Transcription and outline generated by AI—please comment if there are any errors.
I. Introduction: Ceremony and Salvation
* Question posed: What is the relationship between religious rituals and salvation?
* All religions have rituals; Christianity is no exception.
* The preacher asserts: rituals do not save, but they still matter.
II. God's Covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17)
1. God Commands Obedience (vv. 1–2)
* God tells 99-year-old Abram to walk blamelessly before Him.
* Raises the question: Is the covenant conditional or unconditional?
* Conclusion: God initiates it unilaterally, but it involves mutual obligations.
2. God Declares Covenant Promises (vv. 3–8)
* God reiterates and expands His promises:
* Father of many nations.
* Everlasting covenant.
* Land of Canaan.
* “I will be their God.”
* Name change: Abram (“exalted father”) becomes Abraham (“father of a multitude”).
3. God Expects Covenant Obedience (vv. 9–14)
* Sign of the covenant = circumcision.
* All males in Abraham’s household must be circumcised.
* Circumcision doesn't save but represents faith and covenant belonging.
* Two theological reasons for male-only sign:
* Sexual holiness reminder.
* Covenant headship structure (from Adam to Christ).
4. God Clarifies His Promise through Sarah (vv. 15–21)
* Sarai renamed Sarah (“princess”).
* God insists that the promised heir will come through Sarah.
* Abraham laughs at the idea, suggests Ishmael instead.
* God says no—Isaac (whose name means "laughter") will be the covenant child.
* Ishmael will be blessed but is not the heir of promise.
5. Abraham Obeys Immediately (vv. 22–27)
* Abraham and all males in his house are circumcised that very day.
* Displays faith in action.
III. God's Covenant with Us
1. Continuity with Abraham’s Covenant
* Galatians 3: believers are Abraham’s spiritual offspring.
* Justification is by faith, as it was for Abraham.
2. Circumcision Not Required Today
* 1 Corinthians 7: circumcision/uncircumcision means nothing.
* Romans 2: true circumcision is of the heart.
* Physical acts do not bring salvation—faith does.
3. New Testament Sign: Baptism
* Baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of covenant membership.
* Symbolizes union with Christ in death and resurrection.
* Not necessary for salvation, but necessary to obedience.
* True faith expresses itself in obedience (e.g., baptism).
IV. Application: Three Levels of Response
1. For the Unbeliever
* Don’t start with a ritual—start with Christ.
* Trust in Him for salvation.
2. For the Believer Not Yet Baptized
* Baptism is not optional; it is a command of Jesus.
* It’s the public identification with Christ.
3. For the Baptized Believer
* Reflect on God’s grace.
* Like Abraham, even when we stumble, keep walking toward God in faith.
SERMON SUMMARY
This sermon on Genesis 17 explores the relationship between religious rituals and salvation. While ceremonies like circumcision (in the Old Testament) and baptism (in the New Testament) are important, they do not save—faith does. God initiated a covenant with Abraham, commanding obedience and providing a sign (circumcision) that symbolized belonging and commitment.
The promises to Abraham were ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Today, baptism is the sign of entering God’s family—not as a saving work, but as a declaration of faith and obedience. True faith always leads to action. Therefore, those who trust Christ should follow Him in baptism and in all areas of life.
The message ends with a call to three groups: unbelievers (to trust Christ), believers who haven’t been baptized (to obey in baptism), and baptized believers (to marvel at God’s grace and keep walking in faith).
Transcription
If you want to take your Bible and turn to Genesis chapter 17.
What is the relationship of ceremony to salvation? Different religions, different systems of belief all have their own ceremonies and symbols and rites and rituals. This is natural to all human religion—that we develop these systems of how we approach God, how we seek to be made right with God. Is finding the right set of rituals the real key?
Even in Christianity, we have these rituals, right? And different branches of Christianity think there are a different number of rituals that we need. The Roman Catholic Church has the seven sacraments. As Protestants, we believe that there are two sacraments instituted by the Lord Jesus: baptism and the Lord’s Supper—ordinances, as some people prefer to call them. Every religion has these things—these structures, these things that you have to do, that you have to go through. What is the relationship of those things to salvation? Do those rites and rituals bring justification, bring right standing with God?
Now, if you've listened to me preach more than like two sermons, you know my answer to that's going to be no. But if not, do they still matter? Are they still important? Why do they exist if they don’t save? Those are questions that are raised by our text today here in Genesis chapter 17.
So what I'm going to do is walk through the whole chapter, section by section, and then circle back around to press in on some of those questions. In Genesis 17, we see God's covenant with Abram. When Abram was 99 years old—so we left Abram in his mid-80s—he had decided... boy, it's been a long time since God made this promise to me. And Sarai, his wife, who is also quite aged, realizes it’s been a long time since God promised us that there was going to be an heir, that there was going to be many descendants from our family. And so Sarai comes up with a plan: “Well, how about—I've got this maidservant and she could basically serve as a concubine. You could have a child with her and it would count as my child. And maybe that’s how God’s going to bring blessing and descendants to our family.” And that... that doesn’t go so well.
I mean, it works in the sense that Hagar gets pregnant and has a son, Ishmael, but it's not God's plan. And so God doesn't honor that decision in the sense of—that's not how God's going to bring blessing to Abraham's family. There's this giant chunk of time, like 13 years between chapter 16 and 17. And God comes back to Abram now when he's 99 years old. He appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly.”
The first thing we see in chapter 17 is that God comes to Abraham and he commands obedience. He says, “Walk before me and be blameless.” That's pretty tough considering what we know of Abram. We just came off chapter 16, where he disobeys God's design in sexuality. We know earlier in the story in chapter 12, he's willing to kind of twist the truth about his relationship with Sarai so that he’s safer when Pharaoh might decide he wants to have his wife. Abram is not a flawless character. He's not blameless. Is he going to suddenly have the capacity to walk in blamelessness before God? Probably not. But God tells him, “That's your job. You are to walk blamelessly before me.”
And it might be a little confusing when God says, “That I may make my covenant with you.” How many covenants are there with Abram? We know specifically from chapter 15, God has already unilaterally instituted a covenant with Abram and cuts that covenant. And when he has Abram split those animals open, God's presence is represented in the passing of a torch and a fire pot through those sacrifices. So God has put himself already under covenant obligation to Abram. Chapter 12, God calls him out. And then in chapter 22, it's going to speak again of God's covenant with Abram.
And it could seem like, are there two covenants—chapter 15 and chapter 17? Are there five covenants, each of these five times that that kind of language or structure is seen? But the New Testament talks about a covenant with Abram. And what we see is, throughout Abram's life, there is this unfolding of all of the different pieces of God's covenant with him. And so God is just revealing another piece of his covenant here with Abram.
God is going to show Abram more of his obligations—more of Abram’s obligations to God in this covenant. God’s made all kinds of promises to Abram. Now he’s going to tell Abram what he expects of him—namely, obedience. So is this covenant unilateral or is it conditional? Well, it's unilaterally initiated by God. God is the one making all the steps forward, and yet it has mutual obligations. God is making promises, and Abram is expected to respond in obedience and in faith.
The second section of this text, in verses 3 through 8, we see God declaring covenant promises to Abram. Abram fell on his face as God appears before him. If someone appears before you and says, “I am God Almighty,” with the glory of God spread around... we were just reading with the kids the story of the transfiguration from the Gospels. Peter is dumbfounded, and they’re blown away by the glory. Well, that’s probably a similar experience to what Abram has here. He sees the glory of God, God speaks to him, and he falls down on his face. And God says to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 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. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 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.”
Now, it’s interesting. In the first couple of verses, God had told Abram, “You walk before me and be blameless that I may make a covenant with you.” And yet immediately afterward, God doesn't wait for Abram to obey him. He hasn’t even told him specifically what to obey yet. God just starts pouring on the promises. He starts telling him, “Here is what is going to happen.” And some of this is a reiteration of things that God has already said to Abram.
He says that this covenant is going to be everlasting, repeating what he had said in chapter 13. He promises him the land of Canaan, which had been promised in chapter 12, and chapter 13, and chapter 15. And most importantly, in verses 7 and 8, God promises to be his God, to be with him: “to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” The very end of verse 8: “I will be their God.” The most precious promise that God ever gives in the Scripture to his people is that he will be with them as their God.
Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser notes that throughout the Old Testament, there are three things that kind of circle around as three aspects of the promise of God to his people: “I will be their God, they will be my people, and I will dwell in the midst of them.” That comes to its culmination in the book of Revelation in chapter 21, when the church, the people of God, descend from heaven as the New Jerusalem, and God dwells there in the New Jerusalem. He says, “I will be their God, they will be my people, and I will dwell in the midst of them.”
So that’s the beating heart of God’s promise in Scripture—that he’s going to call out a people for himself. They will be his, he will be theirs, and he will dwell with them. That’s what God is promising to Abram here. Those things are all reiterations of things that he’s already said. But then he takes it a step further than he has previously. Before, he has told Abram—now Abraham—that he’s going to be the father of many people, that he’s going to have descendants as many as the stars in the sky. That’s chapter 22. But previously, as many as the sand on the seashore.
Here, he tells him that he’s going to be the father of many nations, and that kings will come from him. That’s beyond what he’s already been told. And it’s this further extending of the promise that leads to the change in Abram’s name. The name Abram means “exalted father”—one who is high, one who’s seen as lofty and powerful. Even though Abram only has one child and not through what God would consider a legitimate means, he’s still an exalted father. He’s a father over a household. He’s got over 300 warriors at his disposal. He’s exalted. But God changes his name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” Even in the name that he gives him, he’s reiterating the promise that there is going to be innumerable descendants, now even many nations that flow from him—and kings will come.
That becomes important as the biblical story develops—that God is going to bring salvation through a king. Abraham’s grandson Jacob has 12 sons, one of whom is Judah, who is promised that the scepter—the rule—will not depart from his household. From the line of Judah comes King David. To King David is given the Davidic covenant—that there will come from him a ruler whose rule will have no end. This promise of kings to Abraham here in chapter 17 of Genesis is going to carry through all the way to its culmination in Christ.
So God opens with a command, but then he does not delay in pouring on promises to Abraham.
Section three, God expects covenant obedience from Abraham.
Verses 9 and following say, “And God said to Abraham…”—it’s interesting, just like that, there’s an immediate transition. God gives him a new name, and now we don’t ever hear about Abram again. It’s all Abraham. God refers to him by the name that God has given him. “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.”
Now, this is a strange command. The Jewish people did not invent circumcision. It was already present in the world at that time. The Egyptians used it as part of a purity rite for some of their priests. It existed in the Mesopotamian region as well. So this isn’t a new thing that God is introducing here. But never before had God—or anyone—decided, “Hey, this should be a defining mark of an entire people, that the males should all be circumcised.” So it’s not a unique thing, but the universality of it for God’s people is.
Why would God give a sign of the covenant that was only for males? This is kind of strange when we think about it. I think there are two potential reasons here. It’s not explicitly spelled out for us in the text, so this is slightly speculative. But first of all, you’ve got the connection, obviously, to male sexuality. In chapter 16, we had seen Abram and Sarai trying to help God along in fulfilling the promises by stepping outside of God’s pattern for sexuality—only in the context of a one man, one woman marriage. So here with the covenant of circumcision, there is this reminder constantly that God expects sexuality to stay within this context.
That’s important, because that would set Judaism apart from every other religion in the ancient world. I would say even in the modern world, most religions embrace some form of deviant sexuality as opposed to Genesis 1 and 2’s pattern. So there’s that constant reminder: God’s people live in a way that is holy and set apart in this most intimate area of life.
The second reason that there would be a male-only rite is this acknowledgment of the covenant structure—not just of God’s relationship with Abram, but of God’s relationship with the world, with humanity in particular. God relates to all of humanity through the headship of our father, Adam. That’s what Romans 5 teaches us—that in Adam’s sin, we are implicated. He is the head of our household, as it were. And when he sinned, it had implications for all of us. Now, we all willingly choose to follow him in that sin. We are all bound by sin, Jesus says in John chapter 8. We are by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2 says. But that’s all tied back to the fact that we are identified with our father, Adam.
So if salvation is going to come, it’s going to need to come through an identification with a new head of the covenant—a new representative to stand in our place. You see that with promises given to Adam, now to Abraham, then again to David, and finally to Christ. Christ becomes the new Adam for us. So it makes sense that the sign of the covenant there in the Old Testament would be something that was identified with the males—this symbol.
The sign of the covenant, as God calls it here, doesn’t establish Abram’s covenant with God. Romans 4 makes that clear. A couple weeks ago, we looked at Genesis 15:6—what made Abraham right with God? Faith. He believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. So it’s not circumcision that makes him righteous. Circumcision is a sign of that previous faith.
But it is required. Verse 14 makes clear that if there’s any male in Israel—that’s anachronistic—in the people of Abraham who refused the sign, then they are cut off from God because they have not embraced his covenant. So it’s not the thing that creates the relationship with God—faith creates the relationship—but if you are to stay within it, you have to obey God.
Section four. Then we go from God expecting that covenant obedience to God specifying more promises. Verses 15 to 21:
God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I 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.”
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before you!”
God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”
In this section, God gives Sarai a new name—Sarah. Now, it’s interesting: if you have a Bible with footnotes, they’ll point out that Sarai and Sarah both mean the same thing. While Abram goes from “exalted father” to “father of a multitude,” both of her names—Sarai and Sarah—mean “princess.” I don’t know what to make of that exactly, but it is a difference between the two name changes. Still, God gives her a new name as well.
He clarifies that she is going to be the one through whom Abraham’s nations, his descendants, are going to come. He says that she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her. Abraham is dumbfounded by this. He falls down on his face and laughs. Before, he was falling down in reverence before God, and some commentators will say he’s just laughing with joy. I don’t think so. Listen to what he says to God: “Really? I’m 100 years old, God. This is 13 years after we had basically given up and tried our last-ditch effort. I’m going to be 100 years old soon, and really, I’m going to have a son?”
“Shall my wife,” who the next chapter says “the way of women had ceased with her”—she has ceased having a cycle—“she’s not going to have any children, right?” Apparently, God says she is. And through her will come this son whose name—Isaac—means “laughter.” That’s who the promise is going to come through. God says, “Oh, you’re laughing now, Abraham. You’re really going to be laughing a year from now.”
So God promises that through Sarah now, the blessing is going to come. Abraham follows up that laughter by saying, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before you!” He’s got a 13-year-old son who probably really does mean a lot to him. He’s the son of his old age, right? He’s going to have a deep care for his son. Abraham says, “I know, Lord, we stepped out of your plan. I know we didn’t do things quite right. But could you just bless him instead? Why do we still need to keep doing this promise-to-Sarah thing that hasn’t panned out for 25 years?”
God says, “No. I’m going to bless you through Sarah. But I have heard you. I will bless Ishmael as well.” But it’s clear—he’s not the child of promise. God says, “I will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation.”
But listen to the difference between the promises to Ishmael and the promises to Isaac. To Ishmael, God says, “I’ll make him the father of twelve princes.” But to Isaac, he says an undefined number of kings will come from his line. He says, “I’ll make him into a great nation”—as compared to “a multitude of nations.” God promises to bless Ishmael, but it is not going to be the same way that he blesses Isaac—the son of laughter, the son of promise.
Finally, in this chapter, we see that God not only has expected and commanded obedience, he receives obedience from Abraham.
Finally, in this chapter, we see that God not only has expected and commanded obedience—he receives obedience from Abraham.
Verse 22: “When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born in his house or bought with his money—every male among the men of Abraham’s house—and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was 13 years old when he was circumcised. That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. And all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.”
So when God leaves Abraham, Abraham immediately obeys. He does not delay. He does exactly what God said, when he said to do it. Good job, Abraham.
Now, what does that have to do with us 4,000 years later?
The second section of the sermon here is a much briefer section: God’s covenant with us.
First thing we need to realize is that there is continuity between the covenant that God made with Abraham—to bring him salvation and blessing—and the covenant that God makes with us through Christ. Galatians chapter 3 (we read this a couple of weeks ago), verses 7–9 say this:
“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
So Abraham was counted righteous by God because of his faith in the promises of God. And so too we, in this age, trust the promises of God—spelled out more specifically—that Christ died in our place for our sins and rose for our justification. If we trust in Christ, we are counted righteous, and we are Abraham’s children. That’s the language of Galatians.
So then the question is: okay, the covenant sign that God gave to Abraham is circumcision—so is that still required? Is that still the sign?
Well, 1 Corinthians 7, among other places, says no. Paul says circumcision or uncircumcision is not anything. That was for a specific time when God was dealing specifically through the Jewish people descended from Abraham through Isaac. That sign was for them. But in this new age, when we come to the promises of God through faith in Christ, that sign is no longer in force. It’s no longer necessary.
Again, like I said, Jews didn’t invent circumcision. There are all kinds of reasons to or not to—and I’m not a doctor, so you can talk to your doctor about that—but it’s not necessary for salvation. In fact, further on in the book of Galatians, there’s a group of people called the Judaizers who are trying to come into the church and say, “If you want to trust Christ as a Gentile, you have to adopt all of the Jewish customs and practices—including circumcision.”
And in chapter 5, Paul says, “I am so annoyed with these people who would disturb you, I wish they’d just slip up and cut the whole thing off.” That’s what he says.
He makes it clear that that’s not necessary for us today. We are not brought into Christ by any physical action. True circumcision, the New Testament tells us—Romans chapter 2, still the apostle Paul—it’s important that Paul writes a lot of this stuff, because Paul was a Pharisee. Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews. He was the most Jewish of all the Jewish apostles. And he says in Romans 2:28–29:
“No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit—not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God.”
So Paul makes clear that the circumcision that we really need is to have the deadness of our heart cut away. It’s analogous to the promise of Ezekiel 36, where God promises to remove the heart of stone from his people and give them a heart of flesh. We need to have our hearts cut open by God and set aside, set apart to him.
But if circumcision is not the sign of the covenant in the New Testament, is there a New Testament sign or symbol that’s analogous to it—or is it all invisible?
Well, back in Galatians 3, I think Paul gives us a hint. Galatians 3:27–29 says:
“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female—for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
People take that out of context sometimes and say, “Well, there’s no distinctions at all.” No. The New Testament is still full of distinctions between men and women, and between slave and free. It doesn’t remove all distinction. But what Paul’s saying is that in Christ, we’re all equal. We’re all level in that we need salvation.
And if you are baptized, then what that’s symbolizing is that you’ve been buried with him in his death and raised with him in his life. That’s the symbolism. It shows that baptism is the symbol of entry—the sign of entry into the people of God.
Does baptism bring about the reality of unity with Christ? No. Just like circumcision didn’t. Again, Paul’s whole argument in Romans 4 is that Abraham was justified by faith before God brought this symbol, this sign of circumcision, to him. But for those who have come to Christ by faith, baptism is still the sign. It is the symbol.
So is baptism necessary to be saved? No. The thief on the cross—he was saved. He wasn’t baptized. But is it something that, as Christians, we can skip? Is it unimportant? Does it not matter then? If it doesn’t bring salvation, then is it optional?
True faith, as we see here in Genesis chapter 17, always has obedience as a character trait. The Reformers said, “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” True faith is not just intellectual assent to a set of ideas about God and about sin and salvation. Faith—trust in Christ—means you are giving him everything. You’re giving yourself to him.
That’s what faith in Christ means—that you trust him. Well, Jesus’s definition of what it means to trust him and to be a disciple includes being baptized and being identified with him. Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew 28:18–20:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Jesus’s definition for his disciples about how to make disciples is: they need to hear the gospel, they need to be baptized, and they need to be taught to obey everything he commands. I think the implication with that order is that if they are not willing to be publicly identified with the triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—then they’re not going to learn to obey. If you won’t obey command number one, you’re not going to obey the rest of it.
So true faith follows through in action. The sign in the Old Testament, yes, was circumcision for the males. It didn’t bring saving faith to Abraham. He was already saved by faith. But his faith worked its way out in obeying everything that God told him to do. Yes, imperfectly—very imperfectly—but genuinely, seeking to obey God.
So the principle for us today, as we read Genesis 17, is to think about the three levels here:
Level one: I don’t trust Christ. I don’t believe in God. The message for you is—don’t start with a symbol. Don’t start with a sign. Go to Christ. Trust him. Trust the promises of God for salvation in Christ. That’s the message for someone who doesn’t know him already. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” That’s what Paul says in Romans 10.
Level two is for the Christian—someone who has genuinely trusted in Christ—and then hears that, “Oh, I’m supposed to be baptized. I’m supposed to be identified with him publicly as one of his people, as united to him and to his church.” It’s not optional. It’s not a nice add-on to the Christian life. It’s a necessary part of Christian obedience.
Level three: For those who have been baptized, identified with him publicly in baptism, and have trusted him prior to that with faith, then the message for us is just to meditate on how gracious it is that God initiates relationship with sinful people like us. That he would welcome into his family those of us who, just like Abraham, are a mess. Abraham doesn’t get so many things. And yet Hebrews 11 says that he is a model of what it means to walk in faith—because he trusted God. And even when he stumbled, he kept walking towards God.
And that’s what we should do—in joy—to keep walking toward God.
Would you pray with me?
Father God, we pray that you would help us to walk toward you in faith, to obey all that you have commanded, all that you’ve shown us in Scripture. Help us to live lives that reflect the glory of your Son Jesus, who died for us. We pray in his precious name. Amen.
