VIA | TAKEOFF | Same God | Abraham + Isaac | Clayton Heath

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Hey guys, hey, if I haven't had the chance to meet you yet, my name's Connor.

I get to serve on our uh team here at VI, and I get to read our passage um for tonight.

But before I do that, I want to uh tell a little bit of my testimony.

Um there was a time in my life when I was uh well before Jesus, I was riddled with anxiety and fear.

Um but now that Jesus came into my life and um changed it, I'm I'm filled with his joy and a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Our passage for the night is gonna be Genesis 22, 2 through 8.

You can read it on the screen.

I'm gonna read it down here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

And the two of them went on together.

This is the word of the Lord for us tonight.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Can we thank Connor for reading that word together?

You can go ahead and have a seat.

Uh do this for me.

You know how we start.

If you know, you know.

I want you to look at whether you know them or not, the person to your left, in front of you, to your right, and behind you, and say, I'm so glad to be at Via with you.

If we haven't met, my name is Clayton, and I have the privilege of serving as a part of our young adult team here at Silverdale Baptist Church.

And so if you have your Bibles, I'm gonna invite you to turn with me to Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

If you're newer to the Bible, it's in the part of the Old Testament.

It's in the part of the Bible called the Old Testament.

And the Old Testament contains the things that happened before the life of Jesus, so not too many pages deep tonight.

And then hopefully, on your way in, you got a worship God from our home team.

And we give those to you for lots of different reasons, but we know that you we give them to you because it is no small thing that God is the creator of the universe and he speaks to you and me.

And so when he does, we wanna be sure that we pay attention and that we write down the things that he says.

Tonight we are cheering on, we're pressing on, we're continuing on our series called Same God, where what we've been looking at is uh what we are looking at is stories of the Old Testament.

For many of us, maybe we grew up in church.

If you grew up in church, maybe you grew up going to Sunday school and you kind of know like the big stories from the Old Testament, you know, David and Goliath, Abraham and Isaac, you know, I don't know, Gideon, uh, and just kind of like how they sit in your mind is how they were very first taught to you when you were in first grade.

And praise be to God that we can learn the Bible when we're young.

Uh, but the Bible is a never-ending fountain of God's wisdom, and so when we find, when we revisit these stories, we see things all the new.

And so that's what we're doing in our series.

But I want to tell you, uh really, I want to ask you a question.

Uh, my question to you this evening really is uh what is it that you think your life should look like?

When I was 19 years old, I was a freshman in college.

Uh I wasn't like dumb or anything, I was just like old for my grade, okay?

So I was 19, and I was a freshman, I was gotten accepted into a pretty competitive program, I had a girlfriend, uh, which felt exciting, and I just really felt like I had a plan for my life.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, you know, when things and seasons in your life are going in a certain way, and you're like, shout out to the big guy, he got on my page, and so this feels good that we're moving in the same direction.

Uh, let me just say this: thanks be to Almighty God that my life doesn't look anything like I thought it would when I was 19 years old.

Uh, but my guess is that for you, when you find yourself, you have a vision, you have a dream, you have an idea of what you think your life should look like right now, and what you want your life to look like in one year, in three years, and in five years.

Now, to be clear, this is not a message about um, you can't make any plans, God doesn't want you to make any plans.

To be clear, I think you should have a plan.

In fact, ladies, let me just give you a free tip.

If you meet a guy and he's really cute, but he has no idea or plan of what he wants to do in his life, I'm not saying it's a red flag and run the other way, but it's a yellow flag for sure, okay?

I want you to have a plan.

Have the dream.

Be the best entrepreneur, run a business that grows and impacts people's lives.

Be the best stay-at-home mom, raise kids who love the Lord, be the best whatever, consultant, salesman, engineer, doctor, nurse, whatever it is, have that dream, work at it, go after it.

The question is, is God willing to speak in and change something about your dream?

Is God able to change the dream?

Because the question, the danger is not having the dream, the danger is when the dream becomes something that you can't trust God without.

In other words, hey God, I'm good with you.

God, we're on the same page.

I'm good, I'll do the thing so long as these things work out in my life.

That is the danger, friends.

And I don't know if you've ever been there.

I know how I have.

But that's exactly where we find Abraham tonight.

We where we pick up the story in Abraham.

There's a million things, literally a million things that we could talk about with Father Abraham.

Shout out to the song you learned in Sunday school.

We could preach until next spring, but really, here's what we need to know: God picks a man named Abraham.

His name was Abram, he changed his name to Abraham.

That's another sermon for another day.

But God is moving forward with his plan to pick to recreate and redeem creation.

And so he picks Abraham and he says, Abraham, you're my guy.

But Abraham's old and he's married to Sarah, who is barren, who doesn't have and can't have any kids.

And God comes to Abraham, and if you know your Bible, what does God promise Abraham?

A son.

He comes to Abraham and he says, I will give you a son.

Through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

First in Genesis chapter 12, and then with more clarity in Genesis chapter 15, look at it.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention Genesis 15 · chapter mention

In Genesis 15, verses 4 through 6.

Genesis 15:4–6

Your very own son, Abraham, who is old, who has a barren wife, who doesn't have a kid, your very own son shall be your heir.

And God brought Abraham outside and said, Look toward heaven and number the stars, and if you're able to number them, so shall your offspring be.

And he believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Old man, barren wife, God's promise.

And Abraham waits.

The first mention is in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

If you know your Bible, we get to Genesis chapter 15, still no son.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 16, Abraham and Sarah, his wife, remember the lady who can't have any kids, they try to manufacture God's promise for themselves.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

Abraham sleeps with a servant named Hagar.

She gives birth to Ishmael.

And Genesis 17, still no son, that's the promise.

God rejects Ishmael.

But God reiterates the promise and says, No, Isaac, your son, will come.

And finally, in Genesis chapter 21, Isaac is born.

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

Hallelujah.

God is faithful.

What he says will come to pass, comes to pass.

Somebody say amen.

Genesis chapter 12, it's promised.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

All the way to Genesis chapter 21, no 20, no Isaac.

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 21, Isaac is born.

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 22, friends.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

Look at that in your Bible.

In verse number one, after these things, God tested Abraham.

If you're taking notes tonight, the first thing I want you to write down is this it's a God will test what we treasure.

I want you to turn to the person you're sitting next to and tell them, God will test what you treasure.

Look what it says in Genesis chapter 22, verses 1 and 2.

Genesis 22:1

After these things, what are these things?

All of the things from Genesis chapter 12 to 21.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

After God has said the after these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham.

And he said, Here am I.

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 which I shall tell you.

God.

You know, like God, the creator, the guy that everyone says, like God loves you.

There's stickers, some of you wearing a shirt that says it.

That God tells this guy, hey, I want you to go kill your son.

And God puts his finger on the one thing that Abraham had built his entire future life on.

And he's like messing with him a little bit.

It feels like the first time you read it, God is taunting Abraham.

He says, Hey, take your son, your only son.

You know Isaac, the one that you love?

And it's a trial from God to Abraham.

Why?

Because God will test what we treasure.

Have you ever been through a test in your life?

Now, here's something that we have to make clear.

We've got to be really careful to understand that God is not tempting Abraham to commit sin.

This is a trial.

It's very important that we understand that, right?

God isn't tempting Abraham, because remember what the Apostle James says in James chapter 1.

James 1 · chapter mention

He says, When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

So we've got to understand a trial and a temptation are not the same thing.

A trial, friend, is an external situation used for our refinement by Almighty God.

A temptation is an internal enticement to disobey God used by Satan.

So we always, we often will go through trials and temptations in life.

We best be clear, friend, we do not confuse which comes from who.

So let me just be clear: an external situation.

Your career going off the rails, you not getting into the program that you thought, the getting cut from the sports team, the girlfriend breaking up with you, your mom dying, your grandma not getting better.

These are external situations that God can use and will use to refine us.

You not being able to keep your pants on because you're in bed with your girlfriend, that is a temptation.

Almighty God is not testing you with that, okay?

Let's just understand what we're talking about.

And it's an incredibly hard pill to swallow.

That God, Almighty God, the one who loves Abraham and made Abraham, is looking at him and saying, I want you to kill your kid.

Well we have to remember always, in this story and in our life, is that there is a God and we are not him.

Somebody say amen.

And there is a God and He is God, and that means that if He is God, then He has the right to tell you what your life is gonna look like.

So, okay, we can accept that.

Alright, Clayton, I'll give you that.

God is God, I still don't like it.

It feels weird to me that he's asking him to kill his son, but I'll give you that.

But why is it that God is testing Abraham?

Why is it, friend, that God tests you and me?

It's to refine us.

If you know your Bibles, you know this.

What the Apostle James says in James chapter 1, verse 2 through 4, what does he say?

James 1:2–4

He says, Count it all what?

Say it out loud with me.

Joy, my brothers.

When you meet trials of various kinds.

For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may per be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

And this is what we have to understand.

God will test what we treasure.

He will orchestrate circumstances in our life and in our faith and in our family in order that our faith might grow, that we might be steadfast, that we might know him, walk with him, cling to him, and grow in our faith.

In other words, we cannot have the faith that we want without the trial that we don't.

You cannot have the faith that you want without the trial that you don't.

We come, we come to Via, we come to church, we even open up our Bibles, we got a 17-day streak on the Bible app on our phone.

I want to walk with God.

It's popular, it feels good to walk with God right now.

There's cool merch.

Forrest Frank makes you know good music.

I like it.

It feels good.

We see these things, and then whenever a trial or a test will come up in our life, we say, no, no, this isn't what I want.

This isn't what God wants for my life.

It can't possibly be used for my good, but it is because it's in the testing and the trial and the crucible that we get the faith that we so desperately want to have.

And so we talk about experiencing freedom and having peace and getting victory in our life.

And we think, friends, we believe a lie that that is going to happen when everything in our life is going according to our plan.

But the Bible tells us over and over and over again that the peace that surpasses all understanding, walk in in intimacy and closeness with Almighty God, those things come through trials and through suffering.

Peter echoes this in 1 Peter verses 6 and 7.

Look at this.

It says, In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trouble.

What is he talking about?

These people have lost something, they've endured pain.

These have come, what?

The trials.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold, is what the Apostle Peter says.

May result in what?

Why do you go through the trial?

What is it genuine faith going to produce in your life?

It may result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

The product is powerful worship.

How many of you have ever seen someone that you feel, for lack of a better word, jealous of the way that they worship?

You ever seen someone that just like they're committed, the way that they pray, the way that they sing, the way that they take notes, the way that they open their Bible, the way they do that?

They say, oh man, I want to do, I want to worship like that, I want to have, I want to love the Lord like that.

Well, do you want the trial that produced that in them?

So Abraham gets tested.

Go off with your son.

You and I get tested.

And let's just understand real clear, there's a lot of parallels in this passage that we can apply to our life.

But Abraham is operating under a promise from God.

For many of us, what we think is a promise has never been promised by God to you.

We have a dream.

But God has never promised marriage.

God has never promised a career to work out.

God has never promised for you to have financial stability.

God never promised success in whatever success looks like for you in your life.

But you've got a dream.

You've got your Isaac.

And it is that thing.

It is the relationship.

It is being successful in the workforce.

It is being successful in research and academics.

It's, I don't know, having the house and homeschooling the kids and having the chickens and making everything in beef tallow.

If that's your dream, great, that's cool.

Pray for it, go after it, work for it.

In all that you do, do as unto the Lord.

But when the test comes, friends, and it will, do you love the life you want more than the giver of life himself?

Do you want the testimony without the test?

Do you want creation more than you want the creator?

Why?

Because God will test what we treasure.

The second thing I want you to write down, if you're taking notes tonight, is this that faith obeys before it understands.

Genesis chapter 22, verse 3 says this.

Genesis 22:3

So Abraham got up early in the morning.

Now, if you're like me, you read that verse and you're like, is this God saying that I've got to wake up early in the morning because I have a problem with that?

But it doesn't say that.

Thanks be to God.

This isn't prescription, this is description.

Anyways, I'm not saying that Abraham didn't have a problem with what God was asking him to do.

I'm not saying that there wasn't a moment where Abraham goes back home and he tells Sarah, hey Sarah, you know, our boy, the one that we love, yeah, God just told me to kill him.

He it doesn't say anything about the night and they stayed up and they continued to pray.

It doesn't say anything about that.

So I'm not gonna conjecture and wonder what it was like.

What the Bible does say is that when God spoke, it says, so Abraham got up early in the morning.

It says he didn't delay, he didn't argue, and he got up to cut the wood that he thought he was gonna burn his son's body on.

And then he goes and he wakes Isaac up.

Can you imagine what that would feel like?

Imagine him holding the ass, chopping the wood.

Imagine him, maybe, I don't know, he had his morning coffee and it's still quiet and Isaac's still asleep, and he's just thinking, is this really the thing that God is asking me to do?

Imagine waking Isaac up and saying, Hey, Isaac, uh, we gotta go on a journey for a little bit.

And he loads up the donkeys and he tells Isaac that they have to go.

And the Bible tells us that Mount Moriah is a three-day journey from where they are.

Think about it.

Have you ever thought about this?

Three breakfasts, three lunches, three dinners, three nights of trying to fall asleep, knowing you're on your way to kill yourself.

Hey dad, where are we going again?

Three days of, hey dad, what is it?

Why do we bring all this stuff again?

But God is testing him, and faith is obeying before it understands.

And the question is, how could he?

Because God's command and God's promise seem to contradict one another.

God has specifically told Abraham that Isaac is where his lineage and his offspring will be traced.

And we don't have time to talk about Ishmael and all of that.

That's a whole other sermon.

But how can Abraham move forward in obedience?

How can Isaac die when he is the one that God has promised?

The Bible tells us that Abraham doesn't know.

But faith obeys even when it doesn't understand.

And he demonstrates it.

Look at it in verse number five.

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 has his two servants.

He's got Isaac, they're doing the thing.

They get to the point.

God shows them where to go in Mount Moriah, and he looks back at his servant and he says, We're going and we're coming back.

Ooh, that is faith, friend.

How?

How can Abraham even say that?

Hebrews 11 tells us, look at it in chapter 11, verse 17 through 19.

By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

Verse 19, he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead.

So how can Isaac die?

Abraham believed God would raise him for the dead for the record, a miracle that has up until this point never been recorded in Scripture.

Abraham says, I don't understand how God's commands and God's promises fit together, but I trust the God who gave me both.

Where in your life is faith leading you to obey before you understand?

What has God asked you to do that you haven't done because you don't feel like you see the whole picture?

Faith doesn't require me to understand what God is doing in order to trust who God is.

That is faith.

You and I don't get a sneak peek.

We don't get a five-year glimpse into our future.

But what we can do is trust the God who is gonna be in hold of our future.

So, God, I thought I was gonna get married.

God, I thought that door would open.

God, I thought that this job was really gonna work out.

God, I thought that my family wasn't gonna break apart.

God, I thought that if I obeyed, everything in my life would get better.

Faith says, I still trust you.

So, where in your life can you not understand what God is doing?

And are you willing to trust God despite your lack of understanding?

Where in your life are you not aware, can you not understand what God is doing in your life?

And are you willing to trust God and obey him despite your lack of understanding?

In Abraham's and Isaac's story, we see that God is always gonna test what we treasure.

We see an incredible example of what it looks like of faith leading to obedience even before we understand.

The last thing I want you to write down tonight is this it's surrender is putting what I love back into God's hands.

Surrender is putting what I love back into God's hands.

In fact, I want you to turn to somebody around you to say, surrender is putting what you love back into God's hands.

Surrender is putting what you love back into God's hands.

Genesis chapter 22, verse 9 and 10.

Genesis 22:9

And when they came to the place of which God had told him, 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.

Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

The promised son, his only son, the son that Abraham loved.

They get three days later to Mount Moriah.

They climb the mountain, and Isaac offers up.

In Hebrew, the way that he says, describes the word bound, it means that Isaac even, he doesn't hold Isaac down, Isaac offers up his hands to be bound by his father.

May it be said that we trust our father just as much as Isaac trusted his.

And Isaac gets bound and he lays down.

Just for the record, Isaac is not a little boy like we learned in Sunday school.

Isaac is a man.

Isaac lays down on top of the wood, and Abraham reaches for the knife that he's gonna plunge into his son's flesh and he's gonna die.

This is the moment of surrender.

He could have gone all the way to Mount Moriah.

He could have cut the wood, they could have had three breakfasts, three lunches, three dinners, three not trying to go to sleep.

They could have got to the point where God showed them, hey, this is what I want you to do.

He could have gone all the way up there, he could have laid the wood in order, he could have bound Isaac up, but if he wouldn't have grabbed the knife, he still wouldn't have been fully surrendered to God's plan.

But he did.

Now, if you know the story, Isaac didn't ultimately die, but something in Abraham did.

Abraham's need to possess the promise died on that mountain.

So listen to me, surrender doesn't always mean God takes it away.

It means that you've decided that he can.

You're saying, oh, Clayton, oh, so you're giving permission to God to do things?

No, of course not.

He is God, I am not.

But when there comes a heart posture in our life, whether it comes to our career, our academics, our degree, our relationships, our family, where we live, whatever it is, the life plan, when we hold that tightly, we're not surrendering that to Almighty God.

But surrender looks like God, I'm okay, I will praise you.

The Lord, you give and you take it away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Can you give to God the thing that you're so tightly holding on?

This is the sermon, friend.

God will test what you treasure.

Of course.

Faith obeys before it understands.

Absolutely.

But surrender is putting what you love back into God's hands.

So what are you holding on to that you haven't put back into God's hands?

Um, I have a son.

His name is Charlie.

I think we have a picture of him.

This is my guy.

Charlie's the best man.

He's like so fun, he's super sweet.

Uh when you pick him up out of his crib, he gives you a big hug, which like everything they say, just like for the record, everything that everyone says about having a kid uh positively uh is true, okay?

It's it's it's so much better than you can even think.

This is Charlie a week ago, uh, but this is what Charlie looked like about a year ago.

Everything was great.

We went to the doctor, he um delivered when he delivered, he it was awesome.

And then within a couple minutes of him being delivered, things started to kind of go downhill.

And he went to the Nikki pretty quickly.

And it was all good, it was just like a normal thing, like just a couple precautions, no need to worry, go get some sleep.

You can come see him in a couple hours.

Okay, great.

Uh we went a couple hours later.

Hey, he's still not uh doing what we want him to do.

We're just gonna keep him overnight, no big deal, no need to worry.

Uh, he just needs a little help, it's all good.

Okay, cool.

All right, thanks for making us feel at ease.

Next day, same thing.

Hey, he's just not really getting better, he's not responding to the medicine that we're giving him.

Um, he's just not getting better.

And he doesn't get better, and he doesn't get better, and he doesn't get um better.

And so then there's one Tuesday, literally a year ago, last week, on uh in September, they start coming, uh they come up to Sophie and I, and they're like, hey, um, he's not really doing that great, and his lungs look a little funny, and his heart looks funny, and um his blood isn't his body's not getting oxygen to like all the parts of his body, and so we don't really know what's going on, and uh he needs to be transferred to a different hospital, and he needs more care, and um we've got to innovate him and we've got to transfer him, and we've got to do all this all this stuff.

And again, everything they say about having a kid is true.

Uh it doesn't make any sense, right?

That this little like alien-looking bean thing, when it comes out that you've never met, you would die for the instant that you see him.

And it was this five-hour period that day in the hospital where we're waiting on some more tests and we're waiting to get transferred, and I'm doing laps around the hospital, and I'm praying, and I'm worshiping, and I'm just crying because it's my boy, you know.

I'm saying, God, you you I you gotta do something, you gotta heal them, you gotta fix something, you gotta do something.

And um, underneath a lot of it for me, there was a couple years before that that my mom was at the same hospital and she had a normal surgery and developed a complication, and it was no big deal, and she'll get better, and she didn't get better, and she didn't get better, and she didn't get better, and then she got transferred and she needed more care, and it's all good, and we're gonna take care of her, and then ultimately my mom passed away from a random complication of a normal surgery that they do a hundred times a day.

And I remember praying.

God, I didn't question you when my mom died, but you can't take my boy.

And you know what this fear bought through my mind?

It was Abraham and Isaac.

And not immediately, not quickly.

I wish I could tell you that was like, oh, Abraham and Isaac, and I was like, praise be to Jesus, you can do whatever you want.

But hours, hours later, I remember being corrected by the Lord.

He was not my boy, he belonged to Almighty God, and he was letting us borrow him for a little bit.

And ultimately, I got to a place by the Lord's grace that I wasn't okay with it, but I knew that regardless of whatever happened to my boy, I was still gonna shout that God is good.

And I surrendered to him, I put him back into God's hands.

And praise be to God, God healed him.

Like, okay, man, I have a son.

He's not sick, but you're holding on to something.

And I think that God is speaking to you tonight by the power of his spirit.

God's been moving in your life.

There's some things that God is asking you of you, and it feels hard to let go of.

And surrender doesn't mean that you will lose it.

It just means that you decided that God's plan is better than your plan.

And to be clear, I can't sit up here and tell you if you surrender it, God's gonna give you something even better.

Your boy's gonna get healed.

You don't have to kill him on the altar, it's all gonna work out.

It might not.

So you don't have to necessarily quit your job or break up with your girlfriend or move overseas or only make$10,000 a year.

I don't know, you might.

That might be God's plan for your life.

But the question is, if God asks you, is your yes already on the table?

Because we sit here and we say, okay, Clayton, I want to follow the Lord, but I just want my life to look how I want to.

Well, what does Jesus say that it means to follow Jesus?

In Luke chapter 9, verse 23, he says, Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.

Luke 9:23

He says in Matthew chapter 6, verse 33, seek ye first the kingdom, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 6:33

Usually for us, friends, we seek all the things and then wonder how we can fit into the kingdom.

In other words, you haven't fully surrendered something until God is allowed to say no.

So can God say no to your plan?

Can he say no to marriage?

Can he say no to not uh the career?

Can he say not yet?

Can he change the plan?

Can God give you something different than what you've prayed for?

Is he still good if his plan for your life doesn't look like your plan for your life?

You're like, Clayton, I don't think that you did it.

You don't know what's going on in my life.

I don't think that I can surrender this thing.

Maybe, maybe not.

I don't know the thing that's going on in your life, but I know that you can surrender it.

But I don't know, how do I know that God's plan is better than what I want my life to look like?

Well, because here's the deal.

Thanks be to Almighty God, I didn't lose my son, and Abraham didn't have to kill Isaac.

But there is a son who was not spared.

The Bible tells us, friend, that God sent his only son because he loves you and me so very much.

And there was a father, and there was a son, and there was another mountain called Calvary.

And just like Isaac carried up the wood that he was gonna be burnt up on up to Mount Moriah, Jesus Christ's friend, carried the wooden cross on his back as he walked up Mount Calvary.

And so when Isaac in verse 7 in Genesis chapter 22, he looks at his dad, he says, Hey dad, I see all the things that are necessary for a sacrifice.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

I just don't see the lamb.

And Abraham says, Don't worry, son, God will provide for himself the lamb to be slain.

And Jesus, he says, the Bible says, emptied of himself and came into our existence.

And so when we're reading in Abraham talking to Isaac, what we're reading is God's words, yes, Abraham's words to Isaac and God's words to you and me.

That Jesus stepped out of heaven and came into our existence.

He was the son that was sent, he was the son that walked up to the mountain.

That's why John can say in John chapter 1, verse 29, behold the lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.

John 1:29

And on Mount Moriah, here's what's so crazy.

Are you ready?

On Mount Moriah, God Almighty stops the hand of Abraham from killing his son, but on Mount Calvary, God did not stop his hand, did not stop his son from being murdered by his very own creation.

And Jesus took our sin and our punishment so that Paul can say in Romans chapter 8, verse 32, he did who did not spare his son, but gave him up for us all.

Romans 8:32

So, friend, how can I convince you?

How can I persuade you?

How can I say that it's okay to let your life, your vision, your dream be surrendered into Almighty God's hands?

I'm telling you that God isn't asking you for something greater than what he's already willing to give up himself.

He's not asking you to give up something that he hasn't paid so much more.

So you've got a life plan.

You think you know how you want to work out?

The question is, do you trust God enough even if it doesn't?

Or if I can ask it this way, what in your life have you written in permanent ink that God never promised to you?

Can you surrender to that?

Amen.

Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, we love you.

God, we're so thankful for who you are and for what you've done for us.

God, we're thankful that you were God and that we are not.

God, we're thankful for your mercy, for your grace, for your holiness, for your justness.

God, that you are a healer, that you are salvation, that you are present with us.

And so, Jesus, on a night like tonight, what would you help us cling on to your promise, which you have promised us so many things.

Holy Spirit, would you convict us of the thing in our life that we're holding on to so tightly?

And God, your promise isn't give it to me and I'll give you something better, but it's give it to me and you'll walk with me more closely.

Lord Jesus, we love you, we trust you, it's in your holy and precious name.

We pray and all God's people said.

Via is Silverdale for 18 to 25 year olds.

We gather on Thursday nights at 8 p.m.

in Chattanooga, Tennessee.