On the Mountain: When God Asks the Impossible

Well, hey, good morning everybody. Happy Father's Day

to all the dads out there. And yeah, I just

gotta start out by giving it up to my wife. She got me this sweet

shirt for Father's Day. Our dog's name is Blitz, and that's pictures of

him. And this is an all-timer Father's Day gift for me, alright. This is just

great. But hey, it's Father's Day. We're gonna celebrate the dads today. Hey,

on the way in, and if you guys saw them, there's some Some drinks out

there. Some seasoning. Like some barbecue rub. Please, on your way out,

grab one of those. If you want a root beer, a cream soda.

There's some other stuff out there. Hey, if you want to go steal one right

now, dads. You earned it. Pop open a cold one here in service. Right?

We'll do that here at Refuge. It's gonna be a good, good Sunday. Just celebrating

dads. But hey, while you guys are here on Father's

Day. Here's the deal, dads. Showing up for your family

and your family's faith. It matters. Your walk with

Jesus matters. And so I kind of just want to give it up to you.

Keep showing up for your family spiritually. It is so,

so important. And I'm going to step on my own toes a little bit.

It is so much more important than a fastball or a jump

shot, right? Your family's faith is so much more important. So you guys are here.

You're on Father's Day. Keep showing up for your family. They need you

to show up spiritually. They need you share your faith with them. You are so

important to your family. Keep up the good work.

All right. You matter so much, dads. Keep doing

the good work. You're here. So hey, today we're going to be looking at a

passage. And it's honestly, it's just so,

so challenging. It's a hard passage. And it's one of

those where like you read it and it's hard. And then like living it out,

it's like really challenging. How do we do that? And yet it is a

perfect picture of how God is our Father and

how much he loves us and how he does for us what

we cannot do for ourselves. But before we get into the Word,

let's get our hearts ready for what God has for us this morning. Would you

put your arms out with your palms up? Close your eyes.

Just a posture of surrender.

Take a deep breath.

And remember, God is just as near as the

air you're breathing.

Let's pray. God, today would you guide us closer

to you? Help our minds put away the frustrations of

the past week, to put away the distractions of the coming week.

We want to fully focus on you. We come empty with nothing

to offer but surrender. Fill us up as only you

can. Holy Spirit, move in here today with power. We believe

that in advance. We ask all these things in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hey, if you've

got your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

Side note. We're just gonna kind of kick this off. I'm just gonna make a

little aside here. Bring— start bringing your physical Bible. Alright. I know we're on the

Bible app. I know we got stuff there. There's something about this that's really helpful.

Do you know what it is? You can't get a text message on

this. Alright. You can't get a notification that your Ring doorbell went

off. You can't get distracted by the Word of God. And if you get distracted

during a message reading the Word of God, I'm gonna give you a pass on

that. Alright. That's good to say. Be bringing our physical

Bibles. Alright. Genesis chapter 22 is what we're gonna be looking at. We're gonna be

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

looking at the first 18 verses there. And here's the deal.

It's a story about a dad and his son going up

the mountain to present an offering to God. Let me remind

you, this is a challenging passage. So let's just jump right

into it. Verse 1, this is just the first part of it. It says this.

Sometime later. Sometime later. Alright.

God tested Abraham's faith.

The passage that we're about to read is about God testing

Abraham's faith. I've heard it said that God,

he tests us to make us strong. And Satan tempts

us to make us wrong, right? He tests us to make us strong. Satan tempts

us to make us wrong. And here's the deal. In this passage, God is testing

Abraham's faith. And testing is

not what any of us want to experience. Can I get an amen? Like,

I don't like tests, right? I've heard of fantasy football teams making

the last person, as an act of punishment, go and take the

ACT, right? Like, going and taking a test as a punishment, right? Like,

no one likes a test. It's not enjoyable. But here's the deal,

without the test, you never know the strength that

you have. There's no way to know unless you do the test.

In our backyard, we've got this big cottonwood tree. It's huge. It's got this

branch that's like, it's perfectly set up for a swing. And so

we've got a swing out there. And when the first time, when we got it

set up, I went first.

Because I wanted to test it, right? Because if it could hold me,

then it could hold my kids. I test it so I know it's strong enough.

Because as embarrassing as it would have been to get on the swing and have

the branch break and me hit the ground and then the branch hit me,

that would have been a bad deal. That far

outweighs the guilt I would have felt if I didn't test it and my kids

got on there and it did that to them, right? It would have been so

much worse if it happened to them. And if we want

to be really honest with God when he tests us, because it's a challenge.

We have to do the test to reveal the strength. And God tests

Abraham's faith. And his faith is found to be strong.

The only way you can actually determine the strength of anything is to put it

to the test. And God tests us to show our strength.

And if we're really honest, when he tests us, he shows his strength

in us. Because there's so many times where we fail. There's so many times where

we don't make it. And it's not us coming through, it's actually God coming through

on our behalf. So God is going to test Abraham's

faith. And we only read

one little part of verse 1. And I'm just telling you, this test is

going to be insane. Full disclosure. Alright,

so let's go to the second part of verse 1. It says,

Abraham, God called. And he said, yes, here I am.

If you've never read this story, you're going to be blown away by this next

verse. Verse 2, he says, take your son,

your one and only son, yes, Isaac, whom you love so

much. Go to the land of Moriah. All right. Go and sacrifice

him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I

will show you. Come again? Right.

Like, that is one heck of a sacrifice. Of a test. He is telling

Abraham to go and sacrifice his one and only

son. A little bit of backstory if you weren't familiar. It's like,

that already is enough. It's not just that he's saying, hey, I need you to

go sacrifice your one and only son. This is Isaac. This is the son

that he had waited years for. This is the son that

he thought would never happen. The Bible says that Abraham was

100 and Sarah Isaac's mom was 90 when

Isaac was born. I mean, they had completely given up hope on having children

until God provided them with this miracle child,

Isaac. So this is the son that God miraculously

has provided for them in their old age.

And now he's talking with God and God is saying, hey, we're going to go

to the mountain and you're going to offer your one and

only son. As a sacrifice.

It reminds me of the book of Job. Job, right after he's lost everything,

he says this in Job 1:21. He says, the Lord gave me what I

Job 1:21

had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the

Lord. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

God gave Abraham Isaac, and it feels to Abraham now like he is

asking for Isaac back. That's kind of how Abraham has to

be feeling here. It's powerful to surrender everything

to God. That's what we're aiming for. That's what— we just took a posture of

surrender. We gave God our attention. We said, fill us up. That's what we're aiming

for. It's one thing to say that.

To say, Lord, I'll do whatever you ask. It's entirely different to actually

do it. Especially if you're in Abraham's shoes,

right? God tests Abraham. He says, hey, go and

sacrifice Isaac. The only child, the one you've waited years

for. I mean, you can only imagine how much that would

hurt Abraham to lose Isaac.

And I was reading this, it just kind of got me thinking about my

life and my kids. Like, what I

would do to save my children. Like, what would you do to save your children?

Like, if I had a child on their deathbed, I would do anything to save

them. I'd go broke. I'd sell the house, all possessions. I'd give

organs, alright. I'd punch somebody in the face. I'd do whatever I needed to do

to make them okay, right. And why would— and you guys are the

same way. Why would we do that? We would do anything for them because they're

mine. Those are my kids. I'm their dad. I would

do anything for them. To sacrifice

your child, it feels like it would be the ultimate betrayal. Like it's

your duty as a parent to protect your children.

Look at how Abraham responds to this text.

Verse 3. It says, the next morning Abraham got up

early. He saddled his donkey and took 2 of his servants

with him, along with his son Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire

for a burnt offering and set out for the

place that God had told him about.

And on the 3rd day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place

in the distance. Stay here with the donkey, Abraham told his

servants. The boy and I will travel a little further.

We will worship there and then we will come right back.

God tells him to do it. He gets up the next day, chops wood for

the fire for the burnt offering, travels to the place that God told him.

On the 3rd day he leaves the servants behind. He goes with just

his son. And it says boy here, but we

actually don't know how old Isaac is, alright. People way smarter

than me say that he's maybe 18, or maybe he's in his late

30s. I think it's important, Isaac isn't a child.

He is like, at oldest, like, at the youngest rather, he's a

young man. That makes all of this so much more challenging.

So for 3 days Abraham has to go out with his son, and every step

he is knowing why he is on this journey.

Like, I'm here to do what God told me to do. He told me to

sacrifice my son.

And he's probably thinking as we get to our place, if I'm going to do

what God told me to do, I'm going to have to subdue my son who

is a young man. Abraham's over 100 years

old. How am I going to do that? So they go off by

themselves up the mountain. I think

this is part of Abraham's strategy, maybe. He's like— so verse 6 says, Abraham placed

the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac's shoulders. Get him tired out before we

get to the top. While Abraham himself carried the fire and the knife.

As the two of them walked on together,

Isaac turned to Abraham and said, Father. Yes,

my son? Abraham replied. We have the fire and the wood,

but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?

Like, if this was a movie, this would be a slow dramatic zoom on Abraham's

face where you see the sweat start to drop, right? Like, Isaac knows according

to the law that if they're going to offer a burnt offering, they need a

sheep, they need a lamb, they need something. They've got all the elements for the

burnt offering except for the offering.

They're climbing up the mountain away from where any pasture land would be, away from

where the sheep would be. He's old enough to know something

is missing here. Dad, where's the sheep?

And Abraham, In his faith,

I would say. Verse 8 says,

God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering,

my son. And they both walked on together.

He's on this journey, but Abraham is trusting that

God will provide.

That's every step that he takes for the past 3 days as

they're going up this mountain. Every step he takes is in faith that,

God, you gave me Isaac, and I am believing that you're going to provide

for me. That you're going to take care of all of my needs.

I'm going to do what you asked me to do, but I'm just trusting my—

putting my faith in you, Lord.

Verse 9, it says, when they arrived at the place where God had told him

to go, Abraham built an altar, arranged the wood on

it, then he tied his son Isaac and laid him on the altar

on top of the wood. All the Scripture says is that he tied

up Isaac. He laid him on the altar, the top of it. There is

a sense of surrender not only by Abraham

to God, but I think also of Isaac to his father.

This is not a little boy. This is a young man. I don't

know about you, but if I was 18 or a little older and my

100-plus-year-old dad was trying to tie me up next to an altar, my survival

instincts might kick in a little bit, right? There's no record of

Isaac doing that. No mention of a fight. Abraham is fully surrendered to God.

Isaac is fully surrendered to Abraham.

Verse 10 says, and Abraham picked up the knife

to kill his son, his one and only son, as a

sacrifice.

It's going to get better in verse 11, alright? I know it's been pretty heavy

so far. It's going to get better in verse 11. But think about that.

He is saying, God, whatever you call me to, I'm gonna do. Even though I

know it's gonna hurt me. Verse 11 says, at that moment the

angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham!

Yes, here I am. Don't lay a

hand on the boy. Don't hurt him in any way. For now

I know you truly fear God.

You have not withheld from me even your

your son, your only son. And holy smokes, this is intense, right? The very

last second God spares Isaac's life. And remember what this all started as.

It was a test of Abraham's faith.

Abraham passed the test. He was willing to put what God

said above anything else. To the point where if we look at the story from

the outside, it seems crazy. Like, it doesn't even make

sense. That seems absolutely insane. Why would you even consider this?

But he was just obedient to God. Let's keep going.

We'll finish it out. It says, then Abraham looked up and he

saw a ram caught by its horns

in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt

offering in place of his son.

Abraham named the place Yahweh-Jireh,

which means the Lord will provide.

To this day, people still use that name as a proverb.

On the mount of the Lord, it will be provided.

Verse 15, then the angel of the Lord

called again to Abraham from heaven. Help me out with that one in yellow.

This is what the Lord says, because you have Me,

and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own

name that I will certainly bless you.

I will multiply your descendants beyond number like the stars in the sky

and the sand on the seashores. Your descendants will conquer the cities

of their enemies, and throughout your descendants

all the nations of earth will be blessed.

All because you have obeyed

me.

Just 2 takeaways for us from this passage. I know there's a lot.

First one, and I know everybody has seasons

where you just need to hear this. The Lord will provide.

On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. The Lord

will provide. Second thing, obedience brings blessings.

The Lord will provide and obedience brings blessings. The Lord will provide.

He provided on the mountain.

He's saying that God will provide in the midst of whatever challenging journey you find

yourself in. Even though it might be difficult or hard, he is with you and

he will provide for you. I don't know how you walked in here today.

But wherever you're at, God will provide.

And he won't leave you to figure it out on your own. He will provide.

That's the first takeaway. He's got it.

He can take care of anything.

God can do more in 1 second than we can in a month of hard

work. He can. The Lord will provide.

That's the first thing I want you just to get and into your soul.

God's got it. The second one is a principle we see

over and over again throughout Scripture. It was right there. They were yellow words.

But obedience brings blessings.

He told Abraham, because you have obeyed, I will

certainly bless you. He tells Abraham, have many

descendants. They'll be like stars in the sky, like sand on the beach. And remember,

at this point Abraham has one legitimate child who he just untied from

the altar. Right? Like, you're going to have all these descendants, and he's got one.

Here's the deal. Obedience brings blessings. God just wants your obedience.

To do the things that you know you need to do. He's not worried about

the things you don't know, the things that you're not sure of. Just do the

things that you know you need to do. I had a professor in

Bible college, and this is a story that just always stuck

with me. They had a missions conference wherever

he was. And the pastor

who was like teaching at the missions conference, he asked everybody at

the conference, everybody that was there in the audience, he said, pray,

ask God if you need to go to the mission field.

He didn't say they needed to go to the mission field. He just said,

hey, everybody in here, seek the Lord. Pray, God, are you

sending me to the mission field? Do you want me to go tell people around

the world about Jesus? And this professor I had, he said that for months

he just, he wrestled with this. And he never

prayed that prayer that he was like, hey, you need to do this. You need

to pray that prayer. And he never prayed, God, do you want to send me

to the mission field? Do you want to send me around the world to tell

people about Jesus? He never prayed that for one reason.

He was afraid.

Like, if he prayed, God, do you want me to go on the

mission field? He's like, what if God said yes?

That's scary, right? Like, I've got to leave where you're at. You've got to go

around the world. You've got to tell people about Jesus. I understand the sense of

reservation there. He told us that after

months of just wrestling with this question, he finally prayed, God,

do you want me to go to the mission field? And he

said he felt a very clear no.

Like, he said God knew it would have been a waste of support for

him on the field. It would have been a bad deal.

But he did feel the Holy Spirit put on his heart that, okay,

now that you're obedient, we can move forward.

It's not about doing that part and going to the field. It's about

being fully surrendered to God. God wasn't going to

send him to be a missionary. He— it would have been a waste of support.

That's his own words. He's saying he just wanted him to be

fully surrendered to God so that he would

know That nothing is off limits in my life to God.

That God, you got all of me. Not just the parts I understand. Not just

the parts that are easy to me. But even the hard parts. Even the parts

I don't understand. Time and time

again in Scripture, it's perfectly laid out here. We see

that obedience brings blessings. It does.

You will harvest what you have planted.

Obedience to God, even when we don't understand, brings blessings. That doesn't

mean you're gonna be rich, that things are always gonna be perfect. Some of the

greatest blessings in my life that have been given to me by God are immaterial.

What I mean is they're things you can't purchase.

They're just gifts from God.

Maybe you're wrestling with something right now.

Maybe you feel God calling you to take a next step, or maybe— and you're

just unsure about it. Let me just encourage you with this.

God never asks you to do something that he himself

isn't ready or willing to do.

Look at Abraham and Isaac. I just got to be honest.

If it was me in that story, it would read a lot

different. I ain't passing the test. But here's the deal.

God asked Isaac— or Abraham to do the impossible.

And then God intervenes. God knows

that we cannot do the impossible.

When we look to the New Testament and the Gospels, we see God in this

exact situation.

That we are separated from God because of our sin.

And God doesn't ask us to do the impossible. He does the impossible on

our behalf. He sent His Son Jesus. And Jesus offered

himself willingly as a living sacrifice. He gave his life on the

cross. He paid the price for our sin. He did the thing that we could

never do, and he did that because he loves you.

God gave up his one and only Son.

He paid the ultimate price so that we could have

salvation. That is the

love of our Heavenly Father.

And when we look at Abraham and Isaac, we see a picture

of Jesus on the cross. A father giving up his son.

The son carrying the wood to his place of

destruction. The son submitting to the father fully.

Here's the difference. God spared Isaac. But his

wrath was poured out on Jesus. He did for

us what we could not do for ourselves.

He saved us from our sin.

God purchased our freedom at the high price, the cost

of Jesus's life. That is

the greatest gift that any of us could ask for,

because we can't purchase that freedom on our own.

The Lord provides. Even on

the mountain, the Lord provides. Obedience brings

blessings. Church, I don't know what you're going through. I don't know what you're

feeling. But God does. I don't know

what you lack or what you feel like you need. God does. And he

will provide. Don't worry about all the other stuff. Do I need to do this?

To do that. Obedience brings blessings. Just do what you know

you need to do. And brick by

brick, he'll do a work in your life.

No matter where you find yourself, if you feel like things are going good,

things are going bad, he is a loving Father with arms wide

open, always ready to receive you. He does not want

to turn you away. Let's pray. Let's pray.

God, we're so thankful for all that you've done

for us. Help us to be obedient to you

and your Word, not because we want blessings, but because, God,

you are worthy.

God, help us to be obedient and to trust that you will

provide. That is your promise, God, that even on the mountain,

even when things are scarce, even when things are hard, even when things are challenging,

God, you will provide.

God, you provide in ways that are far greater than we could ever imagine.

We're so thankful for that. Help us to walk in

victory and to live lives that honor you. We would be obedient

knowing that whatever comes our way, God, you are faithful

to provide. We ask all these things in Jesus'

name. Amen. Hey church, let's stand and worship together.