Tempered Trust

Be seated, And as you're taking your seats, we've got some ushers who

are gonna come forward. If you don't have a Bible with you, that

will be really helpful today. And if you don't have a bulletin or a

pen, the ushers have those things. If you'll just wave your hand at

them, they will get you what you need here in just a moment,

if you are already ready to be ready to go, we'll be in Genesis

chapter twenty two. So if you'll find Genesis chapter twenty two in your copy

of Guide's Word, that's where we'll be this morning. Of course, that

makes sense, right, so Romans chapter seven and then Genesis chapter twenty two.

That's a joke. That's okay, probably a little jarred by the fact

that there's a dude in a suit on this platform. That never happens.

I get it. Let's go ahead and get that out too. Let's go

ahead and knock that out. Get that out of the way. In just

a moment, we're gonna have a brother Jonathan come and read this passage twice.

We'll be in Genesis chapter twenty two, the first nineteen verses there.

But I want because we're kind of jumping in the middle of this. I

want you to see and hear what I want you to see. The promise

here in chapter twenty two, at the end of his passage is very similar

to what you see in Genesis chapter twelve. In Genesis chapter twelve, God

comes seemingly kind of out of nowhere to a man named Abraham Abram at the

time, and he tells him to get up, leave all that he knew,

and go to a place that he would show him. And in twenty

two the wording is even very similar to what you see in Genesis chapter twelve.

But Abraham was given the promise that God would bless him and all of

the families of the earth through him. Through him, that promise was expanded

on several times. You see several we'll talk about some of those. But

he was given the promise of offspring, that that offspring would inherit the land

of his sojournings, and then specifically that there would be an air that would

come from Abram and Sarah. I renamed Sarah, who would be the child

of promise this son Isaac. If you look at chapter twenty one, you

read just a little piece up, you'll see the birth of Isaac. Isaac

was in the storyline just he was just born. And when he was born,

there was a little bit of back and forth between between Ishmael's mom and

Isaac's mom, and so God said, no, go ahead and listen to

the voice of your wife. Go ahead and send out Ishmael, your other

son. For through Isaac shall your offspring be named. So child Isaac was

the only one that was left. He was the embodiment of the promise that

God made to Abraham. He was the heir, the seed of Abraham,

the promised son that was previously on Genesis. Now we'll pick up in Genesis

chapter twenty two. This is Genesis chapter twenty two, verses one through nineteen.

After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, and he

said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only

son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mariah

and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, 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 wood for the 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, and 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 his son Isaac. And

he took his hand, and 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 for himself 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 to be bound.

In order and bound his son Isaac, 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

heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And you shall 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 Bearsheba, and Abraham lived at Bersheba. This is God's word. Hello

again, I'm shamous by the way. Hi, Hello, one of the

elders here. It's a joy to be given the opportunity to preach and to

be able to bring the word this morning. For those of you who know

me, you already know some of these stories. Like you're like, where

are you from? You might know fairly quickly. I'm not from Texas.

I hope one day to be adopted by Texas. I would love that.

But I was born in a college football town a little piece away from here,

in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And in the hospital window there was sort of

a picture window if you were to look out the window of Bryant Denny Stadium.

Okay, So for those of you who know what that means, it's

just you're sort of born into this Football is life life. The questions of

like who do you root for? Or where are you going to go to

college were answered for me before the tags got off my little tiny feet.

And growing up in that context where everybody's energies are just sort of already leveraged,

already reserved for college footballs on Saturdays in the fall as well as many

you know, into January. In the last seventeen years, so many,

so many of my saturdays were already spoken for. Right. It just wasn't

a question like what are we doing on Saturday? Was not really a thing.

It was just like what are we going to do for the game.

That's what it always came down to. And those who understood this planned ahead.

Okay, So if there was a wedding on a Saturday in the fall,

you looked at the schedule three years in advance to make sure that it

was a bye week if you wanted anyone to be there. Right, it's

your wedding, Yes, it's your wedding, and it's also a Saturday in

the fall. You got to arrange some things in such a way that you

would avoid competition, right. And I wish that I wasn't making this up.

I actually wish I was making this up in some sense, but I'm

really not. I come from a people who leverage so much energy towards football

that it did not seem weird to make one in one third life size bronze

idols of every football coach who's won a national championship and put it right out

in front of the stadium. For us in the West, we're like,

oh, that seems normal. It seemed really really normal for my buddy from

India who came and said, oh, this feels like home, right,

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a little burn for anybody who's

going to be listening to this from that context. And maybe you didn't grow

up there, but you can at least wrap your head around that as a

context. Right. I think we see at some level that trivial things,

other things which in and of themselves are not they're not bad things, but

they can become far too important to us. And here's the thing. Those

are trivial things, but good things, even the very best of good things,

can become far too important to us. Not just the silly ones.

Almost anything in this earth can become an idol if we're willing to order our

lives to attain it or to keep it, or to protect it. But

God's good blessings, especially and particularly the best ones, far too easily shift

from becoming gifts to being possessions of our own that compete for our commitment to

Christ. That compete for our commit meant in worship. And when Jesus was

warning the crowd about all the kinds of things that they would have to be

ready to give up for the kingdom of God, he didn't just talk about

the spiritual things. He talked about things like a peace of land, an

oxen, and a wife. And all of these things are good things.

They're not bad things in and of themselves, but none of them may take

Christ's place in our affections. And how easy can that happen? And this

passage speaks of just such a battle. It's not a battle against something sinful

and something good. It's a battle about whether a man will love his son

more than Yahweh, more than his God. And I want to learn,

and I want us to learn together why it is that he passes this test

when he's failed several of them before. Abram was not always and ever perfect

in his obedience, but for whatever reason and the power of God and the

purposes of God, and this test he stood the test. I want to

convince you that you can faithfully worship through such tests in your life as well

as they come up. And here's why I think I have control, Because

God proves that he is doubly trustworthy of your ultimate allegiance in Christ. Worship

him without reservation. He's doubly trustworthy. Worship him without reservation. We're going

to be taking this passage in roughly three sections. If you're reading the ESV,

you'll see it in kind of three paragraphs. We'll take the first paragraph

there, in verse one through eight. And look, God has proven himself

trustworthy by providing first these intentional blessings. Intentional blessings God. Here in this

first section you can see God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac as

a burn offering on a mountain in Mariah. He tested him to prove the

mettle of his faith. Now he had Isaac, now that he had the

son of promise. He was there. He wasn't just a promise. He

was in his hands. He could see him, he could touch him,

he could eat dinner with him. He was right there. Would this Isaac

now be so important to Abraham that his actual trust would be in the physical

life of his son. That was the challenge. I can see taste,

I can see right here, I can touch Isaac. But am I still

going to trust God? More? Unfortunately? In Abraham's context, human sacrifice

was a regular thing. It wasn't entirely they had a gear for that.

The people around Abraham would have been those who would have regularly humanly sacrificed human

beings to their cults. They would have had an understanding that they would often,

in devotion to their God, send their child through the flame, as

it were, as an offering. And yet this is something that God never

commands other than what we see in this test. He doesn't command it for

his people. In fact, Israel later is going to fall into the worship

of Mullich and other gods, and God is going to say that they were

giving them children, their children to Him in sacrifice, even though I did

not command them, nor did it enter my mind that they should do this

abomination to cause his real to sin. At no point is human sacrifice a

part of the worship of Yahweh. And that's why this command is so sort

of record scratching. You kind of come out it like what is? Why

is? And it's a test. We know that we have the benefit of

seeing this story and reading it and realizing it's a test, just like we

have the benefit when we read the Book of Job realizing that this too is

a test. Abraham didn't know that. As we go into the story,

you recognize Abraham as just he's just hearing this command, and it seems it

seems kind of messed up. The verbiage in the tone of this request,

though, is pretty gentle and kind. It's harder for us to see it

in English. He just says, Abraham, take your son. But God

asks the question in layers, sort of slowly, and he begins it with

what one commentator called a please that's untranslated in the English versions, with each

phrase building on itself as the enormity of the request is revealed. He says,

take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.

God knows what he's asking for here, and he's asking in the kind of

way that is gentle. He's not just booming from heaven and saying give me

what I want. He understands as a father what he's asking. And even

Isaac, whom God intended to be the blessed means by which his promises would

be fulfilled and the world will be blessed, even Isaac could become more important

to Abraham than God was. And so it had to be this had to

be tested. It says, though God were asking, will you hold on

to your son more tightly than you will trust in me? Even God's very

best good things can become idols if we're committed to leveraging our life to protect

them, or to procure them, or to preserve them more than we want

to worship God. And God loves us too much. He loves us too

much to let that happen without a fight. He's going to fight for your

affection, fight for your allegiance, fight for your heart, And so often

our worship is going to be tested by these good, intentional blessings that He

has given and gifted to us. And so in verse one he says,

in verse two, he says, take your son, your only son,

Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Mariah and offer him

there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains. That I shall tell

you. And there's a tiny little space in there between verse two and verse

three in my Bible. I can't imagine what that would have been like.

But what the story tells us is Abram got up and obeyed. It doesn't

say necessarily that it was the next day, but he says he rose up

early in the morning, eager to obey the Lord. The immediacy of Abraham's

obedience is jarring to me. No question back and forth. I mean,

when it was the people who were going to be destroyed because of their sin,

he still argued a little while, didn't he He went back and forth,

he was interceding. But it doesn't seem in this context that that's what

happened. He was hearing in command, and he obeyed, and he had

already set out to obey almost as soon as God just gave the command.

The journey was with Isaac and two of Abraham's young men and this donkey.

He came three days journey and he could see the mountain he was told about

from Afar, and at that point he explained to the young men, because

he couldn't really tell them, Hey, I'm going to go up there and

sacrifice. Isaac, I'll let you know how that goes. He goes up

and says, We're going to go over there and we're going to worship,

right sacrifices worship. Worship is sacrifice. I'm going to go worship over there,

and we're going to come again to you. And he said this very

much in faith, knowing that God had commanded him to offer Isaac as a

sacrifice, a burnt offering, not the kind of thing that he would survive.

Imagine the quiet as they're walking up the mountain, out of which Isaac's

question came, Hey, Dad, to hold the fire in the wood.

But where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham says in verse eight,

in faith, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering

my son. Abraham believed that God could be trusted to provide what was necessary,

what was needed for this sacrifice. This is Abraham who had seen his

son, this son, this very son, born from the womb of a

ninety year old woman who had never had any children, who had ceased to

even have the capacity scientifically speaking. And so from that context, he had

seen this child born. And he himself was one hundred years old when Isaac

was born. Kind of gives me some hope about what marital life's going to

be like in my nineties, right. But God's trustworthiness was