The Story that Shapes Us 4: The Lord Will Provide

This podcast is brought to you by Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley, BC, in the hope that it will draw you closer to the one who loves you most.

In April 1972, it was a sunny spring day when I stepped out of our little country church where I and my family worshipped.

I was about 12 years old, and I looked up in the southeastern sky, and there was the full moon, rich and full, standing out in the sky.

And I thought to myself, there are human beings up there right now.

For two of the crew members of Apollo 16 were on the lunar surface at that very moment.

Now, after the Apollo 17 flight later that year, human beings did not go back to the moon for more than 50 years until this month.

On April the 1st, Artemis II blasted off from Cape Canaveral and with a four-person crew and headed towards the moon.

Now, what NASA had already tested the rocket ship and the spacecraft with the flight of Artemis I in 2022.

But there was a question that NASA needed to answer if the United States was going to accomplish their goal of placing another human being on the moon by 2028.

And that question was: would the rocket ship and spacecraft be safe to carry human beings to the moon and back?

And that's a question that could not be answered in any simulator.

They had to put human beings on top of that rocket.

And those human beings had to be willing to risk their lives to get the answer to the question that they needed.

Now, something very similar happens in the life of every human being.

We all trust in something to carry us through the difficult times in life.

It could be our plans, our own abilities, our relationships, our resources, even our faith.

But the truth is we don't really know what we can trust until it's tested.

And we don't really know the strength of our faith until it's stretched.

And so we go through tests in life.

And those tests rarely come in the abstract.

Some of us know what it's like to be in a doctor's office and hear news that we weren't prepared for.

And suddenly the future looks different.

And we find ourselves whispering, Lord, how am I supposed to walk through this?

Some of us have watched a child or a grandchild drift from family or faith, and we lie awake at night wondering how to trust God with someone whom we love so deeply.

Some of us are carrying the weight of caregiving for aging parents or a spouse whose health is declining.

We love them dearly, but the responsibility can be overwhelming.

Some of us have stared at a bank statement or a stack of bills and thought, I don't see any way through this.

The numbers don't add up, and the anxiety sits heavy.

Some of us are grieving someone we love and the ape doesn't go away.

And we wonder how to trust God when our hearts feel so empty.

These are places where faith can't be simulated.

These are the places where trust is tested.

These are the places where we ask, Lord, will you really provide?

And so what do we do when we find ourselves in a moment when God asks something of us that seems impossible?

Moments when obedience and heartbreak sit side by side.

Moments when the path forward is unclear and the cost feels too high.

For direction as we consider these questions, let's continue our journey through the story that shapes us.

And today let us dig into Genesis chapter 22, verses 1 to 19.

Genesis 22:1–19

Now, last Sunday we saw how God chose Abraham to be the father of a great people, a great nation who would carry on God's promise, first given to Adam and Eve, that he would provide a special person, a Messiah who would save God's people from their sins.

But Abraham and Sarah were already quite old, and they didn't have any children when this promise was given.

So Sarah decided to help things along by giving her Egyptian servant girl Hagar to Abraham, and Ishmael was born.

But years later, when Sarah at the age of 90 had her own child, a son named Isaac, she could not tolerate having a rival to her son around.

She demanded that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away.

God promised that he would care for them, and so Abraham agreed.

But now the entire future of God's promise rested on one child, Isaac.

And so you can imagine the inner shock Abraham must have felt over what happened next.

God called out, Abraham! And Abraham said, Here I am.

Then God said, Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah.

Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain, I will show you.

Now, if you or I were Abraham, our mind would be racing.

This is what the pagan nations do, not God's people.

This makes no sense.

If Isaac dies, the promise dies with him.

But that's not what Abraham thought.

He got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, cut wood for the sacrifice, and then took Isaac and two of his servants and headed out for Mount Moriah, the location where God had directed him to go.

On the third day, when he looked up and saw Mount Moriah, Abraham said to his servants, Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there.

We will worship, and then we will come back to you.

Abraham was not lying to his servants.

As we see in Hebrews 11, Abraham reasoned that God could raise Isaac from the dead, even if all that was left of him was a pile of ashes.

And so he assured his servants based on that belief.

Abraham placed the wood on Isaac, and the two of them carried on.

At some point in the journey, Isaac spoke up and said to Abraham, Father, yes, my son, Abraham replied, The fire and the wood are here, Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.

And the two of them went on together.

When they got to the place God had designated, Abraham built an altar, arranged the wood on top of it.

And then he bound Isaac and laid him on top of the wood on the altar.

He raised his knife in the air, and he was about to kill Isaac when the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham.

And just as he did when God first called out to him, Abraham said, Here I am.

Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said, do not do anything to him.

Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.

Abraham looked up again, and he saw a ram caught in a thicket by its horns.

He took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son Isaac.

So Abraham called that place, the Lord will provide.

And to this day it is said, on the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.

Afterwards, the angel of the Lord called out to Abraham a second time to reaffirm the promises that God had earlier given to him.

I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.

Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.

So what does all of this mean for us?

Time and time again throughout Genesis, we have seen incredible turning points where God has changed the course of history.

The earth was formless and empty, and God spoke into it to give it structure and fill it with life.

Adam and Eve were caught red-handed in the sin that brought corruption and condemnation into creation, and God promised a Messiah who would bring forgiveness, renewal, and restoration.

Abraham was an old man with no children, and God promised to make him into a great nation and blessed the world through him.

And so here we have another turning point in Genesis.

But this one's different.

This is a God-manufactured turning point.

Yes, God will fulfill the promises he made earlier to Abraham.

However, for God's plan for the renewal and restoration of all things to work, he would need the people of the nation that he would create to wholeheartedly trust that he would provide.

And only through such trust could God's people truly reflect his love and character into the world around them.

And only through such trust could God's people faithfully pass on the promise of the Messiah who would come to make all things right.

And so God, think about this for a moment, God placed the entire future of his plan for the redemption of all creation into the trembling hands of Abraham.

And Abraham, who said, Here I am, whenever God called, looked up and saw that the God he worships, the same God we worship, truly is a loving, merciful, and faithful provider.

And if he wasn't, we wouldn't have the promise of redemption through Jesus.

And none of Abraham's physical or spiritual descendants, which includes us, would be here today.

God demonstrated that he is a faithful provider on Mount Moriah with Abraham.

And he did it again centuries later.

When God the Father took his son, his only son, whom he loved, and journeyed with him up another hill that was nearby.

Again, the son would carry wood on his back.

Again, the son would be laid on the altar.

But this time there would be no ram in the thicket.

There would be no voice calling out to stop the knife.

This time there was no substitute.

Because Jesus was the substitute.

On Mount Moriah, God provided a ram.

On Mount Calvary, God provided a lamb.

The Lamb of God.

Jesus, the Messiah, his Son.

You see, God tests us to help us to grow and trusting that He really will provide.

And so what do we do when we face a challenge that seems to be more than we can endure?

We look to Jesus and we realize that God has already prepared for that eventuality.

Regardless of the nature of the challenge we face, Jesus has already faced it for us and has endured the most powerful form of that challenge.

Are we suffering from chronic pain or illness?

Jesus has endured the excruciating pain of the cross.

Are we burdened by the shame of memories that we wish we could erase?

Jesus suffered the shame of being beaten, flogged, stripped naked, and nailed to a cross to die beside a public road where everyone could see him.

Do we lie atwake reviewing words we wish we hadn't said and things we wish we hadn't done?

Jesus bore the guilt of the sins of the whole world as he hung on the cross and he suffered silence from his heavenly father as a result.

Or are we facing our own mortality in a way that we never have before?

Jesus has gone through death also, and he changed it into a doorway that leads to eternal life for us.

In suffering and dying on the cross, Jesus gathered up the power of all the challenges we face in life and endured them to their ultimate degree.

And Jesus' resurrection tells us that in him we are already given all of the good things of God that Jesus has for us on the other side of the challenges we face.

Rich, full, abundant life, forgiveness for all our sins, and healing for all our wounds.

So the tests, dear friends, we face are not so much a question of whether we will endure, they are a question of whether or not we will trust.

For it is in trusting Jesus that our lives reflect the fullness of the truth discovered by Abraham on Mount Moriah.

The Lord will provide.

And it's because of Jesus that every one of us can stand in the light of our loving, merciful, faithful God and say, Here I am.

And when challenges and trials threaten to overwhelm you, I want to encourage you to look up and trust that the Lord will provide.

He always has.

He always will.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for being the Lamb of God who took our place on the cross and suffered what we deserve so that we might have the life with you.

And so we pray, Lord, that you would help us by your spirit to endure whatever tests may be set before us and trust in you to carry us through.

And help us to know that you and the Father and the Spirit are loving and merciful and faithful.

And together you will always provide for us.

In your holy and precious name we ask this, and all God's people said, Amen.

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Thank you, and Gladstone.