in Jeremiah. I teased it a second ago 31 31 through 34. Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord and let me say to you. The days are coming.

for you Behold the days are coming. When I will make a new covenant. With the house of Israel in the house of Judah not like the Covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt my Covenant that they broke Circle broke. Though I was their husband and there's that marriage language right declares the Lord. Let me pause there.

Fore we go to this because this thing is back loaded. Though I was their husband the covenants that God made are meant to reflect the marriage covenant. You will see that there was a promise that's an engagement. He made a promise in Genesis 15 all the all the covenants have a promise. And then they have the rules of the Covenant. That's the vows when you see in a marriage you see a promise and engagement you see the vows and then you see there is a blood right? He was circumcised. That's a blood right 99 years old. He was circumcised and that is a blood right? It had not seen that before.

And in marriage as well. When the Two Become One flesh when it is done in the proper order, there is oftentimes a blood right as well in there. So you have the promise and you have the the vows and then you have the blood right where the Two Become One flesh and it is also the promise of Jesus the vow of Jesus fulfilling the law in the New Covenant and then Jesus Blood on the cross. You want to know why we hold to the to the idea of marriage astringently as we do because you cannot separate it from the Covenant. You cannot separate it for the entire message of Jesus Christ, and I will never bend my knee to any other understanding of this because without that understanding that is seen in our marriage. You cannot understand the gospel. You cannot understand Jesus and that's why that is important. And so he says this for this Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord. I will put my law within them.

Powerful, I'll put my law it's written on your hearts. It says in Romans no longer on a tablet. It's within you. And I will write it on their hearts. I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. Mmm. But they broke the law. They never fulfilled a covenant. They hoard God out. It says look at Rahab Rahab and you look at all the different stories that you see in the scripture.

Where we have just broken over and over again what God has called us to do but it says I will be there God and no matter what they shall be my people. And no longer shall each of them teach his neighbor and each his brother saying no the Lord. For they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest declares of the Lord.

For I will forgive their iniquity. And I will remember their sin. No. more that is so powerful. That is the New Covenant. That is the god of Grace. Who wants to partner with you in a new way not in the old way of the Old Law where you're trying to please him and do something for God or whatever because he wants to run with You Into Your Dreams and into Partnership of changing this world.

Some of you want to save the Earth and save the planet go do it. We're called it. We're called to do that. With those when did Christians give up, you know creation care since when have we given that up because it's some other value that we don't agree with anymore because somebody else is trying to own it. That's bunk. God has called us at it's one of the original Covenants.

And Jesus says I did not come to void the law. I came to fulfill it. He fulfilled it so we don't have to but it didn't go away all that law didn't go away. Now. You can just fulfill it in faith. Say the major difference. I wrote between the old and the New Covenant is that righteousness? No longer comes through Covenant keeping.

But rather faith in the one Jesus. Who kept and fulfilled the original Covenant? Here's final question. If we're no longer bound by that law, can we do whatever we want? If we're no longer valid with Allah we can do whatever we want. And this is a conversation that they kept having in the early church that they had to wrestle through you remember in I believe it's acts 15 some Jews came down to Jerusalem and they said you can't be a Christian. We're Christians, but you can't be a Christian unless you're circumcised because we have to have this and Paul was like no.

That circumcision it was important for a while, but it's not that it's a circumcision or the heart. This is what Jeremiah spoke about. And there's a passage here in Romans that's in your notes as well. I'll read it in just a second that basically says circumcision doesn't mean anything anymore if your heart is in circumcised.

That it's better off if you're uncircumcised and you follow God with your heart is what it says. Some of us are Pious. We're trying to do all these things for God, but God says I just want you to love me. I just want you to love me. I want to partner and and love you and run into the things that you run into in Galatians. There was this argument that said well, hey since you know, we can no longer Jesus died for all of our sins and we're no longer held accountable. We're righteous in Christ. Shouldn't we be able to do what we want?

It's in Galatians 5 it says I haven't forbid. Heaven forbid that we think that that is a key to licentiousness. You see you can never separate. The body from the spirit at least on this Earth. We'll get a new body. That'll be a spiritual body. But right now for some reason God tried God for some reason it is designed partnered a spirit a mind and a body in one.

And we cannot live separate and so one of the questions is what from your life from your flesh. Needs to be circumcised. What from your life? Will reflect the circumcised heart that you say no more of that in my life. This needs to be trimmed edited cut from my life. So that I can live a life of partnering with God and being set free.

We close right now with this verse out of Romans. I want to go to verse 27. A man who was physically uncircumcised, but who fulfills the law will judge you? Who are a lawbreaker in spite of having the letter of the law and the circumcision? That's what he's telling Jews. That's a controversial. He's basically saying a gentile.

Will be able to judge you. If their heart is circumcised. One of the things you saw in the abrahamic Covenant, which is on this In this passage on your Frontier notes is that it says you can begin to see God's call go beyond the family line. He says if you have anybody in your household or if you have a male slave or a female slave, which is a whole another rabbit hole we can go down but we want at the moment.

He says you can circumcise them too and bring them into the family so immediately. when he speaks to Abraham who In This Moment becomes a Jew Because Abraham was not a Jew before he was circumcised. He'd have the promise he'd had the Covenant but it was through circumcision that he became a Jew before then. He was the first Jew ever. He became a nation in that moment before then. He was a million Wanderer a Berber just walk in the town.

But in the first promise God has already expanding it beyond the Jews. He just became the first he wasn't even a Jew yet. In this passage Abraham was not even a Jew yet. He would be a Jew after circumcision. But before Abraham even gets to the blood, right God says to him. Hey, if you do this with slaves or foreigners or anybody you bring in they're gonna be under the covering too. You see he's already starting to show how the spirit of God would expand to save everyone Beyond just the Jews.

You see I went to the Jew first and then to the Gentile and so we see that verse 28 of this Romans passage for a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly. And true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. On the contrary a person is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is of the heart. Circle the heart By the knife no by the spirits.

See the spirit is the knife the spirit of the sword of God. Not the letter. That man's praise is not from men. But from God. You see when God when you're living according to the heart and according to what he does and not according to your Works who gets the praise. God gets the praise. Let's finish with this. Where are you partnering with God?

Are you partnering on anything besides the house? You want the career you want when you get out of grad school? Is there anything else your partnering with on God on that he cares about that stuff too. Where are you partnering with God? Where are you changing the world? Is it on the playground at your kids kindergarten? Is it coaching a basketball team? Is it cleaning the beach? I don't know where it is. Where you partnering with God and if you stop dreaming that was last week.

Are you dreaming? And are you partnering God wants to partner with you and he wants to partner with you in Freedom. That's the message of the Covenant. That is the message of the agreement. Let's partner with God in change the world Amen.