Circumcision In Christ And True Worship (the New Man In Christ Jesus Series) by Pastor Poju Oyemade: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Walking with God in Perfect Alignment

In Genesis 17:1, when Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, "I am the Almighty God. Walk before me and be thou perfect." Do not misunderstand that word perfect. It was not referring to flawlessness. It was referring to what is in Amos 3:3 — "Can two walk together except they be agreed?"

In the Hebrew expanded context, two cannot walk together unless they have agreed on the destination. What God was saying to Abraham was: come into perfect alignment with me concerning the destination of your life. From now on, the goal and the future I have given you — that is exactly what you are also pursuing. That is our agreement.

The next verse, Genesis 17:2, says God would make his covenant and multiply Abraham exceedingly. Abraham immediately fell on his face — a sign of worship. Detailed conversation about the promise followed. When we get into worship over what God has spoken, that is where the specifics begin to come, that is where the strategies begin to come.

Identity Aligned with the Promise

God changed Abraham's name to reflect the destination. "Neither shall thy name anymore be called Abram, but Abraham — for a father of many nations have I made thee." Your name is your identity. Changing the name to reflect where he was going was total commitment. That is the perfection God was talking about. Not that he would make no mistakes, but that the goal is the same — and he was sold out to pursue it.

People who become great in God are not people without character flaws. But they are sold out to the vision. That doggedness — this is where we are going and no matter what it takes, we will arrive there — is the mark of those who break through.

The Covenant of Circumcision and Its Fulfilment in Christ

God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. He said, "This is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee — every male child among you shall be circumcised."

Paul came in his ministry and said circumcision is no longer important. Galatians 3:16 explains why: "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not to seeds, as of many, but as of one — and to thy seed, which is Christ." The seed was Christ. So when God said to Abraham and his seed, he was speaking to Abraham and to Jesus.

Which means the covenant of circumcision was also addressed to Jesus. And when we come to Colossians 2:11, the mystery is unveiled: "In whom you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ."

Romans 2:28-29 makes it plain: "He is not a Jew which is one outward... but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter."

What Spiritual Circumcision Does

Physical circumcision was the removal of the foreskin of flesh. Spiritual circumcision is the removing of the carnal mind from the soul of that person — the stripping away of the old nature. As a child cries when being physically circumcised, it is also a painful process for the born-again believer when the heart is circumcised.

But the reward of that experience is that after it, the trajectory of that person's life changes entirely. God said to Abraham: you will become exceedingly fruitful, nations will come out of you, kings will proceed out of you. All of that — the fruitfulness, the multiplication — is the fruit of circumcision.

Philippians 3:3: "For we are the circumcision, who worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh."

The Pathway of Circumcision: Disappointment and Divine Purpose

In Genesis 15:4, God told Abraham that the promised heir would come forth out of his own bowels — not Hagar's, not naturally. Read that scripture in the Hebrew: he that will be a product of your own spirit, not your flesh. God was saying the promised thing must come as a product of the spirit, not of human arrangement.

In order for that to happen, he has to collapse the natural. While he is collapsing the natural, people think God has disappointed them.

• Joseph says to the chief butler, after everything he did for him, he forgot him. That is circumcision.
• Moses spent forty years in the wilderness. That wilderness was a place of circumcision — where the foreskin was being removed, where you go from one disappointment to another.
• When they brought Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness, the wilderness was not a detour. It was the pathway through which Moses — already circumcised through forty years on the back side of the desert — led them in total dependence on God.

The reason why Jesus's life is the ultimate example is that he started born in a manger. If he had been born in a palace, if there had been some natural advantage, men would strip the glory of God out of the testimony. What you are calling divine disappointment is God removing all the strange gods. Walk before me and be thou perfect. Nothing has changed — keep the goal.

The Mark of a Circumcised Believer

A person who has been circumcised and gone through the process approaches things differently. They do not start by looking for human support. They go straight into the presence of God and wait there in worship and in praise, rejoicing until the waters of Judah begin to produce. At that point, they cannot be disappointed by doors opening for them because they know where it came from.

Isaiah 48:1: "Hear ye this, O house of Judah... that come forth out of the waters of Judah." Judah means praise. The waters of Judah are the waters that flow from the temple of God. When those waters begin to flow and enter this life, things begin to happen.

A testimony: a woman wrote that in 2023 she went to an uncle about challenges she was having. The uncle was a professor who had left a good job in the US years before, promised a government appointment — and the person who promised him died. He had to start over from Abuja with nothing. What had looked like a total collapse God used to raise him to the pinnacle of his career. He said: if that man had not died, he would have attributed everything to the influence of that person and given no glory to God. And not one of the people around him reached the place he reached.

She wrote that she confessed the word — "When my mother and father forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me" — every minute, every hour. Shortly after, she received confirmation she needed. Days later, seven million naira appeared in her account from someone she had no connection with.

That is the product of the spirit. When someone helps you, the day you become something, they will tell the whole story. They will strip the glory of God out of what happened. That is why God sets it up so that no human arm can claim the credit.

No Confidence in the Flesh

Philippians 3:4-7. Paul said: if any man could have confidence in the flesh, he could — his lineage, his tribe, his scholarship, his background as a Pharisee. But those things that would be considered an advantage are actually a disadvantage — they would have been barriers to entering the grace of God.

"Those things which were gain to me, I counted loss for Christ." The circumcised person has no confidence in the flesh. Their praise is completely of God. They are not moved by opinion. What they are interested in is what God is saying to them — and they go ahead and simply fulfill it.

May the waters of Judah begin to flow in your life. May every door that opens for you be clearly the finger of God, so that your testimony carries the full weight of his glory.