Does God command murder?

Father, I thank you for Jesus.

I thank you that he loves us.

Thank you that he loved us enough to die on the cross for us.

Thank you, Father, that your son Jesus,

by his death upon the cross and his mighty resurrection,

that he has dealt with our gravest and deepest need.

We thank you, Father, that his death upon the cross

is a power for salvation that comes from you

that we can receive by faith.

Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would fall upon us this morning,

fall upon us with gentle but deep power,

and draw us to Jesus.

Father, you know the deep fears that we have about you.

And so, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would fall upon us,

that your Holy Spirit would quieten our hearts,

that we might know that you are exalted and that you are good.

And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your son and our savior.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Amen.

So, did you know that in the city of Ottawa,

there are more people in the city of Ottawa in the 2011 census

that identify themselves as having no religion

than those who self-identify themselves as Protestants?

That's true.

In fact, more than one in five people in the city of Ottawa in 2011,

in the census, identified themselves as being no religion.

Doesn't mean they're bad people,

doesn't mean that religious people are good people.

I'm not talking about anything like that.

No value statements being made whatsoever.

That's just what the census tells us about the city.

That, in fact, today, if you leave your friends and go and talk to people,

you're more likely to meet somebody who would identify themselves as no religion

than you are to meet somebody who would identify themselves as a Protestant.

And the text that we're going to look at in a couple of minutes,

we're going to look at right now, Genesis 22.

If you have Bibles, you might want to sort of get them

and open it up to Genesis 22.

In some ways, this is a classic horror text for many, many people in our culture.

Many people who identify themselves as Protestants or Catholics, in fact,

find this a profoundly difficult text.

And for many people who identify themselves as no religion,

some of whom I suppose are atheists or agnostics,

and many of whom, probably the majority,

would call themselves spiritual but not religious,

the text that we're about to read would be, in a sense,

everything that terrifies them about God

and terrifies them about religion

and terrifies them about religious people.

It is a story where God tells Abraham to take his son,

his only son, the son he loves,

and embark on a journey, and the end of the journey,

he is to sacrifice his son.

Andrew, if you could put up the first piece of art.

And for this first part of the sermon,

while we look at this text and think about it,

this is a famous painting by Rembrandt

to capture a key moment in this story.

Later on, we'll have a different piece of art

that will come up by a contemporary Jewish painter,

well, contemporary in terms of 20th century,

one of the greatest painters of the 20th century,

who also reflects upon this.

But right now, you can sort of, as we're looking at the text,

if you want to lift your eyes for a second,

and this work of art helps you to enter into the story.

But for many people in our culture,

this idea that God would command murder,

it brings up images of ISIS.

It brings up this image that God is an amoral God at best,

and maybe even an evil being,

that he's willful,

that he just goes ahead and makes whatever command

pops into his head,

that he does things to hurt people,

that he can't really be trusted,

and that only nutcases, to be honest,

would be attracted to such an unpredictable,

violent, irrational, and willful being.

And, you know, a lot of people

just aren't interested in religion,

but if you press the case,

if you press the Christian case,

and especially if they were to hear a story like this,

all of their deeper thoughts,

all of maybe many of our deeper thoughts

of worry about what it's like to get close to God

come to the fore.

So we're going to read this text.

In the Jewish faith,

Genesis 22 is a profoundly important text of Scripture

in terms of understanding Abraham,

and it's a profoundly important text

in the New Testament as well.

So Genesis 22,

this very first book in the Bible,

and what we're going to do is

I'm going to sort of read through the text with you,

making a few comments and observations,

because I don't expect many of you,

all of you,

to necessarily just have the story

at the tip of your mind, so to speak.

And then after we've sort of read the text slowly,

drawing attention to different things,

I'll make a couple of points and observations

about the text.

So Genesis 22,

and it begins like this.

After these things,

God tested Abraham and said to him,

Abraham.

And Abraham said,

here am I.

And just sort of pause here for a second.

One of the things that you're going to notice

about this text is that

Abraham says a couple of things in the story,

but he only speaks to God twice,

here in verse 1 and later on in the story.

And in both cases,

the only thing he says to God is,

here am I.

That's all he says.

It's something for us to puzzle over.

Eventually,

as we get through the whole story,

we'll maybe get a bit of a sense

why for Jewish people,

and especially for Christians as well,

this story ends up being a story about faith

and about a particular posture for God.

But at the very, very first verse,

which sort of sets the stage for the entire story,

that God's going to be testing Abraham,

and he speaks to Abraham directly,

and Abraham's response is,

here am I.

Here am I.

In a sense,

if you go back and read the beginning of Genesis,

because remember,

Genesis is a book, right?

It's a book.

It develops themes.

And after the fall of the human race,

human beings were created good.

They decide to be gods themselves,

and so they break off their relationship with God.

And the first thing that happens to them

is that they realize that they're naked.

They're ashamed of their nakedness.

And when God comes and calls for them,

they hide.

And here we have Abraham,

who's been now in the book of Genesis for 12 chapters,

and his response when God calls him is,

here am I.

So sort of,

it's an interesting sort of counterpoint

to God testing him,

is Abraham's just saying,

here am I.

Verse 2.

We're not going to go that slow all the way through.

Actually,

I'm going to say one more thing about this text,

just before we get going,

is that if you read the book of Genesis from the beginning,

and it's in chapter 11 that Abraham is introduced,

and there's a bit of cultural background

that's not automatically in the text,

but Abraham was a pagan

who worshipped the moon god.

That's who Abraham is.

He was from Ur of Chaldea,

what was later on known as Babylon,

and what would now be known as Iran.

And he was there with his family,

and he was a worshipper of the moon god.

So he would have believed that there were many, many gods,

and out of the many, many gods that exist,

he was a devotee to the moon god.

And so part of the story of Abraham

is the fact that God chooses,

I mean, in a sense,

if God can call and choose a pagan who worships the moon,

he can call anybody.

He can call you, he can call me.

That in the story of Genesis,

it's not all about God looking for people

who have their lives completely and utterly together,

who know the Westminster Confession

or the Catholic Catechism off by heart,

that can read the,

have know the Calvin's Institutes

or Aquinas' Summa Theologica off by heart,

and have their lives completely and utterly together.

And when we've accomplished these things,

God looks down and says,

oh, there's the person I sort of have my eye on.

No, no, no, no.

This first person that God calls to himself

worships the moon

in the context of worshiping many gods,

and that's who God chooses and calls to himself.

Verse two,

God says to Abraham,

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.

And we'll pause.

We'll do more pauses at the beginning of the story

to give it a bit of a context for you.

For a lot of Jewish people,

this is a very stark text,

and it would be stark for us

if we realized that burnt offering is Holocaust.

Holocaust.

It's a sacrifice that is offered to God

where the animal is killed,

and then there's absolutely no benefit to the worshippers

because after the animal is killed as a sacrifice,

it's burnt until there's nothing left.

So a great part of human sacrifice

and a great part of human religion

is doing something,

an act of sacrifice,

or a liturgical act

or a religious act

or a spiritual act

in the hope

that we can buy off God,

we can appease him,

or we can get him on our side.

And at the same time

that the sacrifice is done,

hoping to get some type of goodies from God

in terms of his relationship to him,

at the same time,

we want to have some goodies right now.

And in some ways,

then many sacrifices

are both this combination

of trying to manipulate God

and at the same time

get some goodies for ourselves.

But a burnt sacrifice,

there's no goodies that come to us at all.

It's a holocaust.

It's a complete and utter death

and then destruction.

And that's what God calls Abraham to do.

And from the rest of the Old Testament,

Moriah is where Jerusalem now is.

And there's obvious parallels

between where the temple is to go

and where Jesus is to eventually be crucified.

But this is what God calls Abraham to do.

Now, one of the things

that we also have to understand about this,

which is a bit puzzling for us,

is remember I said to you

that Abraham was a pagan

who worshipped the moon god.

The moon god didn't practice human sacrifice.

But archaeologists tell us

that human sacrifice is 5,000 years old.

And I'm not going to get into a discussion

or debate about when Genesis was written

or anything like that.

The traditional understanding

is that Moses was the primary author of the book

and that Moses either lived in the 1200s BC

or the 1400s BC,

depending on how it fits with archaeological evidence.

But this story purports to be told

around the year 2000 BC,

which means that human sacrifice

is already 1,000 years old

in that part of the world.

Not all gods demanded that a human being be killed

to appease him or her,

but many did.

And Abraham would be familiar with this.

And so I guess the question for Abraham

and the question for God is,

how is God revealing himself to Abraham

and who ultimately does Abraham think that God is?

In fact, in the pagan world,

it was only with Socrates

approximately 400 years before the birth of Jesus

that he articulated a question

that we now take for granted.

But for other than the Jewish scriptures,

which predate this notion,

but in the pagan world,

Socrates asked the question,

is God good because he wills it?

You know, is goodness in a sense over God

or does God just declare goodness?

Because the pagans didn't understand

that goodness was at all

necessarily connected to God.

The gods did all sorts of willful,

horrible things.

And their understandings of good and evil

would be separate

from their understandings of God.

And so for the question for Abraham,

on one hand,

this is going to be obviously a huge blow.

Isaac is his only son.

Abraham's over 100 years old.

God has promised Isaac, Abraham,

that he was going to have descendants.

And God has promised Abraham

that Abraham would have many descendants

and that the whole world would be blessed

and that his descendants in particular

were called to be a blessing to the world.

And Abraham had tried to sort of deal with things

in his own power by having,

through a slave woman,

the birth of Ishmael.

And in chapter 21,

chapter 21 of Genesis,

is all about Ishmael leaving.

And so now Isaac,

who's over 100 years,

Abraham was over 100 years old.

His only son is Isaac.

And in fact, in the story,

I'm not going to bring it out every time.

I believe that just about every verse

or every second verse in the story,

it mentions son to drive this home.

And for Christians,

this idea of your only son,

the beloved son,

when the Greek version of the Old Testament

was published,

it's the same language

which is used of Jesus

in the Gospels

when he's baptized

and the transfiguration.

It's the exact same term

which is used of Jesus.

So Abraham gets this command from God.

There are many gods in the ancient world

who would command

the sacrifice of innocent human life.

And Abraham has these promises of God.

He's been called by God.

And he's trying to figure out

or is he trying to figure out

or is the reader trying to figure out

is God a bloodthirsty God

like many of the gods

that have existed for 1,000 years

prior to Abraham

or is this God different?

One of the things about this story

is that we don't learn anything at all

about Abraham's inner life.

Abraham,

we get a few statements

but it's all in this context

of a very, very horrific command from God.

Read verse 2 again.

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.

Verse 3.

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.

Now just sort of pause here

for a second.

Moriah is 45 miles away

from where Abraham is.

That's about 72 kilometers,

give or take.

And that's going to be a long walk.

In fact,

it's going to take

two and a half days

for Abraham to walk there

with Isaac

and the two servants

and the donkey.

And so this actually

is one of the interesting things

about the story.

It shows two aspects

about Abraham's response to God.

On one hand,

his faith in God

leads him to act promptly.

And secondly,

it leads him to act

with persistence.

One of the things

that we're going to see

in this story

is because at the end

of the story,

it's going to be understood

that Abraham was a man

of profound faith

in who God is.

And Abraham's faith in God

is going to require

a time of profound loneliness.

Two and a half days

walking with his son,

his only son,

to the place

where he is to kill

his only son.

Two and a half days

to think about this.

One of the things

we have to always remember

that these books are books.

They have literary features.

And one of the literary features

of the book of Genesis

is that the stories

usually contain blanks.

And by that,

I mean,

it's just the way

the book of Genesis

is often written.

It doesn't do anything

to try to describe

what's going through Isaac's mind.

It doesn't answer

the question about Sarah

and what she thinks.

It doesn't say anything at all

about what Abraham

might have said to Sarah.

that in the book of Genesis,

the way that the writer

writes the book

is he blanks out

certain types of things

that we're interested in

to focus on the one character

that the story is about.

And this story

is about Abraham.

And so all the other

types of questions

that we might have

and speculation

that we might have

are blanked out

as it just focuses

on Abraham's

lonely walk of faith.

Those of us

who are followers of Jesus,

this is a profound reminder to us

that there are some times

in our walk with Jesus

when we are called

to a lonely walk

of faith with Jesus.

Where it seems

as if the way is dark

and we have no external support,

maybe no support

from our culture,

no support from our church,

no support from our family,

no support from our friends,

and we are called

to a lonely walk of faith.

And that's what we see here

in Abraham.

Verse 4.

And by the way,

just with verse 3,

you see, that's why,

as we'll see in a moment,

the only reason

that the two servants

are there apart

from the fact

that they probably

were with him

is that the servants

serve as a way

for us to understand

something about

the inner life of Abraham,

which we'll see

in a couple of verses.

Verse 4.

So, okay,

we have this story now.

God has said to Abraham,

take your son,

your only son,

whom you love, Isaac,

take him to Mount Moriah,

a mountain near Moriah,

where you're going

to kill him.

Abraham wakes up

the next morning

and immediately

starts to do it.

He takes two servants

and a donkey

and his son Isaac,

and they begin

this two-and-a-half-day

journey to Moriah.

Verse 4.

On the third day,

Abraham lifted up his eyes

and saw the place

from afar.

Then Abraham said

to his young men,

the young servants,

stay here with the donkey.

I and the boy

will go over there

and worship

and come again to you.

That's a real puzzling riddle

in the text.

What does Abraham think?

The book of Hebrews comments

as a sort of a Christian reflection

on this wonders,

in fact,

says that Abraham

actually believed

that God was going

to be able to resurrect Isaac.

That on one hand,

that Abraham was going

to go through

with the slaughtering

because he had no idea

at this point in time

that he wasn't called

to do it,

but that he had this belief

that since there was

no other offspring

and since he was

over a hundred years old

and that Isaac

was his only offspring

and God had promised

to him

that he would have

many offspring

and give birth

to many, many people

that would be a blessing

to the whole world

and that would bless

the whole world.

And so Abraham

has this amazing statement.

He doesn't tell the young man

I'm going up the mountain

to kill my son.

He says,

he knows that that's

what he's called to do,

but he knows

what God has promised

and he says to the young men,

Isaac and I will return.

You wait here.

Verse six,

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

and in the original language

it's a knife,

it's a butcher's knife,

a knife for killing.

So they went,

both of them together.

Abraham,

after two and a half days

of walking,

now walks up the hill

having put the wood

that will burn his son

upon his son's back

and he carries in his hands

the knife and the fire,

the knife to kill

and the fire to burn.

The lonely walk of faith.

Verse seven,

and Isaac,

as he's going up the hill,

says to his father Abraham,

my father.

Can you just imagine

how that would break

a father's heart?

My father.

And Abraham said,

here am I, my son.

And Isaac says,

behold the fire and the wood,

but where is the lamb

for a burnt offering?

We'll return to this

in a few minutes

after we finish the story.

This is a poignant question

and one that Christians

and others have reflected upon

for millennia.

In verse eight,

Abraham said,

God will provide for himself

the lamb for a burnt offering,

my son.

So they both went on their way.

They went,

both of them together.

When they came to the place

of which God had told him,

Abraham built the altar there

and then he laid the wood

in order

and then he bound Isaac,

his son,

and then he laid his son

upon the wood

and the altar

on top of the wood.

Verse 10,

then Abraham reached out his hand

and took the knife

to slaughter his son.

Now we have that

in the picture here,

which is happening

in verse 10 and 11.

But the angel of the Lord

called to Abraham from heaven

and said,

Abraham, Abraham.

And here's the second time

that God speaks to Abraham

and the second time

that Abraham responds.

The angel of the Lord

in the book of Genesis

is a bit of a mysterious creature,

but basically in the ancient world

to have the messenger

of the emperor,

the messenger of the king

was as if you had

the king himself present.

And there's been Christians

who have speculated

that this is the pre-incarnate Jesus

who is speaking.

The New Testament

doesn't speak anything of that.

It's pious imagination,

but it's very, very clear

that this is a messenger

who speaks,

and when he speaks

because he's come from God,

to hear him speak

is to hear God speak.

And so God calls

and Abraham again says,

here am I.

And the angel of the Lord,

God says,

do not lay your hand on the boy

or do anything to him.

For now I know

that you fear God,

seeing that you have not

withheld your son,

your only son from me.

And pause here.

As many of you

have heard me talk about before,

the fear of God here

doesn't mean that

we're terrified about God,

but that we have

a profound sense

that God is God

and that I am not.

We have a growing sense

of the difference

between God and us,

that we don't confuse

my will,

my success,

my happiness,

my emotions with God,

that there's a clear sense

of me is me

and God is God,

that this is a good thing,

but it's also,

in a sense,

a profoundly unsettling thing

to actually know

that we are so completely

and utterly distinct

from God

and God is distinctly himself.

And on one hand,

it's in the Psalms,

talk about how

as we experience

the fear of God,

on one hand,

we long for him,

but on the other hand,

we also have a sense

of reverence for him

and in a sense

of something

almost like fear

to understand

how profoundly different

God is

and to start to have

this sense

of complete and utter

stripping of our consciousness

and our emotions

of any sense

that I am God.

And that's the word

which is used here.

Abraham has had

stripped from him

any sense

that he is God

and has this sense

of God is different

and that that is good.

And that Abraham

has trusted

who God is

and his promises.

Verse 13,

And Abraham lifted up

his eyes

and looked and behold

and 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.

And in the Hebrew,

the language

for caught in a thicket,

it's actually

the same word.

You know that gospel text

that we just read

a few minutes ago

and we all struggled over?

Eli, Eli,

lama sabachthani?

My God, my God,

why hast thou forsaken me?

I have the King James Version

stuck in my head.

And that word,

sabachthani,

is translating,

it's from Psalm 22

and it's translating

the word forsaken

and that's the exact same word

which is here.

There is a ram

forsaken in the thicket.

And Abraham took up,

verse 13 and a half again,

and Abraham went

and took up the ram,

the forsaken 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 on this day,

on the mount of the Lord

it shall be provided.

And as we'll see later on

when we're going to comment

more about the verse,

in modern,

the last hundred years or now,

we now,

when we refer to

one of the Hebrew words

for God,

the Jewish people,

because they thought

the name of God

was so holy,

they stopped pronouncing it.

And so now,

there's only four consonants

and we don't actually know

what the vowels are.

It literally,

the vowels literally

got forgotten.

And for many years,

people translating

these four words

used the word Jehovah

now that the normal word

is Yahweh.

But it's become

an important sort of idea

in Christian spirituality

and even Jewish spirituality

to refer to Jehovah Jireh.

And that's what's here.

That's what is here.

God called the name

of that place Jehovah Jireh.

As it is said,

on the mount of the Lord

it shall be provided.

Jehovah Jireh.

Very important idea

to George Mueller,

to Hudson Taylor,

to many, many Christian mystics

and workers

and ordinary Christians

throughout the centuries

and the decades.

Jehovah Jireh,

my provider.

Verse 15,

And the angel of the Lord

called 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 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.

It's a very,

very powerful story.

You know,

I'm not going to say

their names.

This congregation

has a lot of,

you know,

we live in a very transient

part of the city

and so there's a lot

of transients

but about eight,

seven,

eight years ago

there was a very,

very keen couple

who were part

of the congregation,

very,

very active,

real leaders.

They were a young couple.

They came here,

they were sort of in love

and then they got engaged

and they got married.

I performed their marriage

and about three months

after I performed the marriage

I got an anguish call

from the bride.

because the man in prayer

had come to the conclusion

that God had called them

to be divorced.

God had called them

to be divorced

and she called me up

and asked me to speak with them.

And this began

a year,

two year

back and forward thing

that involved many,

many people

in the congregation

because they were

very well connected,

very well thought of,

very well liked

and I had many conversations

with this young man

who believed

and I kept trying to look

to see,

you know,

is there mental illness,

is there an affair going on,

is there some other type

of thing going on

and it was just unshaken

that he came to the conclusion

in prayer

that God had called him

to divorce his wife.

And I kept telling him,

no,

God cannot call you

to divorce your wife

just,

just,

just,

just like that.

God can't call you

to do that.

Was I going against

Genesis 22?

Abraham seems

to go against,

God seems to,

to order the breaking

of the sixth commandment

although the commandments

aren't given

until the next book

later on,

many hundreds of years

after Abraham.

I think this story

tells us different,

several important things

about God

and about Abraham

and so now it's time

to sort of go back

and reflect upon them.

So if you look

at the verse one again,

here's the first thing

to notice about this

with a now second reading

of the text.

Notice how verse one goes.

How's my time going?

Okay.

After these things,

God tested Abraham

and said to him,

Abraham,

and Abraham said,

here am I.

Here's the first thing.

In my blog this week,

I talk about how

one of the problems

I have with Bible readings

is I'm a quick reader

and I'm having to learn

to be a slow reader.

Actually,

at a literary level,

there's two very,

very interesting things

about this first verse

at a literary level

if you just read it carefully.

The first thing is

that these opening words

are the narrator

speaking to the audience

and Abraham doesn't know them.

And the narrator

speaks to the audience

and says,

these things,

after these things,

God tested Abraham.

And so we now know

that God is going

to test Abraham.

and here's where

the text starts

to talk about

all of our fears.

In the book of Genesis

in the Old Testament

and the New Testament

as well,

the word here

is tested,

not tempt.

And Andrew,

if you could now

take the picture down

and put the first point up,

here's the very first thing

to understand.

In a sense,

a careful reading

of the text

would have us know

that right from the beginning

that Isaac's not going to die

because evil tests

to corrupt and bind me.

The living God tests me

to grow health and freedom.

Evil tests to corrupt

and bind me.

The living God tests me

to grow health and freedom.

The serpent,

in Genesis 3,

19 chapters before this,

the serpent tests,

and it's really a temptation,

and evil tests Adam and Eve

and the purpose of it

is to corrupt and to bind.

And all the way through the Bible,

God never tempts.

He does things

to reveal to us

and help us to experience

his confidence in us

and his call on our lives.

And every time

we are, in a sense,

tested by God,

we go through maybe

a dark night of the soul

or a lonely walk of faith.

In every case,

the purpose of it is

is for us to draw closer to God.

That's what is in God's heart.

And that as we draw closer to God,

as we see that these things

that may be a year in advance,

a year earlier,

or two years earlier,

or ten years earlier,

or twenty years earlier,

would be unimaginable things,

that as we go through these things,

even though the darkness is real

and the suffering is real

and the loneliness is real,

but as we go through these things

and emerge on the other side,

we realize that God has done this

because he loves us.

He loves me.

And we emerge

wholer,

healthier,

and freer.

And a careful reading of the text

when we see that the language here

is of testing,

we can say,

oh,

Isaac's not going to die.

This is not a story

about the danger.

This is a very profoundly

unsettling thought to us

because we don't hear the text

the way the Bible means

is to hear the text.

This isn't a text,

a story about danger

to Isaac.

Is it a story

that's going to reveal

Abraham's heart

and his potential danger

in terms of whether he knows

who God really is?

It's not a story about Isaac

and the danger to Isaac.

It's a story about Abraham.

And God does this

in the hope

that at the end of it,

that Abraham is more whole,

more healthy,

and more free.

which is what happens

in the story.

An even deeper promise,

an even deeper blessing

from God upon Abraham.

And in the Old Testament,

this language of blessing

is a language of,

it's always,

our intern Daniel says

that it's all about God

wanting us to thrive.

That's a very, very good way

to understand it.

It's all about

a greater potency,

in a sense,

a greater potency,

meaning power for life.

It's all about prosperity.

It's all about,

in a sense,

a greater thriving,

a greater success

in spiritual,

and just potency.

It's all about God

bringing into our lives

greater potency,

greater life,

greater health,

greater wholeness,

greater freedom.

Potency is about freedom.

And so the narrator

says to the reader,

this is going to be a story

about God doing something

with Abraham,

that at the end of it,

he'll be more whole

and more free.

See, one of the things

about this story

is in a sense,

the reading of this story

is our version

of God saying to Abraham,

go and kill your son.

Because the fact of the matter

is this story

reveals something

about my heart

and your heart.

You see,

the Bible constantly

goes after our heart,

the heart being,

what the Bible understands

is the center

of who we are

and in the context

of the living God.

And the fact of the matter

is that even those of us

who follow Jesus

at the center of who we are,

there are parts of us

who are terrified

about getting too close to God

because if we get

too close to God,

he will make us a nutcase.

He will ask us of things

that will make us

unpopular in the eyes

of the world,

ridiculous in the eyes

of the world,

ridiculous in the eyes

of our loved ones,

that will hurt us,

that will belittle us,

that will damage us.

And in fact,

we have that thing

with inside of us

and so in a very small

and mild way

compared to what Abraham

had to go through

with Isaac,

this text is like that.

When we hear

this passage of scripture,

will we trust

that God is good?

Will we trust

that even when God

makes commands

that seem to us

unreasonable

in the eyes

of our culture,

in the eyes

of our culture,

it's only reasonable

to live together

before you marry?

That's not what

the Bible teaches.

That seems unreasonable

to us.

In the eyes of the Bible,

it's because God,

everything is owned

by God

and God puts things

under our care

and so part of the way

that we develop

freedom from money

and don't have money

as an idol in our lives

and because we can live

a more authentically

human life

and because at the heart

of what it means

to be authentically human

is to give,

that he asked us

to give away

10% of our money,

10% of our financial resources

and that's completely

and utterly insane

in a culture

that has pages

and pages

and pages

in the newspaper

written on a weekly basis

about how to make

more money,

not how to give money away,

but how to make

more money

and whether it's

in terms of,

you can go on

and on

and on

that we have

this fear

that getting close

to God

will hurt us

and God wants

to reveal to us

that he is good.

In fact,

that's the whole point

of the story.

If you could put

the second point up,

Andrew,

here it is right here.

The living God

is only good

and he gives

all of himself

to all of me

and all of we.

the living God

is only good

and he gives

all of himself

to all of me

and all of we.

I know it's not

very good grammar

but it's sort of catchy

and it's because

it's not just

a private thing.

This text has

a communal aspect

to it

and he gives

all of himself

and it's interesting

it's something

I didn't know this

until I did the research

at the Hebrew

this is communicated

in a very interesting way.

You see,

for the first,

there's two different names

for God

used in this text.

So we're going to read

the first ten verses

very quickly

and the first word

for God

is Elohim

which basically means

the distant creator,

the all-powerful

distant creator

and the second word

that's going to be used

for God

in this text

is Yahweh

and Yahweh

is the intimate word.

It's the intimate God.

It is both the creator,

great creator God

but it is the God

who gives himself

to human beings

because he desires

to be in a covenant

with human beings.

He desires to be their God

and have human beings

like you and me

who might have worshipped

the moon

and might have accepted

that human sacrifice

is just the way

that the world works

and yet he wants

to call us to himself

and be in a relationship

with us

where he gives

all of himself

to us

in the hope

that as we grow

in the covenant

that we will give

all of ourselves to him

and that's what's symbolized

in the word Yahweh.

And now listen

to this story

where I will say

Elohim,

distant creator God

and Yahweh,

the intimate God

who desires to be

in a relationship

with us

and this is how

the story goes.

Verse 1,

after these things

Elohim tested Abraham

and said to him,

Abraham,

and Abraham said,

here am I.

And Elohim says,

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 the burnt offering

and arose

and went to the place

of which Elohim

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.

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,

to Abraham,

Father Abraham,

my father,

and he said,

here I am,

my son.

And Isaac says,

behold the fire

and the wood,

but where is the lamb

for burnt offering?

And Abraham said,

Elohim will provide

for himself the lamb

for burnt offering,

my son.

So they both of them

went their way together.

When they came

to the place

of which Elohim

had told them,

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.

And then Abraham

reached out his hand

and took the knife

to slaughter his son.

But the angel of Yahweh

called to him from heaven.

The angel of Yahweh

calls to him.

No longer just the God

that Abraham,

he believes that God is good,

but he is the distant creator God.

And now it is Yahweh

who desires to be

in a covenant with Abraham

and with Isaac

and to bless the generations

in the world.

It is Yahweh

who desires to give

of all of himself

to moon God

worshiping people

and call them for himself

and give all of himself,

hoping that they will give

all of themselves to him.

Verse 12,

he said,

do not lay your hand

on the boy

or do anything to him

for now I know

that you fear Yahweh,

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

Yahweh will provide.

As it is said to this day,

on the mount of Yahweh

it shall be provided.

And the angel of Yahweh

called to Abraham

a second time from heaven

and said,

by myself I have sworn,

declares Yahweh,

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 offsprings,

the stars of heaven

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.

The living God

is only good

and gives all of himself

to all of me

and all of me.

So God gives

all of himself to us.

You know,

we have a lot of fear

in our world today

about relationships

and relationships

break down,

marriages break down,

friendships break down,

families break apart,

institutions fail us

and we have this deep fear.

But God is unchanging.

He's always good.

He's only good.

He gives all of himself

and so the response

that God desires from us

is what we see

in Abraham

that goes from this

very, very first call

in chapter 11

to leave his land

and leave the worship

of the God of the moon

and to come and follow God

and to know God

and to be God's people

and to be blessed.

And here,

if you could put it up,

Andrew,

faith in the living God

begins with a sliver of me

and grows towards encompassing

all of me.

Right?

We don't have to have it all together.

We can't always have it.

We'll never have it all together.

We'll never,

ever,

ever,

ever,

ever have it all together.

And you know,

this is just how relationships work.

You know,

my relationship with my wife,

Louise,

began when I first noticed her

in the library stacks

as a philosophy section

of the Carleton University Library.

And there's a sliver of me

that goes out to her.

And then there's sitting

at the library table

and the glances across the table

a sliver of me.

And then there's finally

when I meet her

and I talk to her

and there's a sliver of me.

And the whole part

about a marriage

and a relationship

is it begins with a sliver

but it moves towards

all of me.

That's what a good marriage

is to be,

is to move towards

all of me.

Starts with a sliver

and moves towards all.

And that's how it works.

Abraham doesn't know

everything

when it begins

in chapter 11.

But the direction

of a real and living faith,

it grows

and it moves towards

all of me.

Because God

has given

and offered

all of himself

to us.

Andrew,

could you put up

the second painting?

It's actually not a painting.

It's by Mark Chagall.

I don't know

if I pronounced

that correctly.

It's a sketch

with pastels.

And it's a very,

very interesting,

this is a painter

who is in a sense

haunted by the Christian faith.

He never became

a Christian

to our knowledge.

and we see here

this picture

of the Abrahams

and Isaac.

And in the background,

up in the corner

at the top,

you can see

the crucifixion.

You know,

in a very,

very real way,

Jesus

authenticates

this text.

The text

doesn't authenticate

Jesus.

in a very real way,

it's because,

you know,

in this story,

Abraham says

that God,

Elohim himself,

will provide a lamb.

He provides a ram.

And the very,

very first recorded time

that Jesus is seen

by anybody,

he's introduced

as the Lamb of God

who takes away

the sin of the world.

It's in John's Gospel,

the first recorded time

that Jesus comes about

and is introduced

to his disciples

and is,

behold the Lamb of God.

The people who will become

as a behold

the Lamb of God

who takes away

the sin of the world.

And Christians,

after the death

and resurrection

of Jesus,

and they understand,

they start to understand

Luke 24 talks about it,

all these things

in the Old Testament

that point to Jesus.

And in one sense,

it's because Jesus

rose from the dead

that he authenticates

passages like this.

Yet on the other hand,

it's because of passages

like this

that we understand

the significance

of Jesus.

You see,

this is maybe

before some of your time,

there used to be

a lot of joking

about Elvis was still alive,

that he hadn't died,

that he was still alive.

But if Elvis came back

from the dead,

well, what on earth

would that mean?

Like if Elvis

was in the building,

like what on earth

would that mean?

That would just be weird.

That doesn't fit in

with science,

with philosophy,

with narrative,

with emotions,

with imagery.

It would just be bizarre.

But the resurrection,

the death and resurrection

of Jesus,

it isn't just

something bizarre.

It takes place

within the context

of centuries

of prophecy

and of centuries

of imagery

and an entire narrative

and an entire way

of sort of understanding

the world.

And it takes place

within this larger narrative

and of insight

about the human heart

and about right and wrong

and the nature of God.

So the resurrection

of Jesus comes

as the culmination

of imagery,

of narrative,

of story,

of overarching

meta-narrative

and of ethics

and philosophy

and understanding

of creation.

And it's on this

whole big,

this whole world

that in that context,

the death

and resurrection

of Jesus,

you go,

it fits.

it's not just weird

like Elvis being

in the building,

it fits.

And at the same time,

the death and resurrection

of Jesus becomes a light

and then you look back

on this story

and you look back

on the things

of Abraham

and his only son

and of the promise

of a future lamb

and you understand

on Isaac carrying

the wood

upon which he's going

to be sacrificed

and Jesus carrying

his cross

upon which he's going

to be sacrificed

and you understand

that on one hand,

there's going to be

a true and greater Isaac

who will carry the wood,

that there will be

a true and greater lamb

that will one day

die upon the cross,

that in fact,

all of the imagery

of the story

of the only son,

that it's imagery

and it's linked

and it's all pointing

to Jesus

and at the same time,

the true death

and resurrection

of Jesus,

the empty tomb,

the resurrection appearances,

it vindicates this story.

The fourth point,

Andrew,

God kept his promise

to do what only

he could do,

provide a lamb

as a substitute

for everyone,

Jesus,

the crucified Messiah.

God kept his promise

to do what only

he could do,

provide a lamb

as a substitute

for everyone,

Jesus,

the crucified Messiah.

How do we live?

Two things very briefly

in closing

and I was trying

to figure out

how to word it

and then I figured out

that Romans 8.31

verse 8.32

that Romans

actually does,

8.32 does a great job

to summarize

what this means

for us to live.

Once we receive Jesus

as our Messiah,

the crucified one,

the lamb of God

who takes away

the sin of the world,

once we understand

that God is good,

that he desires

to give himself to us,

that the way

that we understand

this is thinking

and meditating

upon the fact

that God did not

spare his own son

to deal with

our gravest need

so that we can receive

a power of God

for salvation

whereby God himself

gives all of himself

to us

so that we

moon God worshippers

who will willingly

do crazy,

chaotic,

morally insane things

that God calls us

who are at times

morally insane

and he calls us

to himself

to desire to give himself

to us

that we might start

to learn to give

all of ourselves

to him

in the context

of his grip

and what Jesus

does for us

on the cross.

We could have

this fifth point up.

If God did not

spare his own son

but gave him up

for us all,

how will he not

also along with him

graciously give us

all things?

If God did not

spare his own son

but gave him up

for us all,

how will he not

also along with him

graciously give us

all things?

That I can live

every day

praying to Jehovah Jireh,

my provider,

whose grace

is sufficient for me.

An image for the sermon,

Jehovah Jireh,

you're my provider.

My need to have

a difficult conversation,

Father,

you are Jehovah Jireh,