MORE SUNDAY SCHOOL STORIES FOR GROWN UPS | Abraham & Isaac l | Ben Anderson

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Redeemer. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Ben Anderson, and I'm one of the pastors here, and so great to spend a little time with you this morning. Hey, just a few quick things before we jump into our sermon today. Uh first of all, this one's really important to me. If this is your first time with us, I want to give you a special welcome. And I want you to know that we are excited to get to know you when you are ready to be known. And if you are ready to be known, maybe it's been a week or two, you've been visiting for a while, and you're like, I really wanted to get connected, get to know some people. Uh the best place to do that is to swing by our welcome desk, and there's going to be somebody who's going to be there, and they would love to get to know your name, your story, and start recognizing you and point you in the right direction. Plus, you get a free gift. So make sure you swing out there. Uh, we would love to start building that relationship. And of course, don't hesitate. I would love to meet you personally. So come say hi before you head out the door. Another thing I'm hoping to see within our church is just deep-rooted relationships. And one of the best ways that you can do that is when you're waiting in line for those donuts or that coffee, don't hesitate to introduce yourself to somebody, maybe reintroduce yourself to somebody. Or since we just celebrated the fourth, maybe tell them about all the fireworks you saw or how you celebrated or all the fingers you still have or whatever you want to talk about. But it was the fourth yesterday, and hopefully uh you guys had a great time. I'm sure that a lot of you are watching online because you stayed up way too late, or your neighbors kept you up way too late. Whatever the reason is, I'm glad you're joining us online as well. But we as a church, I mean, the fourth is a big deal. Because as a country, we celebrate freedom. And as a church, we get to experience that freedom week in and week out because we have the freedom to gather. We have the freedom to speak openly about Jesus without any fear of someone trying to stop us from doing that. But that brings us to the real freedom. You see, every Sunday we gather as a church, we celebrate our personal Independence Day as followers of Christ. We are free from sin, we are free to follow Christ, and we are free from the fear of death. And so every single Sunday is something special here. It's a celebration of freedom. Well, how's your summer going? If you guys are like me, your summer is flying by. I can't even believe that it's July already. I mean, and maybe you're the same, right? The saying is time flies when you're having fun, right? So you probably had some fun this summer as a church. We've been definitely having a lot of fun. We start off by launching into a summer sermon series called More Sunday School Stories for Grown Ups, where we've been experiencing and exploring some of those familiar stories. That's fun. The week after that, we celebrated our 110th anniversary as a church by eating ice cream with 110 topping options. That was fun. The week after that, there was no slowing down. It was Father's Day. And so if you are a man in the room, what did you walk out with? A dad's root beer. And not just a can, a bottle, you guys. I mean, that was pretty sweet. So that is another really fun thing. And then last week, you might have missed this, but in our first service, we had a choir come in all the way from Sweden. I mean, that's fun. In fact, maybe you're thinking right now, I missed out. Don't worry, they'll be back in a year or two. We'll let you know. So you can get plugged in. And this morning I experienced something really fun. For the first time in 20 years of pastoral ministry, I got graded on my sermon. Not in an email like normal. I had a group of people hold up a scorecard like it was an NBA slam dunk contest at the end of my sermon. Which is pretty good. Most were tens, but one lady had flipped it upside down, so it actually looks like a one, which kind of hurt my feelings. But today we are in for a little bit more fun. In fact, today we bring this sermon series, More Sunday School Stories for Grown Ups, to a Close. It feels like it, we just started it. But like I said, time flies when you're having fun. All throughout the series, we have been looking at those classic stories that we tell our kids, those stories that we sanitize, we we make them G-rated, but it's a great way to start learning what God is all about. And if you grew up in church, you probably went to Sunday school. And you probably sat in a room and there was maybe a flannel graph or you watched Veggie Tales or something, right? You learn these simple stories of the faith. Or maybe you didn't grow up in church. But when you went to grandma's house, I mean grandma went to church, and she'd sit you down, maybe against your parents' wishes, and she would open up that big book, all the colorful pictures, tell you stories like Daniel in the Lion's Den, David and Goliath, Noah's Ark, and you love those special moments with your grandma. Or maybe you're my neighbors who don't believe in Jesus. And my son is seven years old, and he apparently is an amazing evangelist. He sneaks kids' Bibles into their house. Now they've been nice enough not to bring it up to me, but he's told me he's done it, so I'm sure someday it's just a matter of time before I get a knock on the door about that one. Or maybe you didn't grow up in faith, but as an adult, you came to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And now you're raising your own kids. And you have your own kids' Bible, and you sit them down and you tell them the stories because you don't want them to miss out on what you felt like you missed out growing up. But here's the thing with those stories they are the kids' versions of the stories. We sanitize them, we clean them up because honestly, there's some stories in the Bible we shouldn't be telling our kids yet. They're not ready for it. But it can be kind of shocking as a grown-up when we open up our Bible for the first time, we start that reading plan, and all of a sudden we re-engage with a story that we were certain we knew exactly what the story was about or what was in the story, and all of a sudden it's shocking. It's a little bit more PG 13, or maybe even R-rated. I mean, there's a lot there. And the reason there's a lot there is because these are real stories. These are a real piece of history with real people, with real problems, dealing in a world with real sin. But thankfully, there's a very real God who helps them navigate those moments in their life, those moments in history that we still study today. So, today, for one last time, we are gonna look at one of those stories. And I believe I saved the best for last. We're gonna look at one of the most polarizing stories in the Bible. We're gonna find it in Genesis 22. And so if you have your Bibles with you, you can open them up. Otherwise, it will be available on the screen. And this is how it starts. Sometime later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham, here I am, Abraham 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. Now I told you this was a polarizing story, right? You can see it in different ways. For one group of people, that they might see this as a very mean, cruel, or even evil God. Going to a father and saying, I know you love your son, but I'm gonna need you to kill your son. But another group of people can look at this very same story and see something different. Instead of seeing an evil God, they see a loving father. Maybe even a good coach. Somebody who sees potential in somebody and is pushing them a little bit harder than they think they need to be pushed in order for them to experience the full growth that they need to experience in life. And depending on how you see the story, you will have a very different picture of God. For that first group of people, if they see God as evil, this might be the very reason they don't have a relationship with Christ. They might believe in God in general, but they might see him as so evil, I don't want anything to do with him. But for the other group of people, a story like this might be the very reason that they believe in Jesus, that they believe in God. Because they see a God who loves them too much to leave them where they're at and wants them to move into something better. And he's gonna push them and he's gonna nudge them and he's gonna test them to get them there. Now, if you've ever wrestled with this piece of history before, there's a key word I don't want you to miss because this really unlocks this whole story force. It's the word test. And we all know what a test is. In fact, right now, just bringing up the word test makes some of you sweat a little bit because you have PTSD from middle school, high school, maybe college, sitting over those tests and just stressing about studying for the test, passing the test, getting that degree, whatever it might be, right? You it still bothers you. Or some of you are younger right now, and you're thinking, we're in summer? We don't need to be bringing up tests. I don't need to be thinking about tests right now. I'm trying to get away from that. I'm sorry. But it's just the idea is pretty simple, right? You you get a piece of paper, or maybe you play it on a computer, or whatever it is, you fill in the dots. And what the teacher is trying to do is they're trying to figure out how much you know to figure out what you are ready for. Right? Because all these things build on each other. When I was in college, I took an accounting class. Now, don't ask me why, because none of my degrees had anything to do with accounting. I think I needed some general math credits or something, so I thought accounting was a good idea for some reason. So I took my first test in accounting, came back, got the piece of paper on top in red ink. Hey, felt good. Went to my second test, got the piece of paper back on top, red ink. Hey, this is going, this is going really well. Got my third test back. There was a letter on top, which is a big F with a couple circles around it. Come see me in my office. I don't know what happened, I don't know if I got overly confident, if I didn't study well, or I just missed out on the content. But that was a real problem because every test builds on itself. If I don't understand the concepts in the third test, I'm definitely not gonna pass the fourth test. So what did I do? I would like to say I studied really hard. And I got I dropped the course and I moved on. Didn't need it anyways. But when it comes to life, we don't get to drop the course, do we? In life, every test that we have builds on itself. In fact, your success tomorrow depends on what you do today. So as we look at the story of Abraham, the question is how has he been doing in the past tests that God has given him? The answer is he's doing a lot like us. Sometimes he does well, and sometimes he does horribly, and he deals with the consequences of that. Now we see that Abraham was a man of faith. That's a big deal, but also he was a man of failure. In fact, there's a story in the Bible where he goes to Egypt because there's a famine, so he has to take his family there, and he goes there, and as he's traveling there, he looks at his wife and says, You are beautiful, and you're so beautiful that if we go to Egypt and people see your beauty, I'm a little bit concerned about how they're going to treat me. They might want you and say they might kill me off or mistreat me. So he says to his wife, just tell everyone you're my sister. Then they'll treat me nicely. Of course, this is a horrible thing to do. If you need a marriage tip, this is not a good move, by the way. A big F in Abraham's life. And he doesn't just do this one time, he does it again in the Bible. Same thing. Tell everyone you're my sister. Another big F. A few weeks ago, we we looked at a story here of Abraham and Sarah, and we saw a couple more failures. They've been given this promise that through them God was gonna build this great nation, he's gonna bless the whole world, and even tells them that they're gonna have a kid even in their old age. And Sarah gets impatient. The promise hasn't been fulfilled, and she's waiting and she's waiting and she's waiting and she's waiting, and she takes matters into her own hands and she says, Abraham, take my servant Hagar, sleep with her, get her pregnant, then we'll have a kid through her. She doesn't trust God. It's an F. It's a failure. Abraham falls through. Another failure. So, what's gonna happen here? I mean, this is obviously a much bigger test than those things. What is Abraham gonna do when it comes to his son? Now, behind the scenes of this story, there's so much tension here. It's not just the tension of, will I sacrifice my son? Can I make that commitment to God? Can I do that? Why is God telling me? It's not just that, it's a cultural tension. Because at this point in time, he's living in a land called Canaan. And the Canaanit were more than comfortable with sacrificing their kids to their gods. In fact, it was celebrated. I mean, if you sacrificed your kid to the gods, that was high praise in their culture. So now Abraham's wrestling with this reality. The culture says one thing, but his morality says something else. In fact, maybe some of you guys feel that in everyday life. The culture celebrates these things, but my Christian faith says those things are not to be celebrated. And who do I listen to? How do I wrestle with these things? And this is where Abraham is. What is he going to do? Now the good news is Abraham had truth on his side. In fact, we see what he would have known in Genesis 9. It says, Whoever sheds human blood by humans, shall their blood be shed. For in the image of God has God made mankind. This is a verse, a section of scripture that Abraham would have known. He would have seen the value that God puts on all of humanity. Because what this verse is saying is if you have a beating heart in your chest, God values you. Doesn't matter if you're young, doesn't matter if you're old, doesn't matter if you're rich or poor or black or white, whatever the category is, God loves you and God values you. And God valued Isaac. So what is God doing here? Why is he doing this? Is he testing Abraham's knowledge of the Bible? Is he testing Abraham's priorities? We don't really know, but we do know that it is a test, which is what life is, isn't it? Life at its core is a test of faith from a Christian worldview. What's the point of life? Now, if you don't have a faith in Christ, you probably have to boil it down in some way. You have to figure out the point of life. Why am I living? What am I doing? Why do I wake up in the morning? And if you don't have a faith or some sort of religion or belief in God, it probably would boil down to something like this fulfillment. I get 78.4 years of life. I want to get as most out of that life as I can. So I'm going to work hard, I'm going to use my skills, I'm going to build a legacy or build a business, I'm going to make money so I can spend that money to go on vacations and tour the world or see the world. I want to find the love of my life. It all comes down to the simple idea of fulfillment. If there's no God, if there's no faith, then I'm just going to get as much out of this life as possible until my life comes to an end. But fulfillment is not the Christian point of this life. That's not how we see the world. See, we see the world as an opportunity to obey the king. After all, what was Christ's invitation to the disciples? He said, Come follow me. Come walk in my footsteps, come be like me, come walk in the dust that I'm kicking up behind me. And I will lead you exactly where you're supposed to go. That's the invitation of Christ. Come follow me. Come trust in me. Have faith in me. Leave your old life of sin behind. And I will take you exactly where you're going to go. And as a byproduct, that's what we get. He leads us in this life exactly where we need to go, and ultimately leads us to his kingdom, which we call heaven. So let's see if Abraham passes the test. We'll be at verse 3. It says, 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. Now this is quite amazing. After those past failures, what does he do? It's a full send obedience on the most challenging test that God has given him yet. He says he gets up early the next morning. He loads his donkey, he gets his servants there, he gets his son there, which probably was the hardest part for him. Instead of running away, he brings his son, and then he chops up the wood, which will later burn up the sacrifice in his mind. And can you imagine that? Gathering the wood, cutting the wood. With every stroke, you are thinking about what is going to happen to my son. But he does all this stuff. And he heads out on his way. See, Abraham listens even when it doesn't make sense in his mind. Abraham listens even though there's nothing personal to gain from it in his mind. He listens even though it's likely gonna hurt the people that he loves the most in his life. What's the truth for us here that we can hold on to and that we can use? And it's this the test of this life is for our benefit. The tests that God gives us in this life are for our benefit. He doesn't set up these tests to make us feel bad. He sets up these tests to help us grow in our life. In fact, in the New Testament, it's echoed by saying this Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. What is God's plan for Abraham? He wants to use the lineage of Abraham to bless the whole world, which will ultimately bring Christ into the conversation. It's through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the other descendants lead to Jesus and truly bless the whole world. But for God to prepare Abraham for this, and Abraham's kids for this, he had to have him do something difficult. And you get this. So they can get that vision as well. This past year, my daughter started playing softball for the first time, and softball is a challenging sport, if you think about it. You're gonna have someone throwing a ball at you, which can move up or down, left or right, any direction, can go fast or it can get slow, and you're trying to hit it with a skinny little bat. If you hit it too early, fall ball. You hit it too late, fall ball. If you miss on top, strike, bottom, strike. If you hit it on top, ground ball to the pitcher. Hit underneath, pop fly. Right, this is incredibly difficult, and she was struggling with it. And she was losing confidence. So what was I to do as a dad? Now I could have done one thing, which maybe some people did, which I could I could go to Walmart and buy her one of those big red bats like every two-year-old has. I could buy her a beach ball and say, okay, hold this big red bat, and I'm gonna throw this beach ball at you and just hit that. Doesn't that feel good? But that's not what I did. My brother had given me the this little machine that shoots like ping pong balls. I sat up in the backyard, and then my other friend had given me this skinny little bat, which is about the diameter of a ping pong ball, and said, I want you to sit here, and this thing's gonna throw this ball at you like 45 miles an hour, this little tiny ball, and I want you to hit it. Of course, she said, That's It's impossible. I can't hit the big ball. How am I gonna hit this tiny little ball? I said, just do it. Just try. So she missed a few times and then she started hitting it. And then she started hitting it every time. And you know what happened the next time that she went up to bat in a real game? It felt like she was using a big red bat and a huge beach ball. Think about what God does in your life. The tests that He's giving you right now are a gift for you to prepare you for what is next. Let's keep going in our story, this time in verse 4. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servant, Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship, and then we'll come back to you. So Abraham he keeps this process. He's still obeying, he's still passing. Three days of travel, three days of living in his head, thinking about the consequences of him continuing on this journey. Three days he could have run away, but what does he do? He keeps obeying. And he steps into this difficult situation. And what does the Bible say? How does he view it? He views it as an act of worship, which isn't just music. What is worship at its core? It's understanding who God is in comparison to who we are. If you see God for who he is and his magnitude, his infiniteness, versus who we are, how small we are, how finite we are. When you see that, you can't help but worship this God. In fact, if you come in here and sing on a Sunday, if you get that picture, that will be the strongest day of musical worship that you will have. And it will bleed into the rest of your life. When you get this right, it changes how you spend your money. It changes how you spend your time. It changes how you use your talent. And you begin to see the world as it truly is, as a gift in our hands for a moment. For a moment, all your gifts and abilities, your life, and even your family is on loan to you from God. And that's the picture that Abraham got. Even his son Isaac in this moment was on loan from God. And Abraham was willing to worship with everything. Let's keep going. Verse 6. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself, so Isaac carried, or sorry, Abraham 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 the 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. 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. Here was the moment. An act of obedience by Abraham, but don't miss this, this is really important. There's somebody else who's acting in obedience in the story. It's Isaac. You see, most scholars have said that Isaac at this point in time is about 20 to 30 years old. And even if he isn't, what do we know about Isaac? It says that the wood was strapped to him, which means he's strong enough to carry the wood that would burn him up in the sacrifice. Abraham at this point in time is a hundred years old. Isaac could have easily run away, easily overpowered him, which means Isaac agreed to listen to God even when it didn't make sense. He let his dad wrap him up. He let his dad lay him on the altar. He sat there as his father, probably with a shaking hand, held the knife over the top of him, trying to figure out if God was going to let him go through in this moment. But even though he had that trembling hand, he had supreme confidence in God. Because what did he say to his son? God will provide the Lamb. In fact, if you're a Bible nerd, you might want to fast forward through the story to Hebrews 11. In fact, it gives us some insight into what Abraham was thinking here. See, Abraham thought that even if I kill my son, even if I burn up my son in the sacrifice, God has made me a promise, and God always keeps his promises that through me and through Isaac, I will fulfill the promise. I will bless the whole world. I will build these people into a great nation. If that is the case, then God must bring him back to life. That was what was in Abraham's mind. That even if he plunged the knife into his son, that God could do that for him. This is how the story ends. Verse 11. But the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven, Abraham, Abraham, here I am, he replied. 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. And Abraham passes the test. And if he got a piece of paper after that, it would be an A. With a bunch of exclamation points after it and five circles around it. I mean, he passed the test. And what really happened that was even more monumentous in this point in time is his son got to watch him pass the test. Isaac saw it. Isaac knew in that moment, yeah, God tests us. But these tests, we can pass them. In fact, God is going to help us pass the tests in life. In fact, if you want to hold on to that this week, I think this is important. The test that you're facing is passable. You don't need to give up. Because God will test you. And there will be temptations in life, but you can pass these tests and you can overcome these temptations. In fact, in the New Testament, it says it this way: no temptation is overcome, overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. You see, whether you have a test from God or a temptation that you're facing in life, you can pass it. Maybe right now it's a test in your marriage. Maybe in your marriage you need to offer forgiveness for something you think I could never forgive them for that, to restore that relationship. Or maybe you were the offender. And you need to receive forgiveness. You need to allow yourself to be forgiven to move that relationship forward. Or maybe it's in your finances. You need to be more grateful for what God has given you. You need to spend within your means, and that's going to be hard. Because it feels like everyone around you has more. But it's a test that you need to pass. Or maybe it's a test in how you see others. You look around and you struggle with the people that don't look like you, sound like you, act like you, believe like you. That's a test. What do we already learn in Genesis 9 right away at the beginning of the Bible? The value that God puts on every single person in this life. Maybe you need to start seeing people differently. You see, sometimes the most important step in finding success in moments like this is just simply believing that you can pass the test. Because if you believe you can pass the test, it changes how you operate in life. You begin to seek counseling, connect with a pastor. You listen to the podcast, you finally get around to reading that book because you believe if I can pass the test, I can invest in these areas and I can find success even when I haven't believed it in the past. God wants to provide for you. And that's what happens at the end of the story. God provides for Abraham. In fact, if we just go for another verse or two, what do we see? There's a ram caught in a thicket, which is a bunch of thorns. And God gives Abraham an animal to sacrifice. Now, for some of you, you're starting to make this connection. Maybe you're thinking that that sounds like lazy writing. A sacrifice with thorns around them? Sounds a lot like Jesus. In fact, if you caught that, maybe you caught these things too. What is Isaac referred to as? Abraham's one and only son. Jesus is referred to as God's one and only son. Isaac's birth was supernatural. He was born to a mother who is past childbearing age. Christ was born through a virgin birth. There was a three-day journey that Abraham had to take to the potential death. And in his mind, maybe in the resurrection of his son, Christ was in the grave for three days before his resurrection. Isaac carried the wood to his future death, and Christ carried a wooden cross to his future death. Abraham's sacrifice or Isaac's sacrifice was supposed to happen in a place called Moriah, which was later renamed to Jerusalem, where the temple was, where the sacrificial system was, and where ultimately Jesus was killed on a cross. Isaac had the power to run away, get away, overpower his father. And what does the Bible tell us about Jesus? He could have called down an army of angels to get away from the cross if he wanted to. In fact, recently when I've been looking online, there's people who don't believe in God who've taken notice of things like this. And it makes them skeptical. They say, well, that's just lazy writing. It's just the Bible repeating itself time and time and time and time again. I mean, we see it in Isaac's life. It sounds like Jesus' life. I mean, there's just a lot of things happening in the Bible that just keep repeating themselves. Everything seems to be repeated in the life of Christ. And I would say, exactly. The Bible is written over 1,500 years by 40 different authors, all that points to Jesus. And all throughout these stories that you were taught in Sunday school, as you read through the Bible, what are you going to see? These little Easter eggs of Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Far from being a reason not to believe the Bible, it is a reason to believe the Bible. It is a reason to trust God. Which means when you're going through those darkest of your days, those tests and those temptations, you have a God who is on your side. Yes, you are going to go through tests. But those tests you can pass. And the reason you can pass them is because God is on your side through these tests. He wants you to win. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we think that you are, we thank you that you are a good father. You are a good coach. You see more in us that we see in ourselves. And you love us too much to leave us where we're at. And so you test us, you push us, you challenge us. And Lord, hopefully we pass those tests. Because those tests are meant to prepare us for what is next, Lord. And I know that you have a big mission and a big purpose for every single person in this room, watching online. You put a breath in our lungs for a reason. But ultimately, that reason is to share your love with the world, to share your truth in the world. That we can pass these tests so people can see Christ in us and we can share that Christ with them so they too can follow their Redeemer exactly where you want to lead us into your kingdom. Lord, pray this all in your mighty name. Amen.