Sermon: I'm Here for It!

Julius: The first reading, which will serve as the basis for our message this morning, according to Genesis chapter 22. Some time later, God tested Abraham. He called to him, Abraham. Abraham answered, I am here. God said, now take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a whole burnt offering on one of the mountains, the one to which I direct you. Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, along with Isaac, his son. Abraham split the wood for the burnt offering. Then he set out to go to the place the Lord had told him about. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go on over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering. and loaded it on Isaac his son. He took the fire pot and the knife in his hand. The two of them went on together." Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "'My father,' he said, "'I am here, my son.' He said, "'Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' Abraham said, "'God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.' So the two of them went on together. They came to the place that God had told him about Abraham built the altar there. He arranged the wood, tied up Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham. Abraham said, I am here. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." Abraham looked around and saw that there was a ram behind him caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide. So it is said to this day, on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We pray. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts to see wonderful things in your teaching. In Jesus' amen. One of the blessings of getting to hang out with college students so much is that I get to learn some slang from them. And one of the ones I think I've learned it right recently is, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. It seems to be used when something unexpected happens that might throw some people off, but you're game. You're 100 % there. Like, 90 degree day in Nebraska in March. Unexpected, but I'm here for it. Let's go to the beach. Or Nebraska corn huskers making it to the Sweet 16. Unexpected, but I guess we're here for it. I'm here for it. And it's really nothing new. Abraham's pretty trendy today. In Genesis chapter 22 verse one, he says it. We read, some time later, God tested Abraham. He called to him, Abraham. Abraham answered, I am here. Abraham hears God's voice somehow. And he says, I'm here. I'm here for it. Which maybe is a little surprising that he sounds so eager considering what God told him to do the first time he talked to him. 40 years or so before this, Abraham is 75 years old, ready to relax, probably ready to retire, enjoy the rest of his life just the way he's always lived it. And God says, Abram, yes, leave everything. Leave your whole old life behind. Leave your family behind. Leave your retirement plans behind and travel halfway across the world to someplace you've never been where you're probably going to be surrounded by enemies. Abraham goes. But you might expect that now, after 40 years, when the Lord comes to him again and says, Abraham, Abraham would say, Now what? Wasn't that enough? He says, I am here. Do you think he would have responded that way if he knew exactly what the Lord was doing, exactly what the Lord was about to tell him? We know it. It says God tested Abraham. God is about to ask Abraham to do the most difficult thing that anybody would ever be asked to do, sacrifice your son, your only son. If Abraham knew that was coming, do you think he still would have said, whatever you say, Lord, I'm here for it? What about you? Don't expect the Lord to call down to you from heaven with a test. Abraham didn't have a Bible. We have the Bible. We have God's word. We have exactly what we need recorded for us in the Bible. That's what God wants to say to us. You think of John chapter 20 verse 31. It's talking about the gospel of John, but you can apply it to the whole Bible. These words are written that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we may have life in His name. God has told us everything we need to know about life and salvation through Jesus. And so we don't expect God to call down from heaven and say, hey, time to go, time to do this test. But God's word has clearly said that we will go through tests in our lives as Christians. We will go through affliction. We will go through difficulty. The Lord will test our faith. John chapter 16 verse 33 says, in this world you will have trouble. But I didn't need to tell you that this morning. You're living through it. You can look back at all the difficulties you've been through in life. You can look around you today and say, wow, I'm going through trouble, through affliction, through a test. When that happens, do you raise your hand? Do you say, ⁓ yes, here we go, Lord, I am here for it. Would Abraham have said that in response to what God says here? Well, let's see, verse two. God says, Now take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains there, the one to which I will direct you. You'd expect Abraham to object, Offer your son? Child sacrifice, Lord? My child? My only son? The son I love? The one that you promised to me? You'd at least expect him to be a little skeptical. And wouldn't you be? Sometimes I'm skeptical and I just look around today. And think about the things you're going through in life. You say, really, Lord? Are you a monster? The kind of person that asks a father to do this? Are you a monster? A God that's asking you to go through what you're going through? Lord, another injury, more health problems, really? Haven't I had enough? I think about the tragedy of the Concordia Seward student just last week. 22 years old, his whole life ahead of him, recently married. killed in a head-on car crash with three other students injured and you think, Lord, are you a monster? What do think? Has God a monster? Abraham doesn't think so. Abraham doesn't believe that. And you can tell because he listens and he goes. What would you do if the Lord did tell you to do this? Go do this. Would you sleep through your alarm the next day? ⁓ sorry, Lord, I'll get to it tomorrow. Would you at least hit snooze? It's not what Abraham does. We read, Abraham got up early in the morning. Early in the morning, he doesn't roll over, he doesn't hit snooze. First thing in the morning, Lord, I'm here for it. Let's do it, whatever you say. He got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him, along with Isaac his son. Abraham split the wood for the burnt offering. Then he set out to go to the place that God had told him about. How does he do it? Why does he go? When God asks him to do something that's monstrous. Well, you hear it right there at the end. What does it say? Abraham went to go to the place that God had told him about. The place God had told him. There's a lot of wonderful themes in Genesis chapter 22, but one of them is God speaking and Abraham listening. God speaks, here I am. God says, go there. Abraham goes. God says, I'll provide, Abraham says, the Lord will provide. God speaks, Abraham listens. And that's how Abraham knows that his God is not a monster. In fact, if you look through Abraham's story, you don't get the impression that God is the monster, but you might get the impression that Abraham is. 75 years old when God first called him, what do you think Abraham was doing before that? The Bible says he was an idolater. And don't think, oh, this was harmless. Abraham was just bowing down to some stone idol in the corner. Do you know what their idols were like back then? They were the kind of false gods that did demand child sacrifice. Horrible things. Abraham spent 75 years of his life Worshipping wickedness, worshiping idols. He's a monster. And then the Lord called him and said, I'll save you from that. And he gave him promises and gave him faith. But even after that, when Abraham is called and he believes in God, he doesn't always look like the best believer, does he? There's some monstrous things that he does. Abraham doesn't trust God enough that he'll send his son, his only son, Isaac, so he takes a second wife. God doesn't like that. Abraham travels to places where he is afraid that people are gonna think his wife, Sarah, is so beautiful that they will kill Abraham so they can have her. And so Abraham is afraid. He doubts. He fails the test and he lies. He says, ⁓ she's my sister. Go ahead and take her. It's monstrous. And yet every step of the way, The Lord intervenes. The Lord intervenes with His words, and He saves Abraham. What has the Lord done for you every step of the way? so that when the Lord speaks, you say, I'm here for it. Oh yeah, Romans chapter one verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation of everyone who believes. There are people who don't listen to God. We saw them in the gospel reading. Those people who didn't believe in Jesus, they didn't receive his words. They said, Jesus, you are a monster. You're demon possessed. And Jesus says, yeah, I didn't expect you to listen, but those who belong to me. They hold onto my word. They know my words are the power of God for salvation. They know that if anybody holds onto my words, they won't see death, but they'll see life. You know that. And Abraham knew that. And you see that when he makes it to the mountain with those servants. He says, you guys stay behind. Isaac and I will go up to the mountain and we will come back. That is not wishful thinking. That's faith. And when Isaac says, what's gonna happen? We don't have a lamb, Abraham says, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. That's trust. Abraham knew that his God wasn't a monster, a God of death, a God who takes. He knew that his God was a God who gives, a God of the resurrection and the life. And so he goes. Is your God a monster? You know what's funny is when people try to judge the God of the Bible as a monster, they're doing it based on other things said about God in the Bible. Other things He's revealed about Himself. God is love, God is gracious and compassionate, and then they go, wait, this doesn't line up. And you can only do that about God. Think about Islam. I think it's monstrous. How do you get saved in Islam? You follow the five pillars, you do them good enough, but even if you do them perfectly, you could get to heaven, you could get to Allah, and he could still say, nah, I don't think so. You're supposed to be uncertain that you would ever be saved. In my opinion, that's monstrous. But not according to Islam. That's Islam. That's Allah. That's how he describes himself. You think of stuff like the Hindu religion, where until civilization basically said, doing that, they taught that if the husband died, the widow had to throw herself on the fire to join him. I think that's monstrous. But you can't go to someone who's a Hindu and say, hey, that's ridiculous. They would say, no, that's what we teach. That's how it's supposed to be. In Abraham's day, they had a god called Molech. He loved child sacrifice. But you couldn't go to people who followed Molech and say, ⁓ Molech would never ask you to do that. They would say, yeah, that's his thing. People who don't believe in a God today can look around at the world and see that it is a place filled with difficulty and disaster, but there's no hope there. They say, well, that's the world, right? Natural selection, chaos, chance, death, that's all there is. But when you come to the God of the Bible and He says something like this, sacrifice your son, then you can say, wait a minute, I don't think God is like that because God Himself has told you that. And that's what Abraham sees. He goes up to that mountain and the Lord does not demand his son's life from him. The Lord provides. God's not a monster. God's here for you. God was here for Abraham. That's what we see. A lot of the time we focus on Abraham, but the Bible does allow us to focus a little bit on Isaac and what he does and how he points ahead to Jesus, how he points ahead to the son of man who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. What does Isaac do? Isaac could get away, couldn't he? Abraham's probably 115 years old here. Isaac is 15, a strapping teenager. He could run, but he doesn't. Twice we read, the two of them went on together, the son trusting his father. The two of them go on together and Isaac carries the wood willingly and allows himself to be bound and allows himself to be placed upon that wood. Yes, Father, willingly I will do this if God says so. And he points us ahead to Jesus. Now sometimes people say that God is a monster because of what Jesus went through. How could a father allow his son to be crucified? But that's not how it goes. It's not the Father taking His Son against His will, binding Him up. Now what did we sing about in the opening hymn? Jesus says, yes, Father, yes, most willingly, let's do it. This is the plan. I want to. In a little bit more complicated way, we see how the entire Trinity is united in this decision to be here for humans who can't save themselves, whose sacrifices would never work anyways. Hebrews chapter 9 said, The blood of Christ, the Son, God the Son, willingly offering himself. through the eternal spirit, God the Holy Spirit, who makes it a sacrifice, not just a symbol on earth, but something that counts in heaven before God so that you can be there, presented to God the Father, who accepts this sacrifice, and so it accepts you, and makes it so that you can worship not a God who demands death, but a God of the living. That is your God. No, not a monster, and you knew that already, and Abraham did too. He's a God who says the Lord will provide. The Lord will provide. And that's why Abraham was eager. If I understand the slang right, I'm here for it does imply some excitement, some eagerness. Let's go. I'm here for it. When the Lord speaks God's words, yes, I'm ready. And so Abraham goes and Jesus himself talked about this in John chapter eight. He says, you guys don't know Abraham, but I was hanging out with him about 2000 years ago and he saw my day. He saw me. He saw that the Lord would provide and he rejoiced. Why did Abraham get up early? Because he knew he would see joy as he listened to God's words. And so will you. Think about those things the Lord is asking you to go through. Are you eager? Eager to be tested. Eager for the Lord's testing to produce patience and character and hope. I hope so. Peter says this is what will happen. In 1 Peter 4 he says, to the degree that you share in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice and be glad. This wasn't in my sermon manuscript and I usually don't like using sports analogies but I did watch the game last night and it was suffering. I thought I don't even usually cheer for the Huskers. Why am I putting myself through this? And Nicole's saying, you're taking it too serious. It's okay. It's going to be okay. It's not going to be okay. They're going to lose and they're going to break my heart. And I don't even know why I watched this game. So with five minutes left in the game, you know what I said? I'm going to bed. I am not going through this suffering. I have church tomorrow. I kept hearing it in the distance. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Nicole going, yes, oh no, yeah. So with about 30 seconds left, I peeked around the corner. I don't want to suffer. And with two seconds left, the Husker guy makes the layup. And then with zero seconds left, the ball is in the air for the opposing team and it hits the backboard and it's going in. Come on, it was going in. See, I knew it. It wasn't worth the suffering. And it bounced out and people fell over and Nicole was jumping and I thought, I'm not gonna be able to fall asleep tonight. But you know what it was, after the suffering, joy. ⁓ man, this life is hard. It's filled with suffering. And it's way worse than sports suffering. But what do we know as Christians who know our God, who is not a monster, who is a God of love and tells us so in his words that give us hope? What do we know? God is here for me. God will give me joy. And after this suffering, wow! Joy with Jesus without compare. Amen.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention Genesis 22 · chapter mention John 20:31 John 16:33 Genesis 22 · chapter mention Hebrews 9 · chapter mention