Abraham Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

If we haven't got the chance to meet yet, my name is Glenn, and I get to oversee the worship and production and our protege ministry here.

And today I get to present God's word to you.

It's really a privilege and an honor to get to do so.

So before we dive in today, would you just pray with me as we posture our hearts to hear from God this morning?

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we ask that your Spirit would speak to us this morning.

God, we we all come into this room with different things that are weighing on our hearts.

And I pray that you would just hold them in this time and that you'd keep them from distracting us.

And you would help teach us something new today.

And that through the power of your word, we leave today feeling more encouraged and spurred on in our faith and relationship with you.

God, we pray these things in your son's name.

Amen.

I met my wife in 2020, actually here at the church.

She was in the same small group, it was a Zoom small group because we weren't in person then, as my parents.

My parents were in the same small group as my future wife.

I was not in the small group.

I was living at home, though, and I heard a tremendous amount about this young, beautiful, sweet, kind, awesome, amazing woman named Brittany.

My mom would always talk about her, and I'm like, mom, like, I'm fine.

Like, I don't need to date anyone.

It's fine.

Like, I don't don't set me up, mom.

Classic son things to do.

And a couple months passed after they got to meet her, and Awakening started meeting in person again.

And then I got the opportunity to meet her myself.

Guess what I found out?

My mom was right.

Yep, that's right.

She was right.

Brittany was beautiful, she was kind, she was sweet.

And so I was like, maybe, maybe I'll ask this girl out.

And I hadn't dated anybody for quite some time.

And so I really was wrestling with God, trying to figure out if it was the right time, if this was the right person to step in and explore dating with.

And it really seemed like a green light to me.

She loved Jesus.

She was nice.

Like, all checked all the boxes.

My parents already love her.

I was like, this is gonna be great.

And so I was like, all right, Lord, you know, like stop me if this is not your will, but God, I'm pretty sure this is your will, right, Lord?

And so I went to go reach out to her and see if I could ask her out on a date, and I found out she was dating somebody.

Guys, I was I was so upset.

Um and I'm not proud of this, but I I remember stomping up my parents' stairs and like slamming the door closed when I found this out.

It's so dramatic.

Um, but that is me.

If you don't know me, I'm dramatic.

Um But we've all experienced something like this, right?

Where we've had something good, whether it's a good opportunity or it's a potential relationship, or maybe it's something that we own that's good, something we have.

And then God either takes it from our lives or asks us to surrender it to Him.

And this is really confusing and really hard.

And it prompts us to ask the question, why?

Why would God ask for something good?

We kind of get the idea of God asking for something bad, right?

Like, yeah, get rid of those bad things in my life, I'll surrender them to you, take them away, and I'm a better person.

But as soon as he asks for something good, it's it's hard and it's confusing.

And so this morning we're gonna take a look at this question: why would God ask for you to surrender something good?

We've been in a series looking at the dysfunction in the family of God that's presented in the book of Genesis, and we've seen how God is at work in the midst of the dysfunction and all the sin.

Ryan talked about Cain and Abel, about Babel, about Noah.

And then last week, Dave kicked us off with Abraham part one, and we talked about Abraham.

Today, we're gonna be looking at the final story of Abraham's life, and it's known as the binding of Isaac or the sacrifice of Isaac, to really address this question: what do we do when God asks us to surrender something good and what's going on behind that request?

This passage is probably the most popular of stories about Abraham's life.

You think of Abraham, people probably think of the binding of Isaac.

But at the same time, it's also kind of the more confusing passage to understand.

And this is because of what God asks Abraham, and then because of how Abraham responds.

But I think that we need to not shy away from the difficulty of this passage.

I think it's actually wanting us to ask the questions about its strangeness and about the difficulty of it.

Because from the confusion of this passage and the difficulty of it, we actually can help discern the meaning.

And so, what we're gonna do today is I'm just gonna read through the entirety of this story in Genesis 22.

So if you have Bibles or you have phones, just open up to Genesis 22.

We're gonna read through it.

And then after, I'm gonna just ask two questions that I think the text prompts.

And from those two questions, we can help further understand what is going on here.

Sound good?

Okay.

Sounds good.

Alright, this is Genesis chapter 22, verse 1.

Genesis 22:1

Sometime later, God tested Abraham.

Sometime later is referring to the entirety of Abraham's narrative.

So this is the last story that we're getting.

He said to him, Abraham, here I am, he replied.

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.

This is where the difficulty of the passage comes from, right?

God's asking for Abraham to sacrifice his son.

It's not in God's character.

Thus far in the book of Genesis, it's kind of confusing.

What's going on?

Verse 3.

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey.

He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac.

When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he sent out for the place God had told him about.

On the third day, Abraham looked up and he saw a place in the distance.

He said to his servants, Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there.

And then we get this kind of strange line from Abraham.

He says, We will worship, Isaac and Abraham will worship, and then we will come back to you.

Isaac and Abraham will come back to the servants.

Didn't God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?

Like when he not come back with him?

What's going on here?

Verse 6.

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.

And as the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father, Abraham, Father?

Yes, my son, Abraham replied, The fire and wood are here, Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

Dad, where's the lamb?

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

And the two of them went on together.

Again, kind of a strange comment from Abraham, like, what's going on?

The lamb.

Abraham, you know that the lamb is supposed to be Isaac, but Verse 9.

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it.

He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham.

Here I am, he replied.

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, and there in the thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns.

He went over to the ram and took it, and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

So Abraham played called the place, the Lord will provide, and to this day it is said, On the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.

Then the angel of the Lord called out to Abraham from heaven a second time, and said, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the st stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.

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

Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba, and Abraham stayed in Beersheba.

So God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.

Then without any sort of dispute, Abraham wakes up early the next morning and is like, All right, let's go.

And then Abraham makes some weird comments along the way, and then just as he's about to do what God asks him to do, God stops him and then blesses him for almost sacrificing his son.

So we can kind of see why this passage might be a little confusing to modern readers, right?

Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?

But again, it's from the difficulty of this passage that I think that we can discern the meaning.

And so today, we're going to be taking a look at two questions that this text poses.

The first is why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?

Second, why would Abraham agree to sacrifice his son?

Why would God ask for it?

And why would Abraham agree and follow through with it?

Let's take a look at the first question.

Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?

Well, we need to understand that in the cultural context of Genesis, this is actually sacrifice was normal.

It was not like God talked to me and was like, all right, Glenn, now take your phone and go up to the mountain and destroy it.

Like, that's not how we were.

I mean, if he did that, I hope I'd be obedient.

But that's not how our culture works.

But it is how the culture worked in Genesis.

Surrender or sacrifice was a way of wholly and completely surrendering something to a deity as an act of worship.

It was generally to express gratitude or atonement.

And all that to say is that Abraham would really understand what God meant when he asked for Isaac as a sacrifice.

He would have understood that God was asking Abraham to surrender Isaac, not just to sacrifice him.

It was a giving back to God.

And to really understand the weight of this request, we need to remind ourselves of who Isaac was.

In Genesis chapter 12, God meets Abraham, and it's the beginning of this narrative we get about the life of Abraham.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

And Abraham himself is 75 years old.

And God says, Hey, Abraham, I'm going to bless you.

I'm going to make you into a great nation.

And through your family and through this nation, I'm going to bless all the world.

And so for 10 chapters after that, we get stories about the life of Abraham.

And a lot of the stories, as Dave highlighted last week, are not very good stories.

They're stories of dysfunction.

And what Abraham gets is God's consistent love and faith to him through it all.

And God continues, but he does that by continuing to repeat this blessing that he gave to Abraham at the beginning of the narrative.

He says, I'll bless you.

I'll make you into the great nation.

But there's one really big problem over the whole narrative, over these 10 chapters.

And that is, if God's going to bless Abraham with a great nation, he needs children that are going to become that great nation.

And Abraham did not have children at the age of 75.

And those 10 chapters are a 25-year span.

And Abraham did not have kids.

And again, Dave talked about this last week, how Abraham and Sarah tried to make their own heir.

And God ends up rejecting this heir.

He does bless him, but he clarifies in chapter 17 that Isaac is actually going to be the one to establish the covenant that God made with Abraham.

So God says, not Ishmael, you try, I know you tried your own way.

That's not, it's going to be through you and Sarah, and the son is going to be Isaac.

And I'm going to give this son to you.

So then after 25 years, God gives Isaac to Abraham and Sarah, and he is this promised child.

So Isaac wasn't just a beloved son, he was a child of promise.

So when God's asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, he's also asking him to sacrifice the promise back to him.

So when God is asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, he is asking for Abraham to sacrifice the promise.

And this is why the story is really seen as the climax of the narrative.

The beginning, you get this promise, and then you get the promise reiterated throughout it.

God gives Abraham Isaac.

Okay.

And then you get this last chapter, and then all of a sudden, God's asking for Isaac back.

And God was asking for this because he was testing Abraham.

He was testing Abraham to see if Abraham believed that God would carry out his promise to him.

He was asking him to surrender the promise to see if God would come through.

And we know this because it's in the text.

It's in verse 1.

It says God tested Abraham.

And I think it's important to note here, especially as we're modern readers, that the narrative wants us to know that it was never in God's plan to kill Isaac.

God is not vengeful.

He was not trying to kill a human to be sacrificed to him.

That's not the plan.

The narrative says God was testing, and then there's two outcomes.

Either Abraham responds in obedience and God stops him, or Abraham does not respond in obedience.

Okay, so God was testing Abraham.

That's why he asked for him to sacrifice his son Isaac.

But there's also something else going on here.

God was displaying something through this test to Abraham.

And he was displaying that he is a provider.

God was demonstrating that he will provide.

And this is exactly what happens in the story, right?

Once Abraham and Isaac ascend up the mountain, God provides a ram is a substitute for Isaac.

And then Abraham says, the Lord will provide.

Did you catch that Abraham doesn't say the Lord has provided?

Or the Lord provided for me here, or in this place, the Lord provided for me.

It says the Lord will provide.

And Abraham does this because he's calling out a characteristic of who God is.

This test revealed to him with full and complete confidence that God is a provider and he will provide for us.

And what's really cool is that in the context of the New Testament, we're able to see the binding of Isaac a little differently.

And we're able to see that the provision that's presented in the binding of Isaac doesn't just point to God's general provision and his general characteristics of provision, but it points to a specific provision, the ultimate provision through Christ.

And so the binding of Isaac is a picture of God's ultimate provision to us through Christ.

Okay?

Let me show you how this works and what I mean by this.

So the binding of Isaac and the crucifixion are two stories that parallel each other.

In both stories, there is a son that's going to be sacrificed.

And this son is a child of promise.

The son is a miraculous child.

And then in both stories, the son is a willing sacrifice.

Scholars believe that Isaac was anywhere between the age of 16 and 30 when he was led up the mountain by his father Abraham.

And what that means is he was strong enough to overpower a hundred-plus year old man.

Right?

He trusted his father.

And in the same way, Jesus trusted his father.

When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, this is before he's taken away to be crucified, we have a recording of a prayer that he said to God.

And he says this, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but your will be done.

It's Luke chapter 22, verse 42.

Luke 22:42

And so Jesus was a willing sacrifice.

And then in both stories, God provides that sacrifice.

With Abraham and Isaac, the son is led up the mountain, and then God provides the ram on behalf of the Son.

But in the crucifixion, Jesus is led up and he's crucified.

There's no ram given as a substitute for him.

And that's because Jesus is the sacrifice and the provision and the son in this story.

And so when we read the binding of Isaac, we're able to see the provision that God gives us through Christ.

Because we're able to see the parallels of it.

And even more, this sacrifice, this provision that God gave to us through Christ, which is freedom from sin and death, and the possibility of us to be in relationship with God is received, that blessing is received by grace through faith.

And that's the same way that Abraham received the blessing through faith.

He was obedient to God and trusted that God would come through.

And also, like Abraham, we are asked to surrender to something.

This is why Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew chapter 16: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

God asks us to surrender, and we're able to step into this blessing of surrender by grace through faith.

And so I have a question that I'm going to pose at the end of the teaching today, but I want to bring it up now because I want you to chew on it.

And that is, what is God asking you to surrender?

What is God asking you to surrender this morning?

Because we are asked to surrender something to God.

And again, this parallel between the two stories is really helpful to see God's ultimate provision to us.

It makes the text really applicable to our lives.

And it also helps us to learn from Abraham about what we do when God asks us to surrender something good in our lives.

And so what we're going to do is take a look back at Abraham and see what we can learn from him about what we do when God asks us a hard request like this.

So that brings us to our second question that I posed at the beginning of the teach, and that is why would Abraham agree to sacrifice his son?

And it can be easy when we read this text to think that Abraham was just mechanically obedient and without emotion.

Because remember, in in verse 2, you get God's request to sacrifice his son, and then verse 3, Abraham like immediately goes for it.

Wakes up early the next morning, all right, let's go.

And what's like we can read the text and think, oh wow, Abraham really just doesn't care.

Like what's going on here?

But I want to remind us that this is written in a narrative.

And what that means is we need to pay attention to the narrative techniques that are used.

And we also need to remind ourselves that all the details are picked out with incredible intention to convey a certain purpose.

Have you guys heard of Show Don't Tell?

Do you know what that is?

Yeah?

Some filmmakers will know it in the room.

But it is also a writing technique that uses actions and Details to convey information instead of directly stating it.

Uses actions in details to convey information instead of just blanely stating it.

That's exactly what's going on in the story here.

This is verse 3 of chapter 22.

It says, early the next morning, Abraham got up and loaded his donkey.

Why do you think it says early the next morning?

Why doesn't it say the next day or the next morning?

Why does it say early?

I don't know about you, but when I'm stressed out about something, I cannot sleep.

Could it be that the text wants us to ask the question, what's going on in Abraham's head?

Could it be that the text is just saying something that might feel bland at first, but it's suggesting something more?

And this is not the first time it does it.

In verse 4, after the three-day journey Abraham has with his two servants and his son, there's this dramatic moment where Abraham pauses and looks up and sees the place in the distance that God asked him to sacrifice his son.

It's really dramatic.

And just what is he thinking in his head?

The narrative wants us to fill in the blanks, be like, oh, is that hard?

That was stressful.

What's going on?

And then from here on out, we get more and more details in the story.

We get some dialogue between Abraham and his son, and then we get a bunch of actions as he's building the altar, as he's binding his son, as he's placing his son on the altar, as he's reaching out with his hand to grab the knife.

He says he's about to kill his son.

And what the narrative is doing is it's creating tension to let us know that the obvious is indeed true.

And that is that this was a tense, dramatic situation, and that surrender is not easy.

We get this.

We don't want to surrender something, right?

But it's helpful for us to see this in the scripture because we're able to find good company with Abraham knowing that it wasn't easy.

We can't know his thoughts.

But what we can see is the text suggests there's a lot of tension and drama, and it says, hey, when God asks you to surrender something good, it can be really hard and it can be tense.

And the Bible acknowledges that.

And at the same time, Abraham was obedient, right?

He was obedient to God.

And so, again, why would Abraham agree to sacrifice his son?

Well, because Abraham actually knew God and he was confident in his character.

Remember, Abraham was 75 years old when God met him in Genesis 12.

And then he had a quarter of a century with God, of God consistently reaffirming this promise to him and consistently blessing him, regardless of his obedience and disobedience.

God was faithful and God was really, really good to Abraham.

And so Abraham knew God.

He'd seen him show up over and over again.

Where has God shown up for you?

Where has God shown up for you?

As I was wrestling and trying to figure out what I wanted to share about how God has shown up for me, I was encouraged to share something that's maybe you might think of as a smaller story.

And that's because sometimes when we are asked this question of, like, oh, where's God shown up for you?

We like to think about the big ways that He has shown up for us, the really dramatic things.

And those are really, really good, and we need to hold on to those.

But this morning, I just feel the prompting to give you guys a reminder that God consistently shows up for you.

And the little things, too.

It's not just the big things, He's consistently showing up for you.

Earlier this week, I was at a couple of my friends' houses, actually, some friends here from the church, and I was helping them learn how to play the bass.

And just as I was about to leave, one of my friend's wives came out and she said, Hey, can I pray for you?

She knew that I was teaching this weekend.

She probably thought that I was stressed about it.

But she didn't know that I was really anxious, like deeply anxious, to the point where I couldn't sleep.

I was having nightmares, you know.

And so my friend comes out and prays for me because of a prompting that she had from God.

And in that moment, the Lord showed up for me.

He showed up for me in those 10 minutes in that prayer, and he carried me through his church body.

And so the way that God shows up for you doesn't have to always look super dramatic.

It can be these small things.

And it's frequently through his word and through his church body.

So again, where is God shown up for you then?

Where has God shown up for you?

Abraham had remembered where God showed up for him, and he was able to remind himself in God's character, and he was confident in it.

But Abraham also sacrificed his son because he believed that God would provide what he promised.

He believed in God's promise.

The author of Hebrews says that Abraham was so convinced that God was going to carry through this promise that even if Abraham killed his son Isaac, God would raise him up from the dead just to keep his promise to him.

And this explains those kind of confusing comments that we get in the text where Abraham's like, we will worship and then we will return back to you.

Or when Abraham's talking to his son, he says, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.

Abraham didn't know that there's going to be a ram at the top, but he was convinced that God was going to come through and he was going to keep his promise.

What has God promised you?

This question might be a little bit harder to answer than how has God showed up for you.

And it's probably because we don't want to be wrong about God's promises.

Or maybe we don't believe that God will come through.

And what I want to do this morning is remind you that in the Bible, we have actually a lot of promises that God gives to his believers, the followers of Jesus.

And we need to be discerning on whether or not the promise is given to us.

But this morning I'm going to read a couple of these promises to hopefully encourage you and remind you of what God has promised you.

In the book of Matthew, after Jesus is crucified and comes back from the dead, he meets with his disciples.

And he says to them this all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Think about that.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Guys, that's everything.

Everything.

All authority has been given to Jesus.

Therefore, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I commanded you.

And then here's the promise he gives to his disciples, to his followers, to us.

And surely I am with you always to the very ends of the age.

I am with you always to the very ends of the age.

Jesus, who has authority over all things, promises to be with you to the very ends of the age.

And he doesn't just promise to be with us.

And he's coming back, and he's going to make a new heaven and a new earth.

And it's going to be a wonderful, beautiful place.

And the author of Revelation talks about this.

And so if we take a look at Revelation 21, he talks about this place that God is going to make and what it's going to be like.

The author says, And I hear a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.

He's talking about this new heavens, this new earth.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

And they get this, guys.

This is the promise of the future.

There will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain.

No more death, mourning, crying, or pain.

For the old order of things has passed away.

Church, these are the promises God gives to us.

And these are the things we get to cling to when he asks for us to surrender something good, to surrender something really hard.

So what is God asking you to surrender this morning?

A couple months passed after I found out that Brittany was asked out by someone else.

And to be honest, I was pretty frustrated with God.

Again, I thought I was given the green light, and I was like, everything, all the pieces fell into place.

This is so good.

What's going on, Lord?

And he eventually helped me get into this posture of surrender over our relationship and over dating and what the future looked like for me in that.

And little did I know, God was setting me up really well for a marriage.

I was just trying to ask this girl out.

I didn't know I was going to marry her.

But God did.

And he knew that if I was not going to surrender her, I was not going to hold that relationship with open hands, it probably wouldn't have ended well.

It probably would have ended.

And so God was asking me to surrender, not to bless, not to hurt me, but to bless me.

And the same is true for you guys.

God is asking you to surrender because he wants to provide for you.

He wants to show you that he is a provider and he wants to bless you.

And things don't always turn out the way we think.

We may not get that job back, we may not get that relationship back.

I don't know for you.

But we can rest in confidence knowing that God will provide for you.

And sometimes we can't even see what the best outcome is going to be.

Actually, we we almost never can.

God does, though.

And he wants to bless you through surrender.

And this morning, if it's the first time God's asking you to surrender, or maybe it's the first time that you're kind of willing to surrender to God, I want you to know that he wants you to step into those promises that I just read.

He wants to provide for you.

Scripture says that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, we believe in our heart, we are saved.

We're able to step into this kingdom.

And so if that is you this morning, we're going to pray in a minute here.

I just want to encourage you to confess that Jesus is Lord.

And for the rest of you, as you're thinking about what is God asking you to surrender this morning, I encourage you during this the final set today of worship, would you just open your hands in a posture of release?

And would you speak out what God is having you surrender this morning?

Would you just speak it out to him?

Say, God, I surrender my job.

God, I surrender this relationship.

God, I surrender my health.

Whatever it is, speak it out to him this morning.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you that you are a provider.

Thank you for providing yourself for us.

God, I just pray over those of us in the room who are maybe surrendering to you for the first time.

God, I ask that you encourage them.

I ask that you would bring people around them.

And Lord, I pray over our church as we are holding something that we need to surrender to you this morning.

God, we acknowledge that it is not easy.

And we ask that you would remind us of the ways that you've shown up for us.

And you would remind us of the promises that you've given to us.

So that maybe we can just release these things to you, God.

Lord, we love you.

Lord, we trust you.

We pray all these things in your son's name, the name above all authority of heaven and earth.

Amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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