Genesis 22: 1 through 19.
After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham.
And he said, here I am.
He said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love,
and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering
on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey,
and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac.
And he cut the wood for burnt offering, and arose
and went to the place of which God had told him on the third day.
Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place from afar.
Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey.
I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son.
And he took in his hand the fire and the knife.
So they went, both of them together.
And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father.
And he said, here I am, my son.
He said, behold the fire and the wood.
But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Abraham said, God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.
So they went both of them together.
When they came to the place of which God had told him,
Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound
Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.
Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.
And he said, here I am.
He said, do not lay your hand on the boy, or do anything to him.
For now I know that you fear God, seeing
you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold,
behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.
And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering.
Instead of his son.
So Abraham called the name of that place.
The Lord will provide, as it is said to this day,
on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.
And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven,
and said, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this,
and have not withheld your son, your only son.
I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring
as the stars of the heavens and the sand that is on the seashore,
and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies,
and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
Because you have obeyed my voice.
So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose
and went together to Beersheba.
And Abraham lived at Beersheba.
Well, good morning, and
welcome to the weekend gathering of Christ Community Chapel.
My name is Zach.
I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm so glad we get to be part of your weekend.
Now, this is week nine of our ten week summer series.
Recalling promises made, promises kept.
We're looking at the faithfulness of God in the story of Abraham,
and the hopes that we might develop some confidence
that the same God who makes promises and keeps them to Abraham
is the same God who has made promises and will keep them for us.
You know, it's interesting.
This story is so powerful and so evocative when I read it.
I have a million questions I want to ask, but there's one question
that goes to the forefront of my mind and if you have been following
along this summer, this will make sense to you.
And every time I read this story, I wonder, who is this guy?
I mean, the story of
Abraham begins in Genesis 12, and for the ten chapters
between that moment and this moment, we see a lot of low moments for Abraham.
I mean, two separate times he's worried that the regional ruler
of the area he's in will so desire his wife, Sarah.
That'll have Abraham killed so that he can take her.
So on two separate occasions, Abraham says that she's
his sister and just gives her to the ruler.
Not exactly a man of moral courage or faithfulness.
A few chapters later, Sarah will come to Abraham and say, hey,
I know God has promised us a son, but I can't seem to get pregnant.
So what if he just slept with my slave girl and got her pregnant?
And then we took the baby and got rid of her?
And Abraham says, yeah, that sounds like a plan.
Not exactly a man
of moral courage and faithfulness.
And the thing is, when I read those stories,
I hope you'll understand this in the spirit.
I mean it, they make sense to me, not Abraham's choices.
I mean more like I know what it is to struggle with faith.
I know what it is to struggle with obedience to
to lack courage in the key moments of life.
Low moment. Abraham, I get
and then I get to Genesis 22 and the same guy hears God
say, hey, tell you what, take your son, go up a mountain and kill him.
And the guy just goes, absolutely.
I mean, he's unwavering.
No hesitation.
And I'm wondering what changed.
How can this be the same guy?
Because that Abraham is a little harder for me to understand.
Maybe he's a little harder for you to understand.
And that is really the question I want to try to answer this weekend.
What is it that is changed in Abraham?
What is it that he understands that enables him, in this incredibly
difficult moment, to be so trusting of God?
Hey, if you have a Bible, would you take it out?
Open at the Genesis chapter 22.
That's the passage we heard read so wonderfully just a few minutes ago.
Perfectly okay to take out your phone or your tablet.
And, hey, if you're here and you're new, new to church, new to the Bible,
maybe it's been a while.
I'm so glad that you're here.
And I want you to know that that this message is as much for you as it is
anyone else.
You do not need to hold a Bible to follow along.
The words will be on the screen behind me, but if you'd like to,
there's a Bible in the pew in front of you or in the back of East Hall.
You can grab that and actually use one of those Bibles just for you.
So I can tell you that today's reading is on page 15.
Thanks for being here.
But however you're going to get to Genesis 22,
let me hold out to you for points that I'm going to use as an outline.
Very simple.
I want to show you four significant moments in this story.
Here they are.
First, I want to show you the question, then the confidence,
the miracle and the example, the question,
the confidence, the miracle and the example.
All right. Let's start with the first one.
The question.
This passage really begins with a command.
I mean, God tells Abraham what he wants him to do.
He doesn't ask him if he wants to.
He doesn't give him two choices.
He just speaks a command.
But I think underneath that command is a question.
Let me read it to you and then I'll show you.
This is Genesis 22, the first two verses.
Here's what it says.
After these things, God tested Abraham
and said to him, Abraham.
And he said, here I am.
He said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love,
and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt
offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
God says, here's what I want you to do, Abraham, that son
that I've given you, that son of promise, the one you waited forever to have.
The one who represents all the promises I've made to you.
I want you to take him up a mountain.
And I want you to sacrifice him to me.
That's a command, right?
But underneath it is a question.
What God is saying is Abraham your son, the son I have given you.
Look at what he says.
Your son, your only son, whom you love.
Abraham.
The thing that matters most to you in all of the world.
Will you give me that?
I'll frame this as the question because I think this is the question.
Most of us live in fear that God will ask of us.
That's what keeps a lot of people, I think, from really getting serious
about a relationship with God.
It's what keeps a lot of people,
I think, stuck in a mediocre relationship with God.
It is this idea that if I were to really get serious
about pursuing God, if I were really to get serious about hearing his voice,
I'm afraid he would want to talk about the one thing I don't want to talk about,
that he would ask for the one thing
that I don't want to give.
That's what Isaac represents.
And you know what this story is telling you
is he absolutely will
not thing that you don't want to talk about,
the thing that you don't want to give your your sexuality, your living status,
your career, your your bitterness, your family dynamic, whatever it is
that you don't want to talk about, that you don't want to give,
he will ask for, well, I'll give you a story about this from my own family.
I've told you this before, but it makes the point
when my son deacon, who's 17 now, when he was nine,
he came to me one day and said, dad, I think I'm ready to follow Jesus.
I'm ready to begin my relationship with God.
I mean, I believe
Jesus is the Son of God, that he lived and died and rose from the dead.
And I'm ready to give my life to him now.
That's awesome to hear your son say.
But I'm also a pastor, and there's always a danger of kids growing up
and that kind of home and seeking approval through spiritual progress.
So I just said to him, hey, deacon, what do you want to be when you grow up?
And at the time he said, I want to be a video game designer.
And I was like, man, that would be an awesome job.
Hey, I got a question for you.
What if Jesus didn't want you to be a video game designer?
What if. And I'm going to use this example.
I'll tell you why.
So what if he wanted you to be a janitor instead?
Now, there's no shame in being a janitor.
But I've seen my son clean,
so I knew that wouldn't appeal to him.
And he thought about it for a minute, and he said,
I'm going to be a video game designer.
And I said, I totally get it, that it sounds like
you're not really ready to follow God.
Here's what I mean by that.
You might have noticed if you've driven through Hudson,
you certainly notice if you've lived in Hudson, that we've decided recently
to build a sidewalk to everywhere,
which I think is the worst.
Not because I'm anti sidewalk, but because
it's ruining my life as a commuter.
So, for example, they build a sidewalk right out here in front of the church.
You can walk from here to downtown Hudson.
I don't know why you would want to do that, but you could
if you wanted to.
Now imagine for a second that I lost my mind one day and decided
that I was going to walk from here to downtown Hudson for a lunch,
and I leave, and I hit the sidewalk and I start walking, and after a while
I run into you.
You're walking somewhere too, because, hey, why not?
We got the sidewalks right?
And so we're walking together because we know each other from church
and we're talking a little bit.
And to every car that passes, it looks like we're walking together
until eventually
you turn one way and I go the other.
Here's what I think this question is all about.
You know, it's possible for a while for it to look like you're following God.
But really, he's
just going the way you are already going.
I mean, if you're a conservative, you love when the Bible talks
about justice and family values and the importance of a nuclear family.
If you're a liberal, you love when God talks about love
for your neighbor, love the stranger showing mercy for a while.
You can come in.
If the sermons are right and the subjects are right,
you will just naturally find yourself agreeing with God
and you can walk with him for a little while.
And to everyone around you, it looks like you're together.
Until eventually he wants to go one way
and you don't.
You see, that's what it really means to follow God, isn't it?
Not just that you walk with him when he was already going the way
you were going, but when he wants to zig and you would have otherwise zagged,
you go his way.
You see, my son deacon was saying, dad, I'm ready to walk with God.
And he really was to a point.
But you see, God wants something bigger
for Abraham than to be an advisor.
Here's a story he's writing.
He wants Abraham to go with him on a journey that's going to last
through eternity.
And God wants that for you, too.
And here's what I think this question is all about.
The one thing that you don't want to give God is the thing
that will make you turn away from him in the end.
So if God loves you,
he has to ask about it.
That's the question.
Here's the second thing I want you to see.
Not just the question, but the confidence.
The confidence.
Abraham doesn't hesitate and it's incredible.
Look what happens.
God says, take your son, take him up the mountain and kill him.
And this is what happens.
Abraham, verse three, Genesis 22 says this.
So Abraham rose early in the morning,
saddled his donkey,
and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac.
And he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and arose
and went to the place of which God had told him.
Do you remember when God came to Abraham and said he was going to destroy Sodom
and Gomorrah?
And Abraham spent like half an hour negotiating with God?
You remember that story here?
God says, take your son, your only son, your son that you love.
Take him up a mountain and kill him.
And Abraham just gets
sets his alarm for 5:00 in the morning, gets up and packs the stuff.
He gets some servants, he gets a knife, he gets Isaac,
he gets a donkey because even he doesn't believe in walking.
He doesn't hesitate.
How can that be?
How could you ever have God ask you for the one thing
you don't want to talk about?
How could God ever say he wants to talk about living with your boyfriend?
He wants to talk about who you're sleeping with.
He has a different career path in mind.
He wants you to go to the family thing and say you're sorry.
How can God ever ask that?
And unflinching unhesitatingly, you just
go, sure.
Where does Abraham's confidence come from?
Well, I have to tell you, if you read the story,
there are signs that Abraham knows how it's going to end.
It's pretty weird.
Look with me at verse five, Genesis 22, verse five.
This is the first sign that Abraham knows how the story is going to go.
It says,
Then Abraham said to his young men, that's the servants that he took with him.
Stay here with the donkey.
I and the boy
will go over there and worship and come again to you.
Do you see what he says?
He says you to stay here. Abraham.
Isaac and I are going up the mountain to worship, and then we'll be back.
How how is Isaac coming back?
Then look at verse seven.
Here's another sign. He knows how the story is going to end.
Verse seven.
And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father.
And he said, here I am, my son.
And he said, behold the fire and the wood.
But but where is the lamb?
For a burnt offering?
And Abraham said, God will provide
for himself the lamb for a burnt offering.
My son
Abraham seems to know
how this story is going to go, but God never tells him.
God never says what's going to happen.
He gives them no indication of how this story is going to end.
So how is Abraham so sure?
Great.
It's a great question, and it's a question I wouldn't be able to answer for you,
except for this.
In the second half of the Bible, you got act one, the Old Testament
act to the New Testament.
In the book of Hebrews chapter 11, the writer of Hebrews
tells us where Abraham's confidence came from.
Here's what it says.
Hebrews 1117 through 19 says this
by faith Abraham,
when he was tested, offered up Isaac.
And he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up
his only son, of whom it was said, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead,
from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
Do you hear what the writer is saying?
He's saying that Abraham was so sure who God was.
Abraham was so confident that God could not lie,
that God did not break his promises, that he believed
even if he went up the mountain, and even if he killed his son,
God would just raise him from the dead.
You see, Abraham is telling us
that the confidence to give your God what you give God, for one thing,
doesn't come from knowing what he's going to do with it.
It doesn't even come from having all the answers.
Here's what it comes from knowing God's
character.
Abraham says, God, I will give you Isaac,
not because I understand you, not because I know what you're going to do.
I will give you Isaac because I know who
you are.
Friends.
Don't you see the only way you could ever give
God that one thing that you don't want to talk about is if you were 100%
sure, you could trust him with it.
Abraham's confidence is an internal.
It's external.
He knows who God is.
Let me show you what happens as a result.
That's the question, the confidence.
Here's the miracle.
It happens in verse 13, right as Abraham's get ready to plunge the knife
into the chest of his son.
Look what happens. Verse 13 says this.
And Abraham lifted
up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him
was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.
And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering.
Instead of his son.
You see, Abraham experiences the miraculous.
Isaac experiences the miraculous.
I believe this story becomes the foundation of Isaac's faith.
Remember, God is writing a story. Abraham's going to die.
Isaac's got to carry it on.
This is the story he will look back on.
God does the miraculous right in the moment where it's most needed.
There just happens to be a ram caught in a bush, a substitute for Isaac.
Here's what I think this story is telling us.
If we will give God our one thing
because we know who he is, we will experience the miraculous.
I'll tell you,
in 20 years of pastoral ministry, I've done a lot of counseling.
I've seen a lot of people whose lives have not gone the way they hoped they would.
And as a consequence, they're angry with God.
Why would God let this happen?
How could God let this happen to me?
Can I say something really hard
when you don't give God areas of your life,
then the results are on you.
If you do marriage your way,
you get your results.
If you do sexuality your way, you get your results.
You don't get to blame God for that.
But here's what Abraham is showing us.
If you give God control,
he is on the hook.
If you give God, you're one thing.
If you bring God into all of your life, if you decide that you're walking with him
and where you otherwise would have zigged,
you're going to zag if you were going to turn.
But because of God, you're going this way.
Then wherever God takes you is on him.
Abraham says, God, I have no idea what you're doing.
I have no idea what you're asking, but I know who you are,
so I'm going to give it to you anyways, trusting in your character,
and as a result, he experiences the miraculous of God.
Listen, there is an impotent, mediocre kind of Christianity
that is pervasive in our country and the reason for it is pretty simple.
If you invite God in 85% of your life, you will never get the miraculous.
If God says to Abraham, take your son,
your only son, whom you love, and go up the mountain.
And Abraham says, no.
He can come to church every weekend and sit in the pew.
He's never going to experience God.
So you see,
God has to ask about the one thing
because he wants the miraculous for you.
And I know I get it.
I'm like you if you're if you're at all like me, you have a death grip
on your one thing right now
and you doing.
I just don't know how I could ever do it.
And I know that it's why I have a bonus point this week.
Fourth point.
Not just the question.
Not just the confidence, not just the miracle, but the example.
You know, I know some of us are going,
listen, you haven't really explained how God could even ask such a thing
of Abraham.
It's monstrous to even ask.
Well, there are a lot of reasons for that,
and I'll leave those for future sermons in future days.
But I'll just say this remember this about Abraham.
Abraham is not a regular guy.
God has told Abraham, I'm going to do something
in and through you that's going to bless all the peoples of the earth.
God is doing this story in Abraham's life for you and for me.
He's he's teaching us something about who he is.
And what he's doing is preparing us
for another firstborn son who will go up a mountain.
And that son is Jesus.
Only this
time there won't be a ram in the bush.
This time the son will have to die.
The knife, metaphorically, will be plunged into his chest.
Jesus, God's own son.
You see, a ram can't take away the sin of Abraham and Isaac.
Isaac couldn't take away the sin of Abraham, but Jesus,
the perfectly righteous, perfectly flawless Son of God,
who lives in our place and goes to the cross and becomes our sin
and comes up under the anger and wrath and judgment of God, can pay for our sin.
And when he dies, he says, it is finished.
No more anger, no more wrath, no more judgment.
And three days later, when he raises from the dead, he says,
if you will let me, I will speak for you friends.
The only way you could ever give God
your one thing is to realize he loves you so much.
He gave you his.
This is what the writer of Romans
means when he says this, and what I think is the best verse in the whole Bible.
And you might not agree, but you don't have a microphone.
Romans eight verse 32 says this.
He who did not spare his own son,
but gave him up for us all,
how will he not also with him
graciously give us all things?
He, the writer of Romans, is saying this if he loves us enough to send his son,
if he loves us enough to give his son,
then what do we think he's going to do with the one thing?
Isn't he? For us?
Doesn't he love us?
No. My son deacon eventually came back to me
and he said, okay, dad, I really am ready to follow God.
And he anticipated my question, decided to one up me.
So he said, dad, I'm ready to follow Jesus even if
he wants me to be a pastor like you.
He said,
dad, I'll go even lower than a janitor.
Your life is pretty much my doomsday scenario.
And even if he wants that.
But what deacon came to understand
what Abraham came to understand. What?
I've been praying all week for you to understand
is when you know how much God loves you.
Whichever way
he wants to go is ultimately best.
Not because you know what's down at that end of the sidewalk,
but because you know the one who's asking you to go.
Stop letting the one thing rob you.
Of the destiny God has for you.
Let me pray for us.
Father God, thank you so much for this story.
Thank you for the way it challenges us and threatens us in the same way
it did Abraham.
It's as though you're saying, Zach, take that one thing.
You're only thing, that thing that you love
and give it to me.
God, would you so cause the beauty
of Jesus to shine before us,
that we will eagerly trust you
with our one thing and his name we pray.
Amen.