FATHER ABRAHAM (pt. 9)

When we lay down what we love the most, we discover that God’s grace is all we truly ever need.

Faith surrenders what we cherish most.

Obedience walks forward even when we can’t see the way.

God supplied what His glory demanded.

God provided a ram to save Isaac. God provided Jesus to save the world.

God himself provided the Lamb.

What is your “Isaac” today?   

What would be hardest for me to place in God’s hands?

Where are you demanding explanations before obedience?

How will you descend the mountain? What needs to be let go?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to the New Beginnings Church podcast from Delaware, Ohio. To learn more about New Beginnings Church, visit us online at DelawareNewBeginnings.com. Today's message is from Pastor David Morris.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

We are going to finish up Abraham this week. There's a few more chapters or pieces on Abraham's life, and I want to encourage you to finish those out. But this just felt like a good stopping point with it. And so for the last eight or nine weeks, it has been this, and I say it every week: faith isn't a straight line of perfect performance. It's a messy journey relying entirely on God's grace. This is what we do. This is our life. And sometimes we want to fight that. Amen. How many of you have had a tug-of-war with a toddler? Yeah? Tug of war with a toddler. I mean, if if you've ever done this, I mean, check this out. I mean, this is this is like life right here. This kid, this dad's like, hey, I want, I want, I want your toy. It's time to let go. And the boy's like, uh-uh. And the dad's like, oh, come on, son, come on, man. It's time. Come on, let go. And then comes, if you know this, that blood curdling scream, like you're sucking his soul right out of his body. You're like, man, if you give me the teddy bear, look at the background of the picture. I've got ice cream. I just want to take the teddy bear so that you can have some ice cream. And we laugh at this. We do. We think it's it's funny now because we're older and our kids are older and they got to deal with it for the most part. But we laugh. But the thing is, is our interactions with God can be the same way. Right? We we go, no, God, it's mine. I I don't need you right now. Everything's going good right now. I don't need you, so I'm I'm gonna hold this to myself. And God's like, no, give it to me. Give it. I I want it. No, I worked hard for this, God. Why are you taking away this away from me? I I I worked hard for this. Let me do what I want to do. But he prayed that to God before. Let me do what I want to do. And normally, at least in my life, typically, God goes, okay, all to my demise. Because God always knows better. So this final week of Abraham, I think what what what at least what I hope we'll see is that there could have been this game of tug-of-war between Abraham and God. But instead, we are seeing, we we read that Abraham does something that kind of goes opposed to what our human nature wants us to do. We want to hold on to it, but Abraham lets go. So this week our theme is this: when we lay down, when we lay down what we love the most, or maybe even, I was thinking about this this morning, going, oh, we could go the other way with this too. When we lay down the things that we don't like the most, dare I say, maybe that we hate, the things that bug us and grab a hold of us, we discover that God's grace is all we truly ever need. And in our society, that's hard to understand because we are taught to consume. We are taught that we deserve everything. God calls us into so much more. So let's look at Genesis chapter 22 this morning. This is Abraham tested. Uh, if you have been in the church your whole life, you've probably heard this. I would hope you've heard this a lot. Uh, and so some of this might be familiar. I'm really hoping that some of it you go, oh, I haven't thought of it that way before. So let's read the first three verses here of Abraham 22, verses 1 through 3. And this was sometime, it says, sometime later God tested Abraham. Remember, Isaac was born. We're thinking that Isaac at this time was late teens, possibly early 20s. But sometime later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham, God calling out to him, 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 show you. 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 set out for the place God had told him about. A lot of information here. First one that let's let's understand is that this is would be terrifying. Amen. If we heard God say this, if if God, if we felt God was telling us this, what a terrifying command. Take your son and don't just go and offer him to me, but a burnt offering. Now let's understand what a burnt offering meant to Abraham in his time. Is that a burnt offering was an offering that people would give to God as a substitute, it was atonement for the sins they would do. And so it wasn't just a piece of meat, you know, or or some grain or whatever. It was everything. And the symbolism behind that was that it was complete surrender. You gave it all and it was completely burnt, and it was given uh solely to God. This is about not holding anything back. So, with that in mind, think about what God is asking Abraham to do. Again, a terrifying thought. But he says, I want you to completely give everything to me and have faith and trust in me. But I want you to notice some details here too. God says, Your son, your only son whom you love. Now, three times in this, what we hear today, we're gonna hear uh your son, your only son. And when we hear repetition, you remember what that means? It means it's important. And it's an important piece. Right now, at this time, he understands, God understands, he he knows who Isaac is, he knows that Isaac was the one that was promised to Abraham decades ago. He knows what Isaac means to Abraham. He knows that Isaac is like Abraham's world right now. And so what we understand when he says, your son, your only son, whom you love, God is testing not with something trivial. He's not saying, hey, I want you to give up coffee for Lent, or I want you to give up chocolate for Lent for six weeks. He's saying, No, I want I want you to give it all to me. He is targeting the epicenter, the very epicenter, of what Abraham loves, his heart, right? His his joy, his earthly joy, his earthly identity, his earthly future. I think as parents, we we understand what it means to love our child. I really do, on different levels, maybe. And so what amazes me is Abraham's response, the very next verse. Early the next morning. Can you imagine that evening? I didn't sleep well last night. I can imagine that Abraham didn't sleep well. I can imagine just the things he was thinking about. And and and I don't know if it was worry or if it was question. I mean, I'm I'm kind of putting myself into the scripture here, just trying to understand Abraham's feeling as a father, waiting for this promise, and now God's saying, You got to give it up to me. But early the next morning, Abraham gets up, he he loads his donkey, he gathers the wood, he gets his son, he has a couple servants, and they set out. They take off. From what I read, he's not dragging his feet. From what I hear, I don't hear any complaining. From what I hear, he's not trying to devise a plan B. All the things that we have read about over these few couple decades that we've studied Abraham, everything that he had learned comes to this point, and he's no longer doing the things that he was doing originally. Abraham reveals to us in this piece, this part right here, a faith that does not negotiate with God. I don't know about you, I was taught, I've been taught to negotiate. We talked about the car salesman, right? Or whatever. We negotiate things. Abraham reveals to us a faith that does not negotiate with God, that he has faith. He moves towards complete surrender. Abraham shows us that faith surrenders what we cherish the most. And I think we can argue that Isaac in Abraham's life is what, who, what he cherishes the most. Saying yes to opening our hearts and our hands and surrender is only half the battle, though. The real test happens on our long road, on our journey to wherever we're going. For us, it's eternity. For for Abraham, it's to Moriah. All the quiet? anybody else that's loudest when it's quiet in their life? You sit in a quiet room and then you can hear all your thoughts a whole lot clearer. Couldn't imagine. Three days, we're gonna hear it's a three-day journey, but all the questions. And there's many times where I've made a decision in the quiet, I go, I really want to do that. Should I really do that? Is that really God talking to me? Or is that just me thinking that's God talking to me, wanting to do what I really want to do? These are all the things that we do. So let's let's continue on. Verses four through eight. 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 and placed it on his son Isaac, and he carried himself, 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. Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And the two of them went on together. So three days. I can't even imagine that. Three days of knowing what God has asked me, would have asked me to do with my son, and not really saying much about it. And then in the distance, you know, you you see this place. I I I the excruciating, I mean, this had to be excruciating not just physically, three-day journey, but the mental and the emotional anguish. And then he sees the place, he looks up. Would you go? If you got close to that destination that God has called you to and you don't really want to go, would you go? Abraham obeys. And in fact, when he leaves behind, when he's gonna leave his servants behind, I want you to hear how how great his faith is, where he says this. He says, We will worship. Does he say sacrifice? No, he says, We will worship, and then we will come back to you. Now there's a couple things that we can see here. First one is that you you can hear his faith, we're gonna come back to you. But even if, what is this an act of to Abraham? Worship. Sacrifice is an act of worship, it's how we glorify God, whether we are sacrificing our time, our talents, our treasures, our tithes, whatever it may be, whatever the sacrifice is. And the greater the love of the item, to me, anyways, is the greater the sacrifice. Because it's hard to give up something that you've worked so hard for, or that you long for or that you waited for, and now all of a sudden it's gone. And yet here we have Abraham says, We will worship, and then he shows us faith, at least from what I understand. I mean, hindsight's 2020, but at that moment he says, and we will come back to you. And so him and his son, they continue on, and then comes the next phrase. His son, oh my gosh, this would have just tugged at my heart, Dad. Where's the lamb? Where's the sacrifice? We we have the wood, we have the fire, we have everything we need. We're right here, we're walking. We we we don't have the sacrifice. Have you ever had that time in your life where you get into a situation and you go, something's just not right? Something's off. And I wonder if that's how Isaac's feeling right now. Like, Dad always has to sacrifice. What's the sacrifice? So, dad, where's the lamb? And and here comes uh now. We have Abraham's response. God will. God will provide. God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering. He's not lying. Whether God would walk through this or not, the the offering is already provided. But what we know is the offering is still to be provided. We he has faith that, I mean, if we sit on this a minute, he has faith knowing what God has promised. And God has always been faithful. This is heavy in nature, and yet his faith, his faith withstood that because he knows that God is a God of promises. Now, some people might say, oh, Abraham, he's just being optimistic. Other people will say, What? What a horrible dad to even put his son through that. What a horrible God to do this. Let's remember what Abraham, let's remember the last 20, 30 years of his life. God has walked with Abraham. Abraham has walked with God for decades. And in Abraham's own failures, did God ever leave him? No. God always was faithful. God had fulfilled every promise, everything he had ever dictated to Abraham. Abraham knows God. Abraham knows God's character. Abraham is still holding on hope and faith of the promise that God had given him that he would give a son, and Isaac is that son, and that future generations would be built upon that. It's kind of like uh your house when it's pitch dark. I remember this probably 15, 20 years ago. We had an ice storm in Sydney, and all the power went out. And it was cold because we didn't have heat. And it was dark, and it was that eerie silence because nothing was running. And walking around the house, you you had faith you remembered where the uh the end table was. You had faith where you knew that you knew where the the kitchen table was, or hopefully where you took your shoes off at, or or where Murphy left his bone on the floor. You you hope you remembered that, right? You had faith walking through your house because you knew. Once we understand or begin to understand or work towards understanding who God is, the character of God, the love of God, then we have faith and we have trust because we know God. And we know that God is faithful. And our faith moves from this. I trust in God when I understand, because that's that's the thing I hear a lot. I just don't understand God. And so as we grow in our faith, we move from I trust God when I understand to I trust God because I say it with me. Know God, because I know God, I know who God is, I know the character of God, I know that God is love, I know that God is faithful, I know that God sees me, I know that God never leaves me or forsakes me. I trust God because I know Him. And so when we say we follow Jesus, that we're disciples of Jesus, that we are trying to live a more righteous life. It's not because we want to live a stagnant life. We don't want to start and stop it. It's because we know that obedience walks forward even when we can't see the way. Just like in the dark house. We walk forward even when we can't see the way. And it's precisely at this point, this point of surrender in Abraham's life and point of surrender in our lives, that God's grace is apparent. And we learn that it is all-sufficient. Genesis 22, 9 through 14. When they reached the place God had told him about Abraham, built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his he bound his son Isaac. I again I just he bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. I probably wouldn't get that far. Would you? And he reached out his hand, 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, listen, you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. And Abraham looked up, and there in the thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. And so Abraham called the place the Lord will provide. And to this day it is said, on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. At that very last moment, the very last moment. I wonder why God waited to that very last moment. Maybe, maybe He was completely checking out Abraham's heart. I don't know. I can't read God's mind, but he waits till that very last moment. God intervenes and he says, Abraham, here I am, just like before at the beginning of our reading. This is a repeat. Again, this is something that's happened twice in the same reading. The first time was out of joy and out of peace. This time, here I am. Abraham's responding to the Lord even in his hardship. And the Lord says, This, or it says, Do not lay a hand on him. From what I read and I believe, God never wanted the blood of Isaac. He wanted the heart of Abraham. This was in preparation of what is to come for generations to come. God wants Abraham's complete trust. God wanted Abraham to see that the provision was already there, even before Abraham arrived there. And Abraham didn't see it at first, but he had faith. And so Abraham proves to us that God is first. And when we understand, we know that he is the God who sees and provides. Now the Hebrew word for uh the root for, I'm sorry, the Hebrew root for the word provides means to see to it, right? I'm going to see to it. God sees your needs, right? And sees it even before you reach the mountaintop and has already begun to see to it. The provisions have already been made, no matter where we are in our lives personally, no matter where we are in the life of the church as New Beginnings Church, God sees us and provisions are already being made, have already been made for his glory. But it'd be really easy to ask is what what kind of God does this? We asked before, what kind of God does this? For me, it was a couldn't it be done in a different way? Again, I I don't I don't want to pretend like I totally know who God is, because I don't think we all any of us really do. But I think this is where context comes into play. Understanding what God is doing here, because we understand uh we we talked about this burnt offering, this burnt sacrifice. We'll understand that the religions surrounding Abraham were all about human sacrifices, specifically child sacrifices. So, really, when you think about it, Abraham wouldn't have really thought twice about this because this is. What all these other places did in order to appease their God. They had these uh these these sacrifices to show their devotion to false gods. And and so this wouldn't be unique to Abraham. This wouldn't be a huge surprise in the sense that he had never heard of it before. But God is doing this, I believe, to upend it, to show that God forbids human sacrifice. God doesn't want human sacrifice, but what he is asking for is absolute devotion, absolute faith, to follow, to give up the things that we love, to surrender. A ram is provided, a substitute offering that God wanted. God supplied what his glory demanded. God demanded the sacrifice, and he gave the ram in order to be a substitute atonement for them. False gods demand that we supply it. God supplies it for us. God supplies it for this. And then God confirms his promise, Genesis 22, 15 to 18. And this is where we we see the beginning of God supplying the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice for the world. The angel of the Lord called 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 stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations will be blessed because you have obeyed me. The covenant, the beginning of the line of Jesus, the Savior. This is the gospel of Jesus. This is this parallels Jesus in so many ways. As frightening as this account might be, there is a beautiful parallel. There is good news. There is the gospel. At this point, we believe is where Solomon built the temple a few hundred years later. And it was at that temple that Jesus would walk and he would teach and he would heal at this place where Abraham and Isaac are. And then people believe that just to the north, if you're looking at the temple and you look just to the north, along these uh this ridge of Moriah is another peak, which we call in Scripture Golgotha, where Jesus himself carried the wood of sacrifice to the top of the mountain. Only this time, only this time. There would be no voice. God provided a ram to save Isaac. God provided Jesus to save the world. There was no voice to stop the sacrifice of Jesus as our substitute to atone for our sins. God himself provided the lamb. He didn't ask us to do it. God himself provided the sacrifice. When we lay down our lives, when we surrender our loves, when we turn from our old lives, we are not throwing them into a voidless pit like they did to these false gods. We place them into the hands of our Father. Abraham walked up that mountain. I wonder if he had a heavy heart. I wonder if his hands were trembling a little bit. He had faith, but he was also human. He walked down that mountain with his son, with a deeper relationship with God and a full revelation of who God is. A loving, merciful, patient, generous God who held nothing back to save his people. As we close, I think the greatest tragedy would have been loving Isaac more than loving God. Our greatest tragedy is loving things and people more than God. And we don't want to let it go. And we say, I've worked hard for that. It's mine, it belongs to me. God, you can't have it. Sometimes we have that blood-curdling scream, even though it may not be audible. I think sometimes our hearts do that. So here's our questions for this week. What is your Isaac today? Or who is your Isaac today? Who or what is the thing that you hold on so much to that is affecting your relationship with Jesus? What would be hardest for me to place in God's hands? What would be hardest for you to place in God's hands? What are you demanding? Listen, this one. What where are you demanding explanations before obedience? God, you gotta explain that to me first because I don't understand. I've prayed that. I don't get it. You gotta show me. You gotta give me the blueprints, give me something. What are we demanding before obedience? How will we descend from the mountain? Will we descend with a greater relationship with God? Will we descend knowing God even more? What needs to be let go? What needs to be sacrificed? Our Wesleyan heritage is built on the beautiful truth of sacrifice, of of consecration, of making something holy in order to give it to God. And a lot of that in our Westlean heritage is uh intentionally presenting ourselves as a sacrifice to God. Uh Paul writes about this in Romans 12, verse 1. He says, in the view of God's mercy to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing God, then he says, This is your true and say it, proper worship. Sacrifice is worship. Faith involves loving God with an undivided heart. We hear that a lot in the Old Testament. The analogy is used, that you know, we have this marriage with God, and every time we sin, we're cheating on God with an undivided heart. What we can't or we won't surrender becomes a tug of war. Our greatest freedom comes when we open our hands. And so let's practice that this morning as we close here. Let's practice that. I want you to just open your hands, don't look at everybody else. Just look at your hands. Open your hands and look at your hands. I want you just one thing. One thing that you're holding on to. Alright? Picture one thing and then just close your hands like you're holding on to it. What are you holding on to that you're white knuckling? That you're holding on to it so hard that the the blood just runs from your hands and your knuckles are white and you're screaming, God, it's mine, it's mine, it's mine. I don't want anybody to know about it. I don't, I don't need you to take it. I'll deal with with yourself with myself. Just squeeze on to that as if you're trying to hold on to it. Maybe it's something to do with family, good or bad. Oh God, this is going so good right now. I don't want to let it go. Or God, this is so bad. I I want to let it go, but I don't want to let it go. Maybe it's finances, maybe it's a habit, maybe it's an addiction, maybe it's a grudge, maybe it's something in the past, maybe it's something in the present, maybe it's something from this morning. Maybe you got that call or that email or that text. You just you you just can't let it go. Maybe it's something about the future. Whatever it might be, just look at it. It's closed in your hands. You don't want to let it go. No, I want you to just open your hands. You feel the tension gone? Just raise your hands up to your shoulders if you're able to. Just like you're raising them to heaven as a sacrifice. And if you're willing, repeat this prayer after me. Lord, I open my hands. I no longer want to hold anything back. I place it on the altar. I trust in your grace. I trust in your provision. I trust your heart. Amen. When we lay down what we love the most, even the things that we despise the most, we discover that God's grace is all we truly ever, ever need.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Thanks for listening to the New Beginnings Church podcast. For all our messages, sermon notes, and the latest updates, visit Delaware NewBeginnings.com. We'll see you next week.