Good morning. How y 'all doing today? I'm doing
pretty good. Thank you so much. If this is your
first time visiting us here at Hosanna Christian
Fellowship, either in our sanctuary here or if
you're watching online, we want to say welcome
to all of you. We're so glad you're here to worship
with us today. I am Pastor Nathan, and today
as a part of our study, we're going to be celebrating
communion together. And so if you're watching
online, we want to remind you to... Get your
communion emblems ready. If you have them, we
will be partaking together as a fellowship at
the end of service. But today we're talking about
the link between faith and sacrifice. I think
in the last few studies we've said a lot about
how God wants obedience rather than sacrifice.
But we have to be careful thinking that obedience
means we never sacrifice. Because a lot of times
the obedience that God calls us to can involve
great sacrifice. You know, in the New Testament,
Hebrews chapter 11 is commonly referred to as
the great hall of faith where there's that entire
chapter that is full of so many fantastic examples
of faith and really what biblical faith looks
like. And the example in that chapter that is
given the most space is Abraham, the man we have
been studying for a number of weeks at this point.
And as we've been studying his life, we've learned
so many different lessons about faith and overall
really how to respond to the promises of God,
how to live in light of the promises of God,
and then a whole lot of what not to do as we're
living out the promises of God, as well as how
to recover when we mess up, and so on. But you
know, the promises that God made to Abraham throughout
scripture here are repeated over and over and
over as he was learning to live the life of trust
and faith, growing in that faith that he had
in the Lord. As a quick recap, in Genesis 12,
in the very beginning of his story, he got the
promise of a people. that he would have offspring
that would be incredibly numerous and a land.
In Genesis 13, God showed him the boundaries
of that land and then told him that the people,
his offspring, would be more than the dust of
the earth. Genesis 15, as Abraham is struggling
with the promise of the people, he's worried
because he has no kids and his wife is barren.
And so at that point, God tells him to look up
into the sky, count the stars if you can. He
goes, that's how many you're off. offspring is
going to be. And it was at this point in Abraham's
life that the promise of a people was assured
in his life. He had come to the place of saying,
okay, I believe it. I'm no longer believing whether
or not it's going to happen. But he was still
a man struggling with the how that promise would
come to pass. And you know, Hebrews 11 .1 opens
with faith, tells us that faith is the reality
of the things that we hope for. or the assurance
of the things that we hope for. And so he was
still struggling with the assurance of the land,
and he was asking God, how do I know that this
promise of this land is gonna come to pass? God
then made a covenant with him in this vision,
this dream he had, where God himself walked through
the middle of these split animals as a sign,
as a covenant of saying that this promise is
based on me, and since it's based on me, it cannot
be broken. Well, in Genesis 16, Abraham and his
wife decided to help the promise of a people
along a little bit and came up with their own
plan, which was the story of Hagar and Ishmael.
Well, I'm going to paraphrase what God said to
that. Nope. And then he gave Abraham the covenant
of circumcision, really telling Abraham that
in your very powers of procreation, you're going
to have a sign that those who come from my promise,
my way, are my people. And so we read about that.
And then in Genesis 20, we read how they went
down into the desert, into the land where King
Abimelech was ruling. And because Sarah and Abraham
lied about the identity of Sarah as his wife,
she was taken into Abimelech's harem. Well, again,
because God had made promises, he said, nope,
I am not going to let Abimelech sleep with her
because my promise is coming through her and
Abraham. And then in Genesis 21, we read that
the promised son had come. Isaac was born as
a miraculous pregnancy because Sarah was still
barren, but God had fulfilled what he said was
going to happen, that he would have an offspring
from him and his wife Sarah, and through that
son, the whole world would ultimately be blessed.
So it was a great time, laughter. A time of great
celebration, spiritual highs, and now we come
to Genesis 22, which is a major, major scene
in the story of Abraham's life. It's a huge milestone
in the growth of his faith where we see obedience
and sacrifice come together within faith. You
see, the obedience that God wants us to have
will often include sacrifice, but it's that order
that we need to be aware of. It's obedience that
leads to sacrifice. Because the obedience comes
when God tells us to do something and if it involves
sacrifice, if we have the right faith, if our
faith is grown in the Lord, we're gonna trust
God and say, okay, I will give up the thing you're
asking me to give up. I will sacrifice the thing
you're asking me to sacrifice because I trust
you. But far too many of us flip it around and
we wanna say, no, I don't wanna be obedient,
but here's my sacrifice. I came to church on
Sunday, Lord, aren't we good? But the problem
is, is when we live that way, if we live a life
of sacrifice and then obedience, when the time
comes where God asks us to give up something
or sacrifice something truly special to us, we're
not going to sacrifice it at all because we've
already laid the groundwork of disobedience.
The story we're looking at today is how things
are set in the right order, that as God was increasing
the faith of this man, Abraham, that he came
to a place of obeying God even when it was great
sacrifice because that faith had grown to a point
where he believed in the impossible. That's what
we're going to be looking at today and really
how all of that pertains to our own growth in
faith, but first we're going to worship God.
Because he is amazing. God is awesome. God is
almighty. God is lovely. God is true. Let's pray.
Father, we love you so much. We're so grateful
that you sent your son Jesus to die on the cross
for us, Lord. And whoever we are, whether we're
young or old or in between, God, the promises
that you've made to us, the promises of salvation,
the promises of you being in our lives and taking
care of us and being our anchor, being our everything,
Lord, those promises apply to all of us, young
and old, God. because, Lord, all of us are made
in your image. We are created by you. Some of
us today, Lord, in this room may not have yet
come back to you, come to that place of putting
faith in you, Lord, and I pray today they would
understand the depth, the distance that you would
go, that they would be saved. I pray, Lord, that
we would all be people who trust in you, God,
and that as you increase our faith incrementally,
a little bit each day, God, that we would truly
become people like Abraham, the father of the
faith, God, people that would be even able to
believe in the impossible because you are you.
We love you, God. We want to praise your name.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right,
we are in Genesis 22. And recently in the story
of Abraham, we've been watching that during this
long 25 years of him having this promise of a
people and a promise of a land, this promise,
this... promised blessing that would come to
him was reiterated over and over and over. And
as we've watched Abraham grow in his faith, he's
had many ups and many downs. But with the birth
of Isaac, the promised son, he was now just reassured,
right, that he would truly have an offspring
that would number more than the dust of the earth
and number more than the stars of the sky. And
so he was kind of like at the top of the mountain,
right? He was at the spiritual high that we can
often find ourselves in where things seem to
be going well and going right and God's grace
is just lavishing on us and we're just so blessed
and so excited for what God is doing. We saw
that he specifically was kind of reaching a new
level in his own personal faith at the end of
chapter 21 where he then called on the Lord as
the everlasting God. There was this new place
of understanding in his heart. about God being
the same yesterday, today, and forever. That
God is always, and God always is, and God always
will be, and that his promises will always be
true. And so, as we come to this place where
we see Abraham feeling stable and secure and
really permanent. in his covenant with God and
his relationship with God, we see that he's just
settled, right? He's just really settled. In
Genesis 21, 34, it said, and Abraham lived as
an alien in the land of the Philistines for many
days. So everything's great. Everything's going
well. It's such a wonderful life. And then we
come to Genesis chapter 22, which I know many
of you are familiar with, but read with me in
verse one. It says, after these things, God...
tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, here
I am. He answered. Now, the very first verse
in this chapter, we're told that he's being tested.
Abraham doesn't know this yet, but I think God
is telling us this for us, the readers, so that
as we read the story to come, the shock of what
God is asking Abraham to do is a little bit...
cushioned by us. If we didn't know any better,
and if you didn't know this was a test, after
studying Abraham's life and seeing these promises
reiterated and seeing him wait and wait and wait,
finally the son comes. And then in this chapter,
we read that God is going to say, okay, now go
sacrifice him. It might be easy to go, oh, God
is mean. God is a liar. Is God just playing with
him? But we're told up front. that God is testing
Abraham. And right in the beginning here of this
chapter, it really teaches us an important lesson
about faith, that growth in faith involves testing.
Now, wouldn't it be great if we could grow in
faith without testing? But we are dumb, all right?
We're sheep, as the Bible describes us, right?
We will jump right into the hole that God just
pulled us out of. And so... As we grow in our
faith and we grow in our trust of him and we
grow in our being able to rest on his promises,
we have to go through this type of testing. Now
the test, the word tested here means to evaluate
or to try or to prove. The idea here is that
as God tests our faith, the quality or the strength
of our faith is proven, right? It's very much
like how places will test materials to... see
how strong they are. Just out of curiosity, I
was like, oh, I wonder how they test the strength
of steel. You know how they test the strength
of steel? They put it in a machine that stretches
it until it snaps. And I thought, I never knew
steel could stretch. How do you do that? Well,
you put it in a very strong machine. So what
they do is they just pull it apart and pull it
apart and pull it apart and pull it apart until
it snaps, and that's how they measure the strength
of steel. Well, Abraham's faith is about to be
stretched to the utter limit here, and because
he's going to ultimately pass the test we're
going to read about, it's why his faith becomes
legendary. He's recorded in Hebrews chapter 11,
and why he is the one, his particular faith,
is the one given the most space there in Hebrews
11. Growing in faith through being tested, what
that means is that the way to build faith is
by exercising faith, right? You wanna build your
faith, it has to be exercised. You wanna make
your faith stronger, you have to put it through
the process. If you don't exercise your faith,
you don't get any stronger, right? If you have
a goal in your life and you're like, I wanna
get in shape, and you don't exercise, guess what?
You're not gonna get in shape. I know this very
well, okay? So faith has to be exercised, and
that exercising is what this testing process
is all about. It looks like this, very simply
put. You trust God, you have faith, God acts.
And then you go, wow, my faith has built a little
bit. And then you trust God for a little more,
and God acts. And you go, wow. And on, and on,
and on, and on. For Abraham, like I just said,
he was at the height, this faith height. Everything
was good, right? We often think of testing only
being in those moments where things are bad,
right? Things are tough. We're going through
a trial. We're going through this. We're going
through this struggle. And don't misunderstand
me. Those are times of testing. But Abraham's
being tested here right in the midst of just
spiritual heights. Granted, this is some years
after the events of chapter 21, but we're not
told of anything that passes in between. So what
we're meant to understand biblically is that
right after these spiritual heights, he comes
into this test of chapter 22, which tells us
that oftentimes spiritual success in our life
is grounds for further testing. And what I've
experienced in my life over and over, and maybe
you've experienced this, is God will test our
faith to refine it, to evaluate, to prove its
strength to us because the next thing he's gonna
ask of us requires that improved faith. And then
so on and so on and so on. See, really with the
idea of this, and this is what I've experienced
in my life, the thing God has for you in five
years, today you don't have the faith to believe
he can do. So between now and five years, he's
going to take you through these incremental faith
-building steps so that five years from now,
when you get to that thing and God says, I need
you to believe me for this, or I'm going to ask
you to do this, or I'm going to put you through
this, that you're ready. And that is one of the
ways God takes care of us in this life, in this
world. Now, we don't know what's coming down
the line, but God does. And so God knows where
we need to be at every point in our life. This
testing that Abraham's going through is what
he needs for what's next. Now, although we know
it was a test, Abraham did not, and so this is
what God says in verse 2. Take your son, he said,
your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to
the land of Moriah. Now, the language there is
kind of sweet, right? Take your son, your only
son, whom you love, and go to Moriah. And we're
like, oh. How beautiful, right? Are they going
to a father and son retreat? I mean, this is
so nice. He says your only son. We know that
Ishmael was his other son, but the idea here
is that Ishmael and Hagar had been sent away
some years earlier at this point. There's some
details later in the story that lead us to believe
that Isaac is likely a teenager or a young adult
at this point, but we'll deal with that when
we get there. But the idea is that for a number
of years, Isaac has been the light of Abraham's
life. The joy in his life. The laughter in his
life. His very name, Isaac, meaning laughter.
Abraham, after 25 plus years, now had the son
of the promise born and he was able to raise
him and father him into just this wonderfully
beautiful thing. And so, yeah, of course, God.
My son whom I love, this is wonderful. And then
God says, and offer him there as a burnt offering
on one of the mountains that I will tell you
about. Now, I don't think Abraham was expecting
that. I don't think he was necessarily expecting
God to say, hey, the son that I gave you, the
son that was the one that the promise is gonna
come through, the one that was specifically not
the work of the flesh that Ishmael was, yeah,
I want you to offer him as a sacrifice. Now,
in Abraham's time, A burnt offering suggested
something very specific and very gruesome. In
the time that if you were to offer something
as a burnt offering, the process went like this
in summary. First, you would have to slit the
offering's throat with a knife. Second thing
you would do is dismember the offering, which
is separate its limbs from the body and all that.
And then you would put these things on an altar
where they would be sacrificed. in fire. They
would be burnt up. That was a burnt offering.
And the burning would fully consume every part
of the offering so that there was nothing left,
right? Now, doing this to people was not unknown
to Abraham and in his time because there was
a lot of pagan cultures that would offer humans
as burnt sacrifices. And so human sacrifice was
common among the cultures of the time. And so
as God says, hey, take your son, your only son
whom you love, So it's not like God misunderstands
the relationship Abraham has to Isaac, and he
says, go do this terrible thing to him. All of
that would go through Abraham's mind. The cutting,
all of it. But as we read that, we think, well,
what was Abraham thinking? What was going through
his mind? How did he feel about what God just
told him? Did he object? Did he question the
Lord? Well, it doesn't tell us any of that. What
it seems to indicate is that he didn't for a
moment doubt God's command, that it was God telling
them this. Verse 3 says, Abraham got up early
in the morning. That suggested an immediacy to
his obedience. Right? It wasn't like he was like,
okay, God, I'll go. It's going to take me a few
months to get ready. You know, and I've got to
pack. And then, of course, you know, I mean,
Mariah, like. I don't know what's there, so I
gotta pack the right thing. He didn't stall.
He didn't wait. He didn't drag his feet. God
said, and he got up to do it. And it says he
saddled his donkey, took with him two of his
young men, and his son Isaac. Now what God was
asking Abraham to do, I imagine from Abraham's
perspective, went against common sense because
he was the promised son. Like if he's dead, how
through his line It might have a people that's
more than the sand of the sea, more than the
stars of the air. It went against common sense.
It went against his natural affections. And then
on the surface, we might read this and go, how
offensive for God to say, yeah, your only son,
the one you love, go take him as a burnt offering.
And really, it was Abraham's lifelong hope. He
waited 25 plus years for this kid to come. I
mean, just, and now God is saying, do this. Now,
again, nothing is said here about how Abraham
felt. Nothing is said about his thoughts. We
have nothing there. But we can surmise, or at
least safely surmise, that when we look at the
command where God said, you take your only son,
the one that you love, you go to Mount Moriah
and you offer him as a sacrifice. We can imagine
that some of that joyous laughter that had characterized
these years with his son Isaac might have been
dimming a little in his mind. But verse four.
It says, he split wood for an offering and sent
out to go to the place God had told him about.
On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the
place in the distance. Then Abraham said to his
young men, stay here with the donkey. The boy
and I will go over there to worship, and then
we'll come back to you. Now, if you're the type
of person that's highlighting, whether it's in
a paper Bible or in your app or whatever, highlight
that part. The boy and I will go over there to
worship, then we will come back to you. Because
the first part of what he's saying there is a
little bit vague. You see, these young men that
had been traveling with Abraham and Isaac, they
were traveling with all the supplies for a burnt
sacrifice. And so when they stop, Abraham's like,
we're going to go over there and worship. Now,
if he had said to them, we're going to go up
there and offer a burnt sacrifice, that might
have raised some questions, as we're going to
see Isaac has questions later. But when he says,
the boy and I will go over there to worship,
then we will come back to you, we know for a
fact that Abraham was absolutely sincere. He
truly believed that they were going to go worship
and they were going to come back. He was convinced
that after offering Isaac on that altar as a
burnt offering, that they would return together.
And how do we know that? Well, this is where
we have the benefit of the New Testament. In
Hebrews chapter 11, verse 17 through 19, this
is what it tells us. By faith, Abraham, when
he was tested, offered up Isaac. He received
the promises, and yet he was offering his one
and only son, the one to whom he had said, your
offspring will be traced through Isaac. He considered
God, here's the clincher, he considered God to
be able to even raise someone from the dead.
Therefore, he received him back figuratively
speaking. Abraham so believed God's promise that
through Isaac, he would have a nation of people
come from him, a number of people that would
end up being a blessing to the whole world. He
was so sure of that, that when God told him,
hey, take your son. the son you love so much,
the laughter of your life, the joy of your life,
and sacrifice him as a burnt offering, that Abraham's
response was, okay, I guess you're gonna raise
him from the dead then. That's how strong Abraham's
faith was here. That all those things that Abraham
had gone through in his life, building his faith
and teaching his faith and his stumbles and his
failures and his growth and everything, he needed
all of that to come to this point where seemingly
without question, because we're not told any
of his struggle or anything, he just got up early
in the morning, saddled the donkey, let's go,
son. And that we were told that he was like,
well, God said through him. God cannot lie. Therefore,
if God is telling me to offer him as a burnt
offering and he's going to be fully consumed
by the fire, God's going to raise him from the
dead. That's the only possible outcome to this.
That's what I believe. I'm good. How many of
us would do that in that situation? Instead,
at least what I struggle with, is God, I must
have misheard you. wait a second, God, maybe
you misspoke because I can't fathom a way for
this promise to be true if I do this thing in
obedience. They're incongruent, Lord. And so
we might argue, we might question, we might do
the things that a lot of Christians do. We're
all really good at it, right? When we're sure
God told us to do, God gave us his promise and
then God may have told us something that seems
to be contradictory to that promise and we go,
well, I'm supposed to go get a multitude of counsel.
And you want to talk to 50 ,000 people. God said
multitude. And you know. I mean, there are times
where we get counsel. It's very good to get counsel.
That's what the Bible tells us. But there's times
where we know for a fact what God is telling
us to do and then what God is calling us to do
in a... in a way that looks contradictory, and
yet we struggle. Well, I need to pray about this.
I need to fast about this. I need to fast about
praying and then pray about fasting. And I need
to do everything I could possibly do to delay,
to delay, to delay, because this can't happen.
And yet Abraham here is just like, okay. But
he only came to that place after a life of testing
and growth in his faith. A life of going through
circumstances where he was required to trust
God. And in some of those he did and some of
those he didn't. Now verse six. We see that his
growth in faith and his trust in God and his
promises had led him, just like it leads us,
to a place of eventually being able to believe
the impossible. To be assured of the thing we
hope for because God. Verse 6, Abraham took the
wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his
son Isaac. In his hand he took the fire and the
knife, and the two of them walked on together.
So likely the ascent up to the place where God
had showed him was too steep for the donkey or
something. We don't know why he got off the donkey,
but we see that they get off and he gives Isaac
the wood and the father and the son then proceed
to the place of sacrifice. Are you guys seeing
a picture? A prophetical picture that we're starting
to see here? Christ carried the wood of the cross
upon his shoulders to the place of sacrifice.
Verse seven, then Isaac spoke to his father Abraham
and said, my father. And he replied, here I am,
my son. Isaac said, the fire and the wood are
here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
Now that's a very good question, isn't it? Hey,
Dad, you know, we've come all this way. I'm carrying
all this wood. We're going to do a burnt offering.
Where's the lamb? Now, we often read this, and
I've read it in the past, where Isaac is doing
that. Dad, you're acting suspicious. What's going
on here? Things aren't adding up. But after it
told us that, you know, in verse 6, they walked
on together, it suggests that there had been
some time of them walking in silence. Maybe Abraham
was just, you know, grieving. Not that he wasn't
going to do what God asked him to do, but he
was just, you know, grieving this broken heart
over what he was about to do. I don't know all
the details there. It doesn't tell us. But I
don't think Isaac's asking the question here
was one of accusation or one of fear or one of
doubt. And the reason is this. When he uses the
phrase, my father, and the Nehemiah responds
with, my son. In the original language, there's
a tenderness in those phrases. There's a specialness
to those phrases that emphasize respect and mutual
affection and trust, right? So instead of Isaac
being like. What's going on here? I don't know.
I'm mistrusting you, Dad. I'm starting to have
fear that you're going to do something bad. He
was just simply saying, Dad, I don't understand
exactly. Can you let me know? But it was in complete
trust. It wasn't a question about accusing his
dad. It was a question asked in trust. And so
Abraham answers in verse 8, God himself will
provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.
Then the two of them walked on together. This
is the turning point of the story, and this is
the statement that demonstrates where Abraham's
frame of mind is, where his faith is. His son's
going, Dad, I trust you. You've taught me a life
of faith. You've taught me how to trust in the
Father, and I trust in you, my Father. even though
this doesn't make sense, Abraham probably has
taught his son, and I'm sure through evidence
and stuff, that it's like, look, we don't need
to know how, we just need to know that God is.
And so he's like, okay, dad, I trust you, where's
the lamb? And then Abraham says this phrase,
God himself will provide. That phrase literally
is saying, I don't know how, I just know that
he will, because I trust him. That is a big turning
point in faith for a lot of us. That is one of
the milestones of faith that I know God is working
in every single one of us to get us to at different
phases in our life. I don't know how, but I know
he will. Why? Because he said so. But it doesn't
make sense. Irrelevant. But I don't understand
how. Irrelevant. This is an important place to
be in faith because there are gonna be times
in your life, if you are a person of faith, walking
in obedience, that then requires sacrifice on
God's part. You need this type of faith if God
comes to your life and says, I want you to give
up or sacrifice or give to me the most important,
the most precious thing in your life, the thing
that means the most to you. You see, when we
lead a life of, yeah, I kind of have faith, but
it's mostly sacrifice before obedience, it's
easy because we'll sacrifice things that don't
mean that much to us and think that that justifies
the disobedience to the Lord. But when the time
comes and the Lord says, okay, I want you to
sacrifice the most important thing in your life.
I want you to give over to me the most important
thing in your life. If you're the person who's
lived a life of using sacrifice to justify disobedience,
you're definitely not going to sacrifice the
most important thing in your life. But the other
way around, God says, be obedient to me. Everyone's
like, okay, you're gonna raise him from the dead.
The sacrifices give me the most important thing.
Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to
do that? And be in that place where it says,
God, I don't need to know how, I just trust you
because you said so. It's silly to the world
around us. It makes no sense to the world around
us. It makes no sense to... you. It makes no
sense to me. But being in a place where you've
come to the area of your faith where you're like,
I am at peace. I'm no longer anxious. I'm no
longer worried. It's just God said so. I don't
know how and I don't know when, but I don't need
to. That's a peace that surpasses all understanding.
That's a piece you're like, I don't even understand
myself how I'm okay right now because there's
so many things that seem impossible. This is
where we find Abraham at in this story, where
he's finally settled on these things. It's not
just a declaration of trust. It's an expression
of hope. And for our sake, it's a prophecy of
the future. Now, as we're going to see shortly,
Abraham's declaration of faith right here, where
he says God himself will provide, it's something
that rings out loud in our Christian doctrine.
John Calvin said this. This example, speaking
of Abraham here, is for our imitation. In such
straits, the only remedy is to leave the event
to God in order that he may open a way for us
when there is none. We pay him the highest honor
when in affairs of perplexity, we nevertheless
entirely acquiesce to his providence. Now for
those of you that said, I don't know what any
of those words mean. We pay God the highest honor
when we simply trust him, especially in the most
confusing, difficult moments of our life. Now,
we see that in verse six and verse eight, both
of these verses ended, then the two of them walked
on together, right? The idea here is we're seeing
this prophetic picture starting to come into
greater focus. This is a picture of the cross
of Calvary. Because when it came to God the Father
giving of his son as a sacrifice for us, we see
this picture here in Abraham's story of the father,
the one offering the sacrifice, and the son who
is the sacrifice, both together walking towards
the place of sacrifice. Now verse nine. When
they arrived at the place that God had told him
about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged
the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him
on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham
reached out. and took the knife to slaughter
his son. Okay, hold up. This is where I start
to have a little difficulty here. Like, there's
some details we pull out of this narrative, right?
Abraham is, what, 116 to 130 at this point, right?
His son is 16 to 30, right? That's kind of the
age range that he could possibly be. But the
idea is this, is we know Isaac was strong because
It says that Abraham loaded the wood on him and
he carried the wood up the ascent to the place.
The amount of wood required to do this type of
sacrifice was significant and heavy. So Isaac
was the one carrying the wood. He was strong.
We also know that at Isaac's age, contrasted
with Abraham's age, Isaac was likely a little
bit faster. A little bit quicker than his dad,
so it's unlikely that Abraham chased him down,
wrestled him to the ground, tied him up like
a calf in a rodeo and threw him on the altar.
What that tells us is that Abraham didn't do
this without Isaac's cooperation. It tells us
that he didn't do this without Isaac's consent
to, okay, I'll get up there, I'll get on this
altar, I'll be the sacrifice. Isaac apparently
had decided to obey his father no matter the
cost. Just like Abraham was obeying God his father
whatever the cost. That just shows us a beautiful
picture of the role, the importance, the effect
of good parenting, godly parenting has on kids.
You see, there's sadly a lot of parents, good
God -fearing Christian parents for some reason,
seem to think their example in the home isn't
that important. And so they inadvertently teach
their kids to profess faith but not to live faith.
And then when their kids grow up professing faith
but not living faith, they're like, I'm so surprised.
Where did they learn that? Well, if you're not
doing it, the kids aren't going to do it. And
what we see here is this beautiful picture. At
least I understand that. Abraham, who was a man
of faith, who had been growing in faith, living
in faith, he taught that to his son by example,
if not by word. And so Isaac is getting up on
this altar bound, letting his dad do it, letting
his dad sit him up there, sees his dad grab the
knife, and again we see another picture of the
cross of Calvary. Whereas Isaac willingly let
his dad put him up on that altar, Jesus Christ
willingly let his dad put him up on the cross.
Now I can imagine as Abraham is grabbing this
knife, I don't think he was totally like, okay,
no big deal. I mean, whether or not he believed
God was going to raise his son from the dead,
he was still about to stab his son with a knife
and do all those horrible things that a burnt
sacrifice or a burnt offering entailed. So I
imagine that there was some... difficulty there
for him. And obeying God, it's not the super
easy thing because we have this nature that riles
against obeying God. And that's often the test.
Are you going to obey God or are you not going
to obey God? And so, it teaches us something
very important. That true faith produces an amazing
obedience. A strong faith produces amazing obedience.
And as our faith grows, We see ourselves in a
place of doing things that we thought we would
never be able to do. That's what faith works
in our lives. To find peace that we never thought
we'd be able to have. To step out, to do things
we never thought we'd be able to do. To give
up things that God may be calling us to give
up that we thought, I will never do that. As
our faith grows, we're able to obey God in greater.
ways and new ways and stronger ways, and it's
just amazing. But Abraham was still exercising
his free will here. He could have stopped with
the knife, but we see that he's not. He's doing
the thing God had commanded him to do in verse
11. But the angel of the Lord called to him from
heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. He replied,
here I am. Then he said, do not lay a hand on
the boy or do anything to him, for now I know
that you fear God, since you have not withheld
your only son from me. Now, that might be a difficult
passage for somebody there because we read this
phrase, God said, and it's the angel of the Lord,
and I'll get to that in a little bit. For now
I know that you fear God. Well, doesn't that
seem to imply that God didn't know? Right? Is
God Almighty the omniscient God creator of the
universe who knows anything? Going, hmm, I'm
not sure if Abraham believes in me. Here, I'm
going to have you do this thing. That's probably
not how God's voice sounds, so. So, who is the
test for? It's for Abraham. God knows Abraham's
faith. But digging into this and I'm going, okay
God, how do I understand this? And looking at
the Hebrew and going, and it kind of is like
this. For now I know that you fear God. For now
I know, That you know that I know. Does that
make sense? God already knew, but Abraham needed
to know. It was a part of his growth, his maturing
in his faith. And then him being able to take
the step, wow, now he knew that God knew, and
it was just a part of him growing in his faith.
And so verse 13, Abraham looked up. and saw a
ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham
went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt
offering in the place of his son. Now, I could
imagine that when Abraham looked up and he saw
this ram here, it was the most beautiful, the
most ramiest ram he had ever seen in his life.
Like, oh my gosh. Because it meant that God had
provided for the sacrifice. That his son, his
only son whom he loved, would be saved. He would
not have to plunge the knife into his kid. And
so I imagine that he says he got the ram, took
the ram, offered it as a burnt offering. And
get this, remember when he told the two men as
he was leaving, hey, me and my son, we're gonna
go up there and worship? and then will return?
I can only imagine what the worship was in this
moment as Abraham's there with his arm around
his son, praising God. Praising God. Now, it
tells us in verse 14 that Abraham named the place
the Lord will provide. So today it is said it
will be provided on the Lord's mountain. That's
simply a commentary as Moses is writing this.
He's going, yeah, even in our day, we still remember
that story and we still call that place by...
This moniker, it will be provided on the Lord's
mountain. You see, what God did in bringing the
son of the promise, what God had done in bringing
the son of the promise, was now memorialized
as what God would do. He would bring the son
of the promise. And it was memorialized by Abraham
for all future generations. You see, he started
out by saying, God himself will provide. And
that was Abraham saying, I don't know how, but
I know he will. Why? Because he had experienced
it with the birth of his son Isaac in the past.
And now he's going, ha, this place, this place
is God will provide. The Lord will provide. There's
no question, there's no, you know, the how, he's
the Lord. That's the how now. How now? The promise
is now fulfilled more perfectly than I think
he could ever imagine. Okay, I'm going to go
to the mountain. I'm going to sacrifice my son.
I may not get the details. I don't need to get
the details. I don't know how. I just know that
God's promise stands firm. And now he's in this
place, he's like, oh, his faith has grown again.
Now I know how. Now I'm assured of how. The Lord.
He's just the Lord, and the Lord cannot lie,
and the Lord is faithful. You see, God gave the
promise. God gave the covenants. God gave the
reiterations. God gave the grace and mercy when
he stumbled and messed up. God provided the fulfillment
of his promises, and it was all because he promised
it. That's it. That's the place of peaceful,
content faith that God is working us towards
through this whole life here on this earth. through
every trial, through every tribulation, through
every joy, everything, is to be in that peaceful
place of God is God. I trust him. Now, our faith
grows, as I said, by exercising faith. And yes,
God desires obedience rather than sacrifice,
but there are many times in our lives where obedience
involves the willingness to sacrifice. where
God may have said, I'm going to do this in your
life, and you come to the place where you have
to give up that dream. And you're going, but
God, you said this is going to happen. Why are
you asking me to give it up, give up the dream
of it happening, to give up the pursuit of it
happening right now? And God didn't say, I didn't
ask you to understand. I asked you to have faith
in me. And so we all have these circumstances
in our lives where when we're called to give
our Isaacs, where we're called to give those
things that are important to us, to give those
things that are most important to us, most precious
to us, I could fairly confidently say that every
parent in this room would struggle. If God said,
hey, you know that baby, that little boy, that
little girl that I've given you? Oh, how cute,
yeah. Go cut them up and make them a burnt offering.
God, we're gonna have a conversation about that
one. But it's about God first in our lives. That's
a tough one. Some of us are like, oh, God first,
but don't ask me to do anything with my kids.
God first, don't ask me to do anything with my
business though. God first, but don't ask me
to do anything with my marriage. God first, don't,
no, it's God first in everything. Everything
in our lives. If God gave the promise, God will
provide the fulfillment even when it involves
us believing the impossible. So Abraham's extraordinary
act of faith, It prompted God to do something
that he had never really done before. He swore
an oath by his own name in his own words. Look
what he says in verse 15. Then the angel of the
Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven.
And he said, by myself I have sworn. So for those
that are going to be like, it's an angel of the
Lord. It's not God. I don't know if you have
that voice. But by myself I have sworn. The angel
of the Lord said, by myself I have sworn. This
is the Lord's declaration. Who's swearing? God.
It's the angel of the Lord. This is a theophany,
Old Testament, physical appearance of God. Or
it's just a voice, like an audible presence of
God, because it says he's calling down from heaven.
Or it's a Christophany. A lot of people think
that the appearances of the angel of the Lord
in the Old Testament are specifically a pre -incarnate
appearance of the Son, God the Son. Whichever
one you lean on that, it's God. And he says,
because you have done this thing and have not
withheld your only son, I will indeed bless you
and make your offspring as numerous as the stars
of the sky and the sand of the seashore. Your
offspring will possess the city gates of their
enemies and all the nations of the earth will
be blessed by your offspring because you have
obeyed my command. Abraham went back to his young
men and they got up and they went together to
Beersheba and Abraham settled in Beersheba. So
it's with this oath. God reiterated this final
time, the promises. And Abraham had every assurance
possible from God now that the initial promise
made to him in Ur, the promise that was made
when he first visited Canaan, the promise that
was made when Lot... was given the choice of
the best land. The promise made under the stars
when he believed God and it was accounted to
him for righteousness. The promise that was confirmed
by God's one -sided covenant when he split the
animals in half and God passed through the middle
while Abraham was sleeping. The promise in the
new names where he said, you're no longer named
Abram, you're now Abraham and your wife is no
longer Sarai, she is Sarah. The promise that
was seen in the person of Isaac himself as he
was born. To a barren woman and an old man. All
those promises, there was absolute assurance
in Abraham's life. Why? Because God, again, came
through with his promises. And the oath was secured
by God himself, right? By myself, I swear. You
know, when we were kids, and we used to say,
I swear by my mom. Right? Because mom's the ultimate
authority when you're a kid. I swear by my dad,
you know. Because it's like, I'm gonna appeal
to this greater power, this greater authority,
this thing of greater value, so that you believe
I'm telling the truth. Well, God is the superior
power. God is the greatest value, so he can't
swear by anything greater than himself. So he
swears by himself. He secures this promise by
his own character, one who cannot lie. And again,
Abraham's explains, Abraham's, wow. Hebrews explains
the gravity of this. Hebrews 6, 13. For when
God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no
one greater to swear by, he swore by himself.
I will indeed bless you, and I will greatly multiply
you. And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham
obtained the promise. You see, again, there's
great encouragement in the story for us that
God always keeps his word. God keeps every word.
Every promise of God is kept, no matter what.
From this point on for the rest of your life,
if you ever question God's promises in your life,
if God has spoken something in your life and
then he's asking you to give something up that
seems to contradict with that promise, if you're
ever in that position, go back to this story.
Read this story and find all the assurance you
need about that thing you're hoping for. That
you'd have the faith to go, God said, it is true.
This applies to all his promises, right? You
get into the word and you read what God says,
hey, husbands be this and wives be this. And
this is how your life will turn out and you do
it. And it turns out that way. You're like, oh,
hey, God was right. God knew what he was talking
about. Hey, parents, do this. Don't do this.
And you do it. God's promises are true every
time. In our generosity, God says, trust me,
their finances, do this, give generously, da
-da -da -da -da. And we're going, whoa, hold
up, God. No, we're to trust him. We're to put
faith in him to say his word is true. When it
comes to how we work and how we live and how
we serve and everything, his word is true. We
don't pick and choose or shouldn't pick and choose
the promises that we're going to have absolute
faith in. Because then we're missing out on his
blessing. It's every promise that we put our
faith in. So of course our life of faith is up
and down, full of success, full of failure, full
of challenge, of difficulty, but it all prepares
us for the thing that is next. God may have not
asked you to give up your Isaac yet. That doesn't
mean don't prepare. God's taking you through
an incremental faith process. process, a faith
journey here to prepare you for what he has.
And yeah, we grow in faith because we believe
God. We grow in faith as we believe his bare
word. And then when we do, he tests us by stretching
our faith. And then our faith is stretched so
that it can grow to greater heights than it's
ever been at before. Yes, there will always be
valleys next to those high places. Yay, God,
I'm trusting you. I'm faithless. And guess what?
God's in the valley too. He's there to pick you
up. He's there to dust you off. He's there to
say, hey, patiently and loving, I'm waiting,
let's go, I'm working. But he grows our faith
incrementally so that ultimately, ultimately
in this life when God calls us to a place or
puts before a call in front of us that is absolutely
the most difficult, terrible thing we could possibly
ever imagine, that we will give it over to God
even if the impossible has to happen. Why? Because
he's God. Now, the story is not just about God's
command to sacrifice Isaac and be a test of Abraham's
faith. It's not just a wonderful example for
us to follow of obedience. But this whole story
is a foreshadowing, a prophetical foreshadowing
of God's sacrifice of his own son, Jesus Christ,
on the cross. And so as we close our service
here and move into the communion time here, You
know, we have to remember that we do communion
because Jesus said, do this in remembrance of
me. Remembrance of him. Remembrance of who he
was and what he did. We're called to take communion
together as the body of Christ to remember that
God the Father gave his only son in atonement
for the sins of all mankind. To remember that
Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the promises
made to Abraham, that all nations would be blessed
through Abraham's line. And all nations are through
Jesus Christ because he's the one that died to
pay the price for everyone's sin. In Abraham's
story, we see one of the greatest acts of faith
ever demonstrated here, but we also see the prophetic
promise of the Savior. And that's what we remember
in celebrating communion. You see, Abraham is
told, take your son whom you love. New Testament
tells us that God so loved the world that he
gave his only son. Abraham is told to sacrifice
him there as a burnt offering. The New Testament
tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that Christ, who
is God's son, died. He was sacrificed for our
sin. Abraham had Isaac carry the wood for his
burnt offering. We already talked about that.
Christ carried his cross. Isaac asked, where
is the lamb for the burnt offering? Well, John
the Baptist said, look, behold the lamb of God.
He comes to take away the sins of the world.
Abraham answered Isaac, hey, God himself will
provide a lamb. Revelation tells us that Jesus
is the lamb who was slain. Isaac acted in obedience
to his father. Jesus did the same thing in the
garden of Gethsemane. God, if there's any other
way, I vote for that, but not my will, your will
be done. And then Isaac, Hebrews tells us, was
figuratively resurrected. as Abraham had given
him over and said, God's gonna raise him from
the dead. That's the only way the problem's gonna
be fulfilled. I have full faith and trust in
that. And then Abraham received him back, figuratively.
And we know that Jesus Christ, the son of God,
was buried and literally resurrected on the third
day. You know, in John 8, 56, Jesus said to the
Jews, your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my
day. And then he says, he saw it. and was glad.
He saw the day of Jesus. How? We go back to Genesis
22 and we say, what did Abraham see that made
him glad? The ram caught in the thicket. That's
what made him glad. He saw the substitute that
his son would live. And that is the point of
all of this, that in that, Abraham saw the day.
The day that God's son would come to be the substitute
for all of us. The one who would die in our place.
The one who would take the punishment so that
we could be set free. That is what we remember
in communion.