Marvelous Grace

Order of Service

• Welcome and Announcements
• Call to Worship: 1 Samuel 2:1-2
• Hymn: Holy God, We Praise Your Name
• Prayer of Invocation
• Prayer of Confession (with a corporate reading of Psalm 51:1-4)
• Assurance of Pardon: Psalm 51:17
• Scripture Reading: Luke 10:25-37
• Hymn: O Thou That Hear'st When Sinners Cry
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering (with Offertory Prayer)
• Hymn: For All the Saints
• Prayer for Illumination
• Scripture Reading: Genesis 17:15-27
• Sermon
• Prayer
• Hymn: Marvelous Grace of Our Loving Lord
• Benediction
• Gloria Patri

Sermon Title: Marvelous Grace

Scripture: Genesis 17:15-27

I. The Marvelous Grace of God toward Sarah

• A. Introduction: the new features of the covenant in Genesis 17
  1. The covenant with Abraham appears in three stages: the promise in Genesis 12, the covenant ceremony in Genesis 15, and the new features in Genesis 17.
  2. It is the same covenant with new features added, like a new iPhone or hot sauce on a dish.
  3. Every passage could be titled "the marvelous grace of God," because God cannot deal with fallen humanity apart from covenant grace.
• B. Sarah is the only woman in Scripture renamed by God
  1. She is not usually listed among the godly role models like Ruth, Hannah, or Deborah.
  2. Paul uses her allegorically in Galatians 4 as a picture of freedom from sin.
  3. Sarai and Sarah both mean "princess." God claims her as his princess, the mother of kings.
• C. Sarah's last appearance was unflattering
  1. In Genesis 16 she mistreats Hagar and echoes the fall of Adam and Eve.
  2. In a Cinderella pattern, Hagar is the mistreated servant and Sarah is the wicked stepsister, yet God calls Sarah his princess.
• D. Grace is not God tapping into hidden potential
  1. Grace is not an inspirational underdog story in which God draws out a spark already within us.
  2. That view leaves room for boasting and leaves despairing people with nothing to hope in.
  3. 1 Corinthians 1:26-28: God chose the foolish, weak, and despised so that no one may boast before him.
  4. Grace is the slipper fitting the wicked stepsister. It is offensive, and it changes us and makes the unlovely lovely.

II. The Marvelous Grace of God toward Abraham

• A. Abraham's last appearance was also unflattering
  1. In Genesis 16 he listens to Sarah as Adam listened to Eve, then answers her complaint with "she's your servant, do what you please."
  2. For 13 years he has believed that Ishmael is the son of promise.
• B. God's patience with a veteran believer
  1. Abraham is not an unbeliever being drawn to faith. He is a believer whose faith was already counted as righteousness.
  2. God allowed him to believe this for 13 years and meets him with blessing and promise rather than chastisement, like the father of the prodigal who throws a party.
  3. God is more patient with us in sanctification than we are with ourselves.
  4. This patience is not a license to sin. Like a patient parent, it softens us toward the Father.
  5. He repeats his call to us: "Walk before me and be blameless" (Genesis 17:1).
• C. Isaac means laughter
  1. Abraham laughs mockingly at God's promise, but Isaac's name also carries the sense of joy and delight, likely a shortened form of "the smile of God."
  2. God laughs with joy over the son of promise, pointing to the Messiah (Isaiah 42:1; Matthew 3:17).
  3. Like a father beaming at the hospital after a birth, God the Father delights in his Son.
  4. The world mocks the virgin birth, but the Lord rejoices over the boy in the manger and all who are in him by faith.

III. The Marvelous Grace of God toward Abraham's Household

• A. Abraham's faithful obedience
  1. Moses emphasizes exactly who was circumcised: Abraham, Ishmael, those born in the house, and those bought from foreigners.
  2. Two groups stand out.
• B. Ishmael
  1. At 13 he receives the sign of the covenant.
  2. Though he is associated with Islam today and will father 12 princes (a kind of counterfeit Israel) and be a "wild donkey of a man," God does not curse him. He blesses him and promises to make him a great nation.
• C. Foreigners bought with money
  1. Abraham means "father of a multitude of nations," and here that promise appears in miniature.
  2. The last time the nations appeared together was at Babel in Genesis 11, in rebellion against God.
  3. Galatians 3:7-8: the Gentiles are justified by faith and grafted into Abraham's household.
• D. Application: no place is too far for God's grace
  1. Today, in Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Nigeria, and Pakistan, people from Ishmael's lands are being brought to faith in Christ, often under persecution.
  2. The gospel is the power (dunamis, dynamite) of God that can blow through any barricade in a sinner's heart.
  3. We pray for hard-hearted neighbors, rebellious children, and lost family members, because grace is not just grace but marvelous grace.