Genesis 22 - A tested faith in a trustworthy Father

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and it's my delight today to be taking us through Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

If you want to turn there in your Bibles or swipe there on your devices, we're calling our study of Genesis in the beginning because it goes all the way back to the beginning of the space-time continuum.

And even before that, as it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

In other words, God already existed.

And while Genesis doesn't pretend to be an explanation for how God created everything, it does make the declaration that God created everything out of nothing.

And from that very first sort of principle flow all kinds of real important truths for us as we seek to answer the big questions of life.

Where did everything come from?

What does it mean to be a human person?

What does it look like to live in accordance with the true, the good, and the beautiful?

And all of this comes, of course, from our knowledge of God, our understanding of God as God has revealed Himself to us.

We are currently studying in the passages, let's say, between chapters 12 and 25, the life and story of Abraham.

And today, chapter 22, we're going to call our study A Tested Faith in a Trustworthy God.

I know a lot of people today talk about the concept of story.

In our day, it can be a really powerful means of communication for persuasion, for preserving the lessons of history, teaching wisdom, morality, spirituality, philosophy, all kinds of things.

And the Bible overflows with narrative and with history.

The overarching story of the Bible, of course, is that there is a God who's really there.

And this God is in pursuit of a people he can call his own.

And this God has done everything necessary for us to live in right relationship with him.

And this really resounds from chapter 22 of Genesis.

We'll see this foreshadowed quite strongly.

But what exactly is a story when you think about it?

Because Genesis 22 is such a good one.

I'll seek to persuade you of that.

But what is a story?

Well, the new Oxford American Dictionary says a story is an account of past events in someone's life, or uh it is an account of the evolution of something.

And I gotta tell you, Genesis 22 is a bit of both.

And it is masterfully told.

It has all of the elements of uh of a quality story.

It's got really interesting characters, it's got a setting that's interesting, uh, there's conflict and tension, there's there's, you know, angst, if you will, uh, there's a plot that moves, and then uh at a really good pace, by the way, and then there is uh an overall theme.

Uh Genesis 22 is rich in sensory details, in relational dynamics.

It is uh really undulating in its pace.

I mean, it speeds up, then it slows down.

And the camera lens is it goes really broad.

You get this kind of multi-day sort of thing, and then it zooms in on certain things that happen within the story as well.

So as we read this story, I think you'll see what a great um uh bit of story it is.

And we have the benefit, I want to say this too, we have the benefit as we read Genesis chapter 22 of looking at it and hearing this story in context, unlike Abraham, who was actually living the story.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

Uh we have the benefit of the greater context of redemption history itself, which runs throughout the pages of the Bible and even up to our own day.

But we also have the context of Abraham's overall life.

He's gonna live to 175.

Right now, as we pick up the story, he's about 120, 125 right in there.

But we've had, you know, uh multiple chapters of different phases and seasons of his life.

And so that helps us, I think, understand uh this particular story, what's going on here, and how God is dealing with him.

And uh you'll see that uh that keeping that in context, I think, is what's going to help keep us from uh misinterpreting or misapplying into our own lives so much of the uh uh important truths that we find in Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

As with all of our Bible studies, uh, it's really important that we not say more than the text says, and also not say less than the text says.

And I would argue that this account is going to be very anecdotal about some things, and at the same time, it's going to be uh really practical and helpful for us as we seek to answer the question what does it look like to have a tested faith and a trustworthy God?

And so we'll call our study of Genesis 22 that even today.

Let me pray for us as we get started.

God, thank you for this passage.

It is powerful, and um, we are presenting ourselves to you as we begin to study it, Lord, seeking uh to not only be informed, but to be inspired and to be encouraged.

So, Holy Spirit, come and do that.

What we see not, I hope you'll show us.

And what we know not, I hope you'll teach us.

And what we are not, I hope that you will make us as you transform us uh in the study of your word today.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen and amen.

Genesis 22, if you want to turn there in your Bible or swipe there on your devices.

It came about that after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abram, and he said, Here I am.

And he said, Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, of which I will tell you.

Now, this all of a sudden, and you know, from the beginning, we find it shocking, don't we?

Here's the first use of the word love in the entire Bible.

And it's in the context of this, what sounds like a pretty horrific command from God.

And if you're Abraham, uh, think of him as a father.

And as I'm recording this, I'm aware of the fact that it will first play on Father's Day itself.

Uh no matter when you happen to be watching it, that's when this Bible study is going to be aired uh online at the village chapel.

So, all of you fathers thinking about this and what is being said here to Abraham, who is, like I say, 120 some years of age, has lived most of his life without any children, uh, had Isaac at age 100.

Uh, and so the only child that he's had with Sarah.

And this is just really shocking as we read it.

Verse 3.

So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and he split wood for the burnt offering, and he arose and he went to the place of which God had told him.

On the third day, interesting number there, Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.

And Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey.

I and the lad will go yonder, and we will worship and return to you.

First use of the word worship in our Bible as well.

And interesting that he's told these two young men, you hold the donkey.

Isaac and I are going to go up there on that mountain.

I like the word yonder.

That's kind of interesting in the Old Testament, isn't it?

Yeah.

And we will worship and we will both return, is the implication here.

And he has confidence in that.

Why?

Because he's got confidence in God.

And I think you'll see that here.

Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son.

Another interesting image.

I think that foreshadows something that will happen thousands, a couple thousand years later.

He laid this wood on Isaac his son.

He took in his hand the fire and the knife.

So the two of them walked on together.

Can you imagine with the crunch of each step?

Just there are two men walking there together.

Isaac, probably 25 years of age.

And with each crunch of rock and sand beneath their feet, Abraham, what's he thinking?

What's going through his mind?

Well, Isaac speaks up, and these are the first words we have of Isaac recorded in the Bible.

He says to Abraham, My father.

And he said, Here I am, my son.

And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering?

Great question.

Where is the lamb for the offering?

And a burnt offering would have been in their day and time all about atonement.

And um, this is the first use of uh this particular Hebrew word for lamb in the Old Testament.

There were uh in chapter 21, I believe, there was a you uh the you lamb was mentioned, but this is a different word, and it's a a word for the lamb that will be slaughtered, that will be slain for this burnt offering.

Abraham said, his response to Isaac is God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.

So the two of them walked on together.

And that verse, man, that that that verse eight there, that's uh nothing short of Abraham foreshadowing the Christian gospel that we find fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus, of course.

Verse 9, they came to the place of which God had told him.

And Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and he bound his son Isaac, and he laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Now, again, Isaac is much younger than Abraham at this point in time.

How that happened, that transition, uh, as Isaac puts the wood up there as they're building this altar, and somehow or another, Abraham gets him to lie down on top of I can't explain that.

We're not, that's not what's important, that's not what's kept here.

Um, but the two of them are there, and this is what's happening, and uh, and Abraham is laying him, Isaac, on the altar on top of the wood.

And Abraham stretched out his hand, and Abram took the knife to slay his son, verse 10 says, And the angel of the Lord, this is so amazing.

It's but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abram, Abram! And he said, Here I am, and he said, Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him.

For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.

And Abram raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.

And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.

And Abraham called the name of that place the Lord will provide.

As it is said to this day, what day is that?

The writing, the day of the writing of the book of Genesis, this section of the book of Genesis, probably by Moses.

And so, as it is called to this day, in the mount of the Lord, it will be provided.

And uh, man, that's just really an amazing 14 verses right there.

We'll finish the chapter, but I mean, I just I just want to kind of catch my breath here.

This is this is shocking and at the same time supernatural in so many ways and uh dramatic.

Um, and again, great storytelling uh in terms of the tension, the characters, the place, uh, the plot line, the pacing of the whole thing, you know, uh a three-day journey, the camera lens is way back, but zooming in on just the the moments uh before you know this this altar that's been made, um, the stacking of the wood and putting Isaac on top of it and Abraham raising his hand, all this caught, of course, in in lots of paintings over the years.

And uh you can see in the background of some of those paintings, you'll see a ram in the thicket, and you'll see an angel uh speaking to Abraham, but really very, very graphic, very dramatic what we can see happening here.

And then the angel of the Lord, verse 15, called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord.

And this just seems to be the Lord Himself speaking.

So whether this is a Christophany, a theophany, whenever it says the angel of the Lord, it might be an archangel, it might be God Himself.

We we just have to, we just have to stand in somewhat awe of any time we read that phrase, the angel of the Lord.

Because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed, I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.

That means they'll be victorious over their enemies.

And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.

So there's faith coupled with obedience, and um the Lord recognizing that in Abram.

He's not always obedient.

We've already studied uh multiple chapters where he's just blown it left and right.

He's his shaky and wobbly faith, um, he's trying to take matters into his own hands and control things on his own, just like we all do.

But yet, here in this moment, here in this particular occasion, he seems to have that kind of faith that has a confidence in God.

And it's not just faith in faith.

It's not just, it's just, it's not just Abraham pulling himself up by his bootstraps and being a courageous, you know, playing the man or whatever.

No, it's confidence in God, even as he goes through this very difficult process.

And he says, God will provide.

Really amazing.

The chapter closes out this way.

So Abram returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba.

And Abram lived at Beersheba.

I would love to have been able to hear the conversation on the way back to Beersheba.

About 40 to 45 miles, I think, travel uh from Beersheba to Mount Moriah.

Mount Moriah, we know uh from later on in the Old Testament, is uh is also right there, located right near Jerusalem.

Uh, the temple mount itself, right in that same area.

Calvary, where Jesus will die, right in that same area.

And so that journey as they travel back, what's Isaac telling these two young guys?

What's Abraham telling them?

Uh what what are Isaac and Abraham talking?

How are they talking to each other?

How are we going to present this to the rest of the family?

That sort of thing.

It's just amazing to think about that.

It came about after these things, verse 20 says, let's close out the chapter, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milka has uh also borne children to your brother Nahor.

So Milkah is the name of the wife of Nahor, who's the brother of Abraham.

And here we get the names of these children, Uz, his firstborn, and Buzz, his brother.

And you know, some of the names sometimes cause me to chuckle a little bit, Uz, Buzz.

And they're literally the cousins of Isaac.

And so, you know, you can you can hear hey, cause, hey, buzz, eh, us.

And and Kemuel, the father of Aram, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaf, and Bethuel.

And Bethuel became the father of Rebekah, and just the inclusion of Rebekah's name in this line, uh, another another way in which our Bible so beautifully traces uh the line of God's Messiah coming into the world through this family and uh through this chosen lineage, if you will, Rebecca's name being there.

These eight Milkah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother, and his concubine, whose name was Reuma, also bore Tiba and Gaham and Tehesh and Ma'akah.

And I'm I'm not sure I get all of the pronunciations right on this.

Uh, but what's really amazing is each one of these names matter to God, matter enough to be included uh in this, so that we would see that the the line, the chosen line through which Messiah will come, included all these other people.

And some of these will get mentioned in other places in the Bible, not all of them, but uh it's really, really interesting to me to uh see how important each and every individual name is to the Lord, and how important the preservation of the story of redemption down through history is to the Lord, that he would want us to be able to trace, not only from here we are so many years later, but from Revelation, but all the way through back into Genesis, we have uh this story of God's being in pursuit of a people he could call his own.

And God providing everything necessary for us to become his own, not just his property, but his reconciled sons and daughters.

It's really beautiful.

So, attested faith in a trustworthy God.

What do we learn here?

Uh, I'll give you three or four things.

First of all, uh, we can't miss some of the characteristics of this test.

Okay.

First, the severity of the test.

I think that's what jumps off the page, uh, just in the first couple of verses, um, how shocking it must have been to Abraham, a father who had waited so long to become a father with Sarah.

And uh two, you know, too many times they probably got into arguments themselves as a married couple uh over this issue, uh feeling the social stigma, feeling the pressures themselves, the longing of their hearts, all of that.

And then the couple of times that God came along and spoke to them, and by the way, this is the seventh time that God has actually spoken to Abraham that we have on record since chapter 12.

And so, with all of that, how many times did they argue theologically, for instance, about what God promised or what God didn't promise, and what God has been faithful uh to fulfill, and what God hasn't done or seemingly hasn't done yet.

I don't know if uh if you've ever struggled with God's timing, with God's method, with God's means.

But if you have, and I have, um we're uh we're right there with Abraham in experiencing uh the severity of uh fig uh you know trying to figure out the way God works and the way that he does things, the tensions that are there.

This is, as I say, particularly shocking uh because so much was going on in Abraham's world with pagan nations offering up their children as sacrifices.

I wonder if Abraham was sitting there thinking, has has Yahweh has he become just like these other gods demanding that those who trust and hope in believe in those other gods would demand that their children would be sacrificed to Dagon, to Baal, uh, to Molech.

Um has Yahweh become just like the rest of them or not?

Uh could God be trusted?

And of course I seek to persuade you, and so does Abraham, that God himself will provide all that is needed.

And I just I gotta tell you, I just love uh verse eight here in chapter 22 of Genesis.

It just tickled me to hear him say that to Isaac and want to make sure that his son knew how much Abraham trusted, how much his father trusted God to fulfill his promises.

And I think about that for parents.

Uh I'm not a parent myself, but I think about that for parents.

And maybe in parallel, I think about that just myself as people who might watch me, um people who might be uh observing my faith.

Do I trust God?

Do I trust God in his promises, even when I can't figure out his methods or means or his ways?

Um Do I trust him in the pacing of my life and the experiences of my life?

Do you and your children, if you have children, are watching you and they're learning more is caught than is ever taught, uh, isn't it?

And so be mindful, let's all be mindful of the fact that people are watching us and ask ourselves the question along the way are they hearing from us what Abraham said to Isaac that God indeed is trustworthy, that God Himself will provide for Himself everything that he requires from us.

I love the way Dal.

Ralph Davis talks about this in his book, Faith of Our Father.

He says, it doesn't matter how much Reform theology you've read, or even if you personally know R.

C.

Sproul, or knew R.

C.

Sproul since he's gone home to be with the Lord.

There will be times when you cannot make head nor tail of what God is doing.

There may be times when everything you thought you knew about God is up for grabs, when God seems to be so strange that he doesn't seem to be himself.

And I can imagine Abraham along that three-day journey, especially in those last couple of, you know, half a mile or a mile up Mount Moriah there to wherever that altar was built.

The closer he got to that moment when the altar would be built and put together and he would lay Isaac on.

And the way the camera just zooms in on that and the detail we get here is really powerful.

What is Abraham thinking all along the way?

This is a, as I say, a masterfully told story, especially when it comes to the severity of the tests of Abraham's faith.

Secondly, we also should consider the scope of the test.

What was this test all about?

What range of things did it include?

Was it just a command to see if Abraham would commit some act of irrational violence against somebody?

No, I think this was a test of a sort of an approving type test.

A test in proving Abraham's confidence in Yahweh and in Yahweh's trustworthiness as regards the specific promises made to Abraham.

Now, God has not made those specific promises to me or to you.

And I think some people get in trouble when they seek to interpret and imply portions of the Bible, and especially with some of the promises, to themselves, when yet it is something that God has spoken specifically to Abraham or to some other character in the scriptures.

That doesn't mean there aren't general principles that we can apply to our own lives, but we need to be careful about rightly dividing the word of truth.

God was testing Abraham's faith with a view toward, I think, growth in Abraham's knowledge of God's trustworthiness, and also with a view toward the growth of Isaac's faith in God's trustworthiness.

And add to that the two men down the hill, and add to that everybody else to whom this story gets told.

In other words, this story is actually a story that's told from beginning to end, not just from beginning to middle, but from beginning to end, doesn't just stop with the command.

No, the whole story is told in such a way that we all see that verse eight, what Abraham said in verse eight, is true.

That God will provide for himself what he actually is demanding.

And that is fulfilled, of course, in the person and work of Jesus.

I love the way Alistair Begg addresses this particular issue.

God's provision may not always be what we desire, but what he designs is always best.

With a humble heart that submits to God's power, we can exercise a faith that far outweighs what the world deems logical.

See, everything that we read in the scriptures just doesn't come out so tidy and neat and logical, sequentially logical, like we would like it to all the time.

It's a little messy, but isn't real life a little messy?

Isn't your life a little messy?

Isn't my life a little messy?

And what we need is not to be able to figure it out ourselves and then clean it up ourselves, but we need for God to provide.

So when our faith is tested and tried or proven, if you will, we need to understand the scope of it, is about seeing how trustworthy God is.

Thirdly, a tested faith in a trustworthy God is also about the significance of this test, the significance of it.

And what is the timeless impact and importance of this test?

Well, even the name Mount Moriah, I think, starts to tell us that.

And verse 8, of course, that God provides, that God will see to it, that God does it here in Genesis chapter 22, and then all the way finding our way forward to the temple mount itself, the establishment of the temple, uh, the place where God's people would come to worship the Lord.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

And here in this chapter, we have the first use of the word love, the first use of the word worship as well.

And the temple is built there, the place where sacrifices were offered for atonement for sin, and yet also the great fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus and his death on the cross, right in this same area.

I'm not missing that.

I hope you're not missing that as well.

This is significant.

What God is saying from Genesis all the way through to the New Testament is that he will provide everything necessary for your salvation, for my salvation.

Jesus is greater than Abraham in obedience because Jesus never sinned.

Jesus didn't flounder, even though Abraham did about half the time, even though he's shown pretty strong here.

In this chapter, it wasn't but a chapter or two ago we found him floundering and wobbling in his faith.

Jesus did not do that.

He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.

Yeah.

Jesus is the greater Abraham.

He's also the greater Isaac, though.

Isaac is suffering.

He's probably a little bit confused in all of that, but Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, suffering, agonizing.

Even praying, God, if if it if it's your will, not my will, but yours be done.

But if it's if it be your will, let this cup pass from me.

And Isaac did not go through with being sacrificed, but Jesus did.

Jesus, the greater sacrifice, if you will, even than Isaac, even than the ram that substituted himself for Isaac.

And by the way, Isaac needed a substitute.

Abraham needed a substitute.

You and I need a substitute, but Jesus needs no substitute.

Why?

Because he who knew no sin became sin for us.

Jesus is the ultimate Lamb of God.

And so here we have this question by Isaac: Where's the lamb?

Here's the wood, fire, wood, here's the wood for the fire, here's the fire.

Where's the lamb?

And Isaac learns that there is a lamb.

But that asking that question, where's the lamb is really great, but it's not really answered until the New Testament comes along, and John the Baptist says, There, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So Jesus is the greater ram in substitutionary atonement.

The Jesus, the ultimate Lamb of God who lays down his life for us.

Wow, really amazing.

Dallas Willard in Renovation of the Heart says that the cross presents the lostness of man as well as the sacrifice of God and the abandonment to God that brings redemption.

No doubt it is the all-time most powerful image and symbol of human history.

Need we say, he knew what he was doing in selecting it.

The cross, there it is, okay?

It presents this, it shows you just how great our need was, that God had to come and die himself in our place.

That's just mind-blowing, right?

It's significant.

That's one of the reasons that we can look at this God of the Bible and say, look how much he loves us.

That he would do that, that he wouldn't just sweep it, sweep our sin under the table, but that in the cross, Jesus would bring together the love of God, the justice of God, in actually paying the price for our sins, not just sweeping it under the rug, the mercy of God and the wisdom of God, all together on the cross.

It's almost as if those four, you know, boards of the four directions, you know, include all of that.

And right at the heart of it, we find Jesus' heart, God's heart, where the love, the justice, the mercy of God, and the wisdom of God come together to offer you and to offer me salvation.

Fourthly, the solution of the test, and that is this cross.

And I'm so grateful for uh that quote from Dallas Willard that uh it is indeed the the all-time most powerful, most uh recognizable symbol in all of human history because of its significance, right?

Well, the solution of this test is, as Abraham said, that God will see to it, that God will provide.

Here's Abraham, basically, like I said, preaching the gospel before Jesus even came to the cross.

And some people will always say, well, what about what about the people that, you know, that that were that lived before the time of Christ?

Well, here we have a great example, don't we?

And uh we learn about in Hebrews chapter 11, which I'll read in just a minute, but we learn about the fact that their faith was counted to them as righteousness, just like in the case of Abraham.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And we've already been told that indeed.

He is trusting in God, not in himself, not in his ability to be religious.

And so the same God who tests Abraham's or proves Abraham's faith also provides the ultimate solution to that test.

And this is what it means to actually trust God and to trust God with all of the outcomes.

In this particular case, in chapter 22, this is a huge outcome in the life of Abraham and Isaac, and really in all of our lives by extension.

But if we can trust him with that big of a thing, can't we trust him with the smaller things as well, our everyday lives?

Yeah.

If God's trustworthy in that crunch of Genesis 22, and in our own salvation and our life with him forever and ever, can't we trust him with this coming Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever day is coming for us, whatever test may come our way?

Jesus, the greater Abraham priest offering the sacrifice, Jesus, the greater Isaac, son of the Father.

Uh, Jesus, the greater, um, even than the ram that substituted himself.

And Jesus substituting himself for all of us, not just for Isaac, but for all of us, right?

And with the ram, it would have been another sacrifice that would have been necessary the next day, the next day, the next day.

And that's why they had to keep giving those animal sacrifices over and over and over again.

And here's Jesus, the ultimate Lamb of God, who once and for all, settles it once and for all, pays the price for my sins, past, present, and future.

I love this.

And so when those first words of Isaac, or father, wears a lamb in Genesis 22, 7, and they're answered in the New Testament by John the Baptist saying, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, John 1.29.

And then John the Apostle saying, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him might have everlasting life.

Matter of fact, you know that verse, and probably everybody in your household, maybe everybody watching this knows that verse.

Let's read it aloud together.

All right, and then we'll read verse 17 as well.

Read it with me.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him might have everlasting life.

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

I love this.

The Apostle Paul continued on in that same vein, saying this in Romans chapter 8, verses 31 and 32.

Romans 8:31

What that shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who is against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all?

How will he not also with him freely give us all things?

In other words, if the Lord is so generous, so loving, so merciful, so kind, to give you salvation, to offer you eternal life in the person and work of Jesus, how is it that we can't trust him with every other bit of our lives?

And the writer from the book of Hebrews really clarifies uh the ancient Jewish mindset about Abraham and what he actually believed about Yahweh.

When in chapter 11, verses 17 through 19, the writer of Hebrews says, By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.

And he who had received the promises, that's Abraham, was offering up his only begotten son, that's Isaac.

It was he to whom it was said, In Isaac your descendants shall be called.

He, Abraham considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

And so Abraham, uh trusting that God, even as he walked up to the altar, thinking that he was going to have to offer his son as a burnt offering, as he walks up to all of that, still trusting that God will fulfill his promises no matter what, even if he has to raise Isaac from the ashes of a burnt offering.

Wow, that's tenacious faith, but it's in a trustworthy God that stretched rationality.

It seemed to run contrary to the promises of God.

But yet, just because Abraham couldn't figure out how God was going to do it didn't mean Abraham would stop trusting God.

And I don't know about you, but I find myself often in those same kind of places with God, not able to figure out what he's doing or the pacing with which he's running things.

And um, I come to worship, I gather with the people of God, I come to the altar, if you will, sometimes, a little bit bedraggled, a little bit needing the encouragement of others, sometimes just needing to hear your voices sing, sometimes just needing to see you studying the word or stepping forward for communion.

Why?

Because this experience of belonging to the Lord is also about belonging to one another, to belonging to the people of God, and to gathering together with the people of God to worship the God who is there, the God who loves us, the God who, even though we may have our faith tested from time to time, He is trustworthy.

Let me close with another quote from Dale Ralph Davis.

There's a strange chemistry in public worship there.

Often beat-up people come dragging their baggage in, as they should.

Where else should I take it?

And find that Yahweh sees to it.

It is when they go into the sanctuary of God that they find this unexpected provision.

Often, adoring God will lift more of your burdens than understanding your burdens.

And oh man, that's a great one.

That's see, because that kind of exposes what is it I'm looking to do?

Am I like Abraham before in previous chapters, where I want to understand my burden so I can control it?

And then I help God out or seek to help God out, like Sarah did with Hagar, like Abraham did in fleeing to Egypt when there was a famine in the land.

How many times do we do that instead of just trusting?

Hey, God himself will provide what's necessary.

He's trustworthy.

I love that.

As Abraham spoke to his son.

And as that same confidence in God got handed down from Isaac, down to Jacob, and on down to the 12 tribes.

And it undulated.

Oh, of course it did over time.

But this is one of the reasons we gather together as God's people to respond to God together, to remind one another, first of all, how trustworthy God is, and what God has actually said in his word.

So let's do that now.

Let's remind ourselves that Jesus, the Lamb of God, has taken away even our worst and greatest enemy, death itself.

And Jesus has taken away our sins, and we have been reconciled to our Father, whom we can trust with everything.

Amen.