Can You Trust God With What Matters Most? (Genesis) | Legacy of Faith: Week 3

Good morning, everyone.

Good to see you this morning.

Life is about as you're walking with Christ, surrendering to his will.

And that's in some ways the story of Abraham, which we've been looking at over the last few weeks.

The legacy that Abraham left us is the legacy that is true for all of God's people and available to them.

And that's why we're studying his life.

When you come to the end of a semester of school, doesn't seem to matter what level of school it is, you are presented with a test.

Now, we've all been there where we've had to prepare for the day when we are going to be examined as to how much of the information did we get?

And do we have enough information to be able to pass the test?

And so the story of Abraham, which began in Genesis 15, which we looked at, God calling him to go to a faraway place that he hadn't seen, that story wraps up here this morning in Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

As Abraham is exceedingly tested throughout his life, he finally comes to the final exam recorded for us here in this passage.

And what is the exam?

God says that he's going to, we learn in the text, he's going to test Abraham.

And so the story is about a test that God gives to Abraham.

Not that God ever intended to have Isaac be sacrificed because God condemns child sacrifice in his word.

He condemns the other pagan religions around Israel for that very thing.

And that's why at the beginning of the story we're told Abraham was being tested.

God wants to find out if through the experience of his life, Abraham has learned what God has wanted him to learn.

And Abraham is a story for all of us because we all share in the same kinds of tests.

The Bible tells us that the testing of our faith works patience.

So if you're a believer, you've followed Christ, you walk with him, you're trusting God, you believe in his word, you, like Abraham, are going to be tested as well.

So let's learn from the life of Abraham how he passed this test and how you can pass the tests that you face also.

Genesis chapter 22, a legacy of surrender, how Abraham learns and what Abraham trusts.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

Genesis 22, verses 1 through 2 says this.

Genesis 22:1–2

Well, now, when we think about this story and this sacrifice of Isaac, there is a lot more that Abraham is laying on the altar than just his son.

There's a whole lot of things that are being put on this altar.

And I want you to take a look with me at the four things that Abraham surrenders to God.

Because when Isaac is bound and put on this altar on Mount Moriah, these things are being laid down.

And I want to show you why and how this works in the story of Abraham.

Four things that Abraham surrendered to God.

First, he surrendered his fear and replaced it with the fear of God.

Now you remember the story as we looked at the last couple of weeks.

Abraham was filled with fear.

He was a faith-filled man, but he wrestled, as all human beings do, with fear.

Now the Bible says we have three enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

And each one of them can be enemies to our soul in the area of our faith by raising fear in our hearts.

In fact, the kingdom of darkness is a kingdom completely motivated by fear, that completely uses fear to keep people from expressing and exercising their faith.

What are you worried about this week?

What inside of your heart is fearful to you?

What inside of your heart terrifies you?

What is it that you're wrestling with that you're afraid will happen?

Hasn't happened, may never happen, but you're worried that it might.

How many times do you read Jesus say, fear not?

Why does he say that?

Because people who are often symbolized by sheep in the Bible, people like sheep are easily afraid.

They're afraid of a different voice from that of their own shepherd.

They're afraid of the lion that's outside of the gate.

They're afraid there won't be enough grass to eat in the field when they wake up.

They're afraid there's not enough water.

They're afraid that they'll fall down, end up with their feet in the air, and never be able to move again.

They have all kinds of fears, apparently.

At least talking to shepherds.

They tell you that sheep are afraid of a bunch of different stuff.

And all we like sheep, the Bible says, also have the fear of going astray.

Abraham was afraid.

Think about the things that he did.

He worked up a story with his wife Sarah because he was afraid that the king of Egypt, or Abimelech, would want his beautiful wife, would kill him, take his wife, and take all of his money.

He was afraid.

So was Sarah.

What did they do?

They devised a plan because why?

Their hearts were afraid.

But now notice when Isaac gets put on the altar, at the end of this story, God shows up in Genesis chapter 22 and verse 12, and he says, This do not lay a hand on the boy, he said.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

God said to Abraham.

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.

The Bible warns us about fearing the wrong thing.

Did you know that?

The Bible warns us about fearing the wrong thing.

Jesus says, Don't fear people who can persecute you, accuse you, throw you in jail, and even take your life.

Don't fear those people.

You should fear God, who can throw both your body and soul into hellfire.

The psalmist and the writer of Proverbs says, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

It seems like there's a theme that approaches our hearts when we read the scriptures and we see the story of Abraham.

A man like us, filled with fear at times about real things that should cause fear.

You know, it's not like Abraham was imagining this fear.

It was a real fear.

Those Egyptian kings and pharaohs and the kings of the Middle East, they had harems a mile wide.

And they took every beautiful woman who came into their territory.

That's not an unreasonable fear that Abraham has.

It's not unreasonable.

God asked him to go to a land I'll show you.

He knows he's got to go through places like this.

He's got legitimate fear.

It doesn't stop him from going.

But it's not like he's not wrestling with this tension between faith and fear.

We all know what that is.

We're human beings.

The Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

You see him praying and dropping blood drops off of his forehead?

Oh, he wants to, in obedience to the command of his father, go to the cross.

He knows he must.

But in the humanness of his being, he wasn't want any, he doesn't want to die on that cross.

The pain and suffering of the most horrifying, terrible way of dying that there ever was invented by man.

But not only was he a, he knew that when he got there, his father, with whom he had eternity together in intimate fellowship as one, was going to turn his back on him.

The horror of being a sinless person who, in a moment, at the cross, the one who knew no sin became sin.

You know how when you're walking with God and you have a holiness in your heart and you're tempted and you just it reviles you?

And then when you're not walking so much with God and you get tempted and you can consider it, and then when you're really not at all considering God and his word, you actually succumb to it.

Think about the difference in how you feel.

The holier you are, the more horrific temptation is.

So imagine the holy God without sin, tempted in every way, yet without sin.

Imagine the agony of his soul as he thinks about becoming that.

But he surrendered to the will of God, didn't he?

And so does Abraham.

I see now, Abraham, that you fear me more than you fear anything else.

I've just asked you for the near impossible, and you were gonna do it.

Secondly, he surrendered his control and rested in God's provision.

We know Abraham is constantly strategizing and trying to control his circumstance.

And as he proceeds to walk with God, this issue of being able to dictate the outcome is something that Abraham has to learn to rest and trust and put into God's hand.

Now, we all have an outcome we desire, and who in the world really would mention the Oregon ducks from the stage.

I think we should all say we are.

Oh, well, wonderful.

At any rate, there's just some things you can't control, right?

There's just some things you cannot control.

And Abraham recognized that he was gonna have to let go and trust God.

And he could have asked a million questions.

Why this?

Why now?

Why there?

And all of that could have been something he would succumb to.

But notice what Genesis 22, verse 8 says about Abraham, when God said to do this.

Genesis 22:8

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

And the two of them went on together.

You see, Abraham was a man who worshiped God.

And you can see in the journey of Abraham as he comes through the Holy Land and the Promised Land, uh, regularly he creates an altar where he worships, and in the commands of God and the worship of God, a sacrifice is required on an altar, a burnt offering that is offered to God as a substitute and a replacement for the sin of the person making the offering.

So instead of us coming into the presence of a holy God and being obliterated, what God did was to say, you can take an animal, you can take a lamb, you can take this animal, put it on the altar, sacrifice it, offer it up as a burnt offering on the altar, it goes up into the presence of God.

We are then cleared to worship God, this holy God, who could splat us in a moment's notice if we ignore his holiness.

But God doesn't want to do that.

He wants to fellowship with his friend Abraham.

And how does it happen?

Abraham brings a sacrifice to the altar.

And you will see in the story of Abraham, he's building altars and he's worshiping God.

He's a man who worships God.

Now he's asked to go and make a sacrifice.

And as he's asked to go, he knows that on the altar a sacrifice must be presented.

You cannot come into the presence of God without a sacrifice.

That's what God's word tells us again and again and again.

Once Adam and Eve sinned, he cast them out of the garden, he took an animal, and he slayed the animal and covered their nakedness.

And that's what a sacrifice is.

God takes something else other than you, he kills it, and then he clothes you with the results of it.

So when God says the blood covers the sin, it's God's way of saying, I'm going to give you a way to approach me.

Now, because we're not holy in our own being, we're born of Adam's seed, and therefore we receive Adam's sin nature when we're born, we aren't holy in and of ourselves.

We are far from that.

We are fallen, even though we're made in the image of God.

Which means that we do not really, in any real sense, recognize the terror of standing in the presence of the holy God.

The Israelites had a whole system set up where only one time a year could the high priest go into the very presence of God into the Holy of Holies, and they were so afraid of God that they wrapped a rope around the high priest's leg and put bells on his garments so that they knew he was still walking around and the God hadn't killed him, and they wanted a way for them to pull him out from underneath the curtain in case God decided to strike him dead.

They were afraid.

They had a fear that the Almighty Holy God could obliterate them if he so chose.

In fact, so holy was God that they refused to say the name of God, Yahweh, which is the Hebrew verb for I am, they would not say that name out loud.

In fact, they took and they pointed the put points above the letters of God's name so that when they pronounced it, they wouldn't have to pronounce his name.

They were so afraid to even speak the name of the Holy One.

This is Abraham's knowledge, too.

You just don't walk willy-nilly into the presence of God.

You know, God is not uh George Burns or Morgan Freeman coming down to meet you in a cafe so that you can part the soup.

You know, that's not God.

That's mankind's unholy view, that God somehow can just be easily, eh, it's just God.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

You cannot come into the presence of God without a covering, without some kind of a sacrifice having been made so that your sin, which renders you completely killable, can be taken care of so that you can have a conversation with the God who loves you.

God does love you, he loves me.

But you just can't enter into the presence of the Almighty in your own merit.

It doesn't work.

God says there's no way that you can do that.

So Abraham is gonna trust that God will provide the sacrifice because he's not taken one other than his son.

And that's so he says to his son when his son asks the question, Well, where's the sacrifice?

And Abraham says, What?

God will provide it.

God will provide the sacrifice.

Let go and let God control the sacrifice.

That's what he's basically saying.

Now there's a third thing he surrenders here, and that is his strategy for figuring out a solution so he doesn't actually have to carry this out.

In verse 19 of Hebrews chapter 11, the author of Hebrews gets inside of Abraham's thinking and his heart, because Abraham is very quiet on the journey.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

If you read the story in Genesis 22, he doesn't say anything the whole way until Isaac asks him where the sacrifice is at.

But the author of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gets us inside of Abraham's heart and Abraham's thinking.

And Abraham is, here's what Abraham's thinking as he's walking.

Hebrews 11, 19.

Here's what it says.

Abraham considered.

Now, remember, Abraham's quiet on this journey, and he's doing a lot of thinking.

You know, I kind of think Abraham on this journey is like a duck.

Very calm above the surface, but paddling like crazy underneath.

That was Abraham's life.

I'm gonna walk by faith, but man, my wheels are turning because I've got to figure out how this thing is actually going to work.

And that's what he tried to do, the entire story, right?

Now he comes to the place, and the author of Hebrews says this as Abraham was thinking about taking his son Isaac, and there's no question that he's gonna offer Isaac on this altar, and he's considering all of this reality.

It's a horrible thing that he's facing.

He considered that God was able even to raise Isaac from the dead.

Here's Abraham's thought.

If I do have to put Isaac to death, I know that God can raise him off of this altar after I kill him.

Man.

Okay.

I can't figure out how you're gonna do this, God, but you can, and I figure, I guess, that if I have to go all the way through with this, this isn't the end.

You have the power to raise him from the dead.

That's incredible.

How many of us could get to a place like that with being asked to give the most precious thing in our life?

The most precious thing that God asked him to give the ultimate thing.

Finally, this fourth thing that Abraham surrenders, and that is he surrenders his future.

Wow.

Do you remember when Abraham was called by God in Genesis 15?

What God asked Abraham to do was to surrender his past.

Leave, leave.

Leave it.

I want you to leave that behind and come with me on a journey.

Now, at the end of Abraham's life, God goes after the only thing that Abraham has hope in about his future, and that is that his only son, the son of promise, would carry on his legacy beyond him.

And now God is basically saying, take Isaac, the son you love, take him and offer him to me.

You see, God wanted not only Abraham's past, but his entire future.

What was Abraham asked to give up?

Everything.

Every single thing that God had talked to him about all the way back there when he was in Haran.

Every single thing God's now asking him to give up.

The land that was promised to him, the offspring who would bless the nations and through whom a multitude of people would come, the promise of a legacy that Abraham would be made into a great nation, all of the things that God had promised were wrapped up in this one thing.

And God said, That is the thing I want.

Let me test you to see if you're willing to even give me that.

Full circle here in the story of Abraham, isn't it?

See, when he's getting ready to put Isaac on the altar, everything in Abraham's life, everything that he had lived, everything that he had done is wrapped up in this son Isaac.

That Isaac is everything.

His descendants will inherit the land.

Through him will come the promised Messiah.

Through him, the blessing of his father's name to be made great.

Through him, the blessing of all nations.

And God says, that is what I want.

Now, have you ever heard this verse?

My ways are not your ways, says the Lord.

My thoughts are not your thoughts, says the Lord.

You ever hear that verse?

Yeah, don't you think that applies to this story?

Like, what?

All right, let me get this straight, God.

You made this promise and this promise and this promise and this promise.

You've protected Abraham all these years.

Yeah, he's made plenty of mistakes along the way.

He really wasn't a great husband.

And, you know, was trying to figure out life on his own terms.

And I mean, yeah, all these promises you made to him, God, now you're gonna take it all back, you Indian giver.

Sorry, that might not be correct.

Sorry.

Um I mean no harm by that.

Um God, you're gonna take back what you gave.

My ways are not your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts.

says the Lord.

Well, he surrendered his future and put Isaac on the altar, and here's what he says in Genesis twenty-two, fourteen.

So Abraham called that place, the Lord will provide.

Jehovah Jireh.

The Lord will provide.

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

Okay, Lord, I believe you'll provide.

Now what is Abraham believing that he'll provide?

Well, here's what I want you to go back and remember with me.

Remember early on in the series I said Abraham is an archetype of every person of faith who's ever lived.

And he is an archetype, that is, he is the example of the experience of what every person of faith goes through.

So let me share with you how that's true as we close the series.

Alright.

Abraham is at this place of sacrifice with Isaac.

Here he is at the altar.

And he has laid all these things when he's placed Isaac on this altar he has laid all of these things we've just talked about.

He has laid them there.

But here is Abraham's journey of faith.

Are you ready?

Step one Abraham do you believe that I have a place for you out there that will be yours, that will be better than anything you've experienced here and where you will be completely fulfilled and not only you but your entire family will be blessed.

Do you believe that?

And did Abraham believe it?

Yes he did.

He got up and he left and he went for forward to what he went forward to a land that God would show him.

Hebrews says that he was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God.

Abram was looking for a city but not just any city.

He was looking for a city whose builder was God.

I hear the words of Jesus say to you, dear Christian friend I am going to prepare a place for you.

Abraham was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God.

And what are you asked to believe?

That somewhere out there somewhere out there that carpenter named Jesus is building you a place a place far better than this place.

A place far better than this one.

A place where there's no more tears no more joy no more pain no more suffering.

A place where there's complete and total joy a place that's out there.

Oh it seems so far away and I haven't seen it and doggone it.

My house is really nice and I like it.

I love it.

My routine I love my routine being able to preach and not pastor after 40 years of having done that is pretty I like that routine.

And thanks to Pastor Dan for still giving me an opportunity.

I love them.

I love living in lids oh it's so real I go out into my truck I love my truck put that in there it's a Chevy which I always owned forged until the deal was too good to pass up.

And it's not a Dodge where my dad worked for my dad worked for Mopar back when he was out of the army and you know please don't try to start me please don't try to start me when you turn the never mind I love so much about my life I haven't loved so much the suffering.

There's been plenty of that in my life I haven't cared very much for being misunderstood at times.

I haven't enjoyed that but I'll tell you one thing whether it's been joyful or whether it's been hard one thing I know for sure it's been real yep it's made out of the elements of planet Earth it's going to hold me up I think because it's been built well and we're in a real building that's been put together well and yep I can feel it I can touch it I can see it yes sir it's mine not really but you know what I mean but out there supposedly there's something better do I believe it do I believe it can't touch it can't see it can't feel it you any different than me or Abraham no no no the journey of faith is believing that there's a better place out there and you've started with God on the journey to that place.

And when this place pulls on your heart and it will and you will try to hold on to things that maybe you can't God keeps calling you to look forward not look back to look forward and fix your eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of your faith not to look at all the pretty things that surround you boy it's hard isn't it but the journey of faith is about continuing to walk and fixing our eyes on that city whose builder and maker is God.

That's what Abraham was doing and God has asked you to do exactly the same thing.

Secondly Abraham says that God will provide the lamb he didn't know where the sacrifice was going to come from but he was he was but he believed this that the sacrifice would be provided.

And what do you believe dear Christian?

Don't you believe there was a day when God sent his son his only son the son that he loves the son of the covenant and he gave him to you and said here is the lamb right?

And where is your faith placed?

Because since you can't come to God without a sacrifice and without a clothing that covers your sin, what is the sacrifice that you're coming into the presence of God with well like Abraham said God will provide the lamb so you and I believe that God has provided the lamb too the lamb who is without blemish or without spot the lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world the lamb of whom it is declared worthy is the lamb the lamb who alone can open up the scroll that's been sealed.

You come with that lamb just like Abraham came with the belief that God would provide the sacrifice so that you could stand in his presence.

And when God provided that sacrifice he didn't provide a sacrifice that you had to bring again and again and again like the Israelites like Abraham and all of those who worshiped at these altars brought he offered you a one time permanent sacrifice for sin that is always yours and that allows you to walk into the very presence of God and not only enter into the presence of the holy God but to enter anytime you want and to call him dad.

Is this your faith?

Is this not the same faith Abraham had?

That God would provide the sacrifice so that you could go anytime into the presence of God?

Yes of course it is and then dear friend when Abraham got to the altar and the time came for Isaac to be sacrificed the writer of Hebrews as we looked at said he believed that God could raise the dead guess what?

If you're a Christian what is the essence of your faith if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, finish the next sentence and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.

See Abraham comes to this mount Mount Moriah it says do you know where Mount Moriah is in 2 Chronicles 3 it's the place where King Solomon builds the temple.

It's the exact same spot it's David's threshing floor.

And Solomon takes that place the temple mount some of you have been there's a big old mosque sitting on it now but at one point in time Solomon's temple was there.

You know what they did in the temple?

They sacrificed the sacrifice to God in the Holy of Holies.

And you know what happened in the mountains of Moriah?

The altar of Calvary was built there.

And while God intervened and spared Isaac God would not intervene and spare Jesus his own son because God knew that he would raise him from the dead and now your faith is the faith of Abraham if you've come to God through faith in Jesus Christ and believe that God raised him from the dead and the Bible tells us that Jesus was the first fruits of those who would rise from the dead and then the rest of us in due time will complete the harvest of resurrection.

Jesus says he's going to return from heaven with a shout and the dead in Christ shall be raised Paul says this resurrection hope is the essence of our faith it's what separates us from every other faith on planet earth.

Our Savior who lived the perfect sinless life became the sacrifice for our sin and rose from the dead conquering both sin and death and he's done that for you and he's called you to journey with him to the place where you will see him no longer by faith but by sight.

Someday you're going to look into the eyes of your Savior and you're going to see it and heaven will be real that day my friend when the new Jerusalem and the new earth are made real to your eyes right now you see them by faith just like Abraham did.

Now I want to close with this because this is really the story.

The entire story I'm convinced after studying it for a long time my whole life really God says Abraham I'm really what you're looking for.

I am your reward and Abraham says no that's not enough.

I need something else I need an heir so God in his grace gives him an heir and then he begins developing him he begins journeying with him he begins transforming him and now we come to this last passage of Abraham's testing and now God asks for the very thing in sentence number one that Abraham had with God I don't have an heir and God said I'll give you an heir.

Now he comes to the end of life and God says okay Abraham remember how I showed up and I said I'm your great reward and you said that wasn't enough you needed an heir all right I want the air what's the essence of the test Abraham your first conversation with me was I wasn't enough now I want to see if you think that I am how about you is God enough if you had nothing else and God showed up and he said I'm your great reward is God enough that's really the whole story of faith.

God has you on a journey to get to the place where when you see him you will fall down in worship for seeing the one you love in all of his glory and in all of his presence and you will abide with him forever and you will see the one face to face who you've been journeying with by faith these many years.

Well I don't know what needs to go on the altar of your surrender, but I do know this that walking with God by faith means you've been called to a place out there better than the one you have here.

Walking by faith means trusting that the provision God made in the Lamb takes away your sins forever.

And walking with God by faith means you know that this life and the end of this life is not the end of this life.

Because God is not a God of the dead but of the living.

So where are you at in your journey?

Have you come to the conclusion that you're holding on to things that really are not nearly as important as God himself?

And are you willing to just simply say God keep developing me so that my heart will fulfill the greatest commandment the commandment that keeps all other commandments so that all the idols of my life are forsaken and so that there's only the worship of one so that I might love the Lord my God with all my heart all my soul all my might that's where God is aiming to take you because in him your fullest desires will be fulfilled.

Father we thank you that when Abraham laid Isaac on the altar what he was basically saying was God I didn't think you alone were enough but now I know that you are and all of the things that matter to me if I entrust them into your care you'll not only give me yourself, you'll give me all of the other things that my heart holds dear as well.

So Father whatever it is that we need to trust you with may you increase our faith that we might trust you with it.

And may we rejoice in the gospel this pearl of great price the good news that there's a way into your presence and that there is a way to fellowship with you forever and forever.

We worship you now through Jesus our Savior in whose name I pray.

Amen