Hard Love #2 – Abraham

Last week we started our series on Hard love, as we looked at the story of Gideon in the book of Judges to understand that God has not called us to comfort, God has called us to combat. We considered that fact that God doesn’t call us to fight spiritual battles with tools and tactics of the flesh but instead through a reliance on Him. This morning we will look at the story of Abraham . Our goal this morning will be to understand that…

Faith is not just showing up, Faith requires stepping up.

ME: There is something about doing something for the first time that makes it unique from any other time we will do it in the future. We have 3 boys under the age of 12, so witnessing firsts in their life is a pretty common activity for us. We’ve watched them take their first step, learn to ride a bike, and learn how to jump into a pool. When Luke started losing his teeth, he lost 3 teeth, one right after another The first tooth was quite the conversation. Is it going to hurt, how much is it going to bleed, the whole reality of the tooth fairy, and of course our eldest Wesley’s disdain with the fact that He had yet to lose any at the time. But when Luke’s third tooth became loose, we were at church and he came into my office to let me know he was aware of its impending exit from his mouth. I checked it out for him and said it’s not quite ready bud. So he exited my office, and about 10 minutes later he returned to my office with tooth in hand. In our house we have decided to play the role of tooth fairy through the first two experiences, so Luke’s fear of the event was now overtaken by not just his hope in a monetary reward for this expendable body part, considering he pulled it himself he was thinking that the tooth fairy should consider a new video game as the price for this piece of his childhood. Whether you were interested in my story this morning about what I can only hope is a dental student in training, I do share the story to open our conversation on faith today.

The first jump in the pool takes faith that dad will catch you. Learning to ride the bike means believing that mom won’t let go of the seat. The first shot in the doctor’s office means believing that the needle won’t hurt that bad, and that the lollipop afterwards will act as a pain reliever.

What changes after that first experience? What turns jumping into the pool from a death-defying experience, to one of our favorite summertime activities? There is an experience that informs our decision. Fear has been replaced by faith because our experience has shown us that in reality there is nothing to fear.

WE: It is interesting that Jesus teaches us to have child-like faith. The fact that He teaches us this must mean that adult-like faith is different from child-like faith. This tension is one that is worth wrestling with a bit. It seems as though Jesus understood that our faith in Him diminishes as we grow older. That doesn’t seem very fair does it? Did He design us this way? As I spent some time thinking on the matter I realized that our faith doesn’t diminish simply because we age, our faith can potentially diminish as we leave childhood because we move through stages of dependency that used to be necessary for our survival, our understanding of life, and maybe even our happiness. Our imagination is replaced by informed decision making, and our view of God will shrink if we are not intentional about nurturing our relationship with Him.. When we were young, we believed He hung the moon and the stars, yet as we age we rarely make moves in life unless we can somehow predict or measure the outcome ahead of time.

GOD:

Intro to Text: I will say some challenging things in regards to Abraham and Isaac. Let’s go ahead and establish that God’s not asking any of us to kill our children, ok? There is a lesson to be learned from this story that transcends any area that we might be struggling to put on the altar today, this will be your Isaac today as we work through the story.

Faith is not just showing up, Faith requires stepping up.

(As I mentioned earlier?) Now I’m certainly not diminishing showing up faithfully, I’m not diminishing faithfully being on time, I’m not diminishing faithfully giving, or doing what you say you will do. But this morning we will look at how frequently Abraham could have just claimed his church attendance, goodwill, or previous obedience to God as good enough. Here are just a few faith matters that Abraham could have hung his hat on.

He demonstrated his faith in God in the following ways:

He was willing to leave his homeland and go to a strange land.

He obeyed God’s call for personal relationship and left worshipping many gods to worship the one true living God.

Abraham directed a peaceful separation from Lot and settled in Canaan after letting Lot take the more desirable land.

At God’s command, Abraham circumcised every male (as adults) in his family. (Should have been enough, right?)

Abraham waited until he was 100 years old to receive the promise of his son Isaac.

And that’s where we will pick up our text in Genesis 22…

NAU Genesis 22:1 Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." 3So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. 5Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you." 6Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. 7 Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" 8 Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together. 9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 12 He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." 13Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. 14Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide (or Jehovah Jireh), as it is said to this day, "In the mount of the LORD it will be provided." 15 Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, 16 and said, "By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18"In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." (Gen 22:1-18 NAU)

PRAYER

YOU: God wants to know that we are willing to sacrifice the things that we love the most. The things that we are most passionate about, What do you love most about your Church? Your Home? Your Family? Your Life? Your Career? Is it on the altar before God? The words to an old hymn posed the questions, is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid, your heart does the spirit control... when the scriptures talk about our heart it refers to our preferences, our passions, what we are proud of, and how we spend our time and money. Does the Holy Spirit have full reign in those areas? God does something awesome when we give those things to Him. A lot of time He give them back to us 30, 60, 100 times greater than they could have ever been in our own control.

Too often we want to point out how much we’ve done or how much we’ve given, or our degrees of qualification. Jesus set the example on the cross, He willing laid down His life. Philippians 2 said He did not regard His equality with God as something to be grasped… leveraged… or how about exploited? If King Jesus did not see fit to leverage or exploit His position, what place do we have? What if laying down the thing that you are passionate about is all that God is waiting for before He decides to bless it?

SLOW DOWN Whether we like to admit at not, and we probably won’t, When we’re young it’s often money and provisions, and as we get older it’s often position and authority. At any place it is probably something we think or perhaps know cannot be replaced… just like Isaac in our story. Abraham’s comment on God providing, meant he didn’t know how God was going to provide but He know that He would.

Instead of trusting God to provide for us too often we say, “God if you will just show me where the money is going to come from, just reveal to me the next stage of life, or show me the full vision, then God and I’m in.” I’ve kept a note in my office for a long time now, it’s a quote from my friend Pastor Mark Fuller. Mark had this to say about how we try to exercise surrender. He said, Often I think I am surrendering control to God when in fact I am trying to control my surrender. (REPEAT)

PAUSE…

WE: If we aren’t careful we can even become guilty of comparing our altars to others. Perhaps we even rank our sacrifices… Can you imagine Abraham arguing with God?... I sort of can. God what’s going on, everyone else just has to give a lamb or a goat, but you want my son? Beyond that we want to have what others have without being willing to do what others do. God might ask someone else to do less, He might ask them to do more. Perhaps the greater struggle exist in the fact that we get so hung up on the sacrifice that we lose sight of the provider. After the Angel of the Lord stopped Abraham from taking Isaac’s life, verse 13 says Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. The provider had provisions ready to go once He saw that Abraham’s desire to please God was more important than the sacrifice which was required. Does God see this same spirit in us?

Conclusion/ResponseMUSICIANS

As the worship team comes I want to share an incredible testimony of a person that continues to step up in her walk with God. Shirley Caesar is a long time Christian singer and pastor. Known by most for her 1980s Christian chart-topping song, “He’ll do it again.”

At 83 years old she has buried her father, her invalid mother that she cared for until her death, her husband, and all 12 of her brothers and sisters. She is still the lead pastor at her church that she pastored for over 3 decades with her husband, but she has hired another pastor to run the church and do all the preaching. Her focus is now on outreach, saying she believes that God wants her to do MORE… Her desire to press on mirrors Paul’s example for us to die daily. Whether we are 8 or 88 God wants to do more through us.

Following God requires that we grow in faithfulness. It’s not just showing up every week although that is good, faithfulness means stretching in our obedience and sacrifice beyond our prior experience. We are not to grow old in comfort and familiarity, we are to grow faithful in sacrifice, change, and transformation. Our call to follow Him was not just laying down our rights in a crisis moment of salvation where we locked in who we were going to be as a Christian. Our call to follow Him is to die more to our self every single day until we reach the end of this life. Abraham met with God every day, Abraham worshipped God, he was faithful to show up, but Abraham was challenged to step up with Isaac. Andy Stanley said, If you are not willing to make adjustments for the sake of your goal then one thing is clear: Your goal is something other than changed lives. Your goal is to keep doing what you’ve always done, to do what’s comfortable. (REPEAT)

God knows that sometimes we pray for something and when we get enough to meet our needs that we might become satisfied. But in verse 18 God teaches Abraham that he didn’t want just to bless him. But he wanted to make him a blessing that blesses others, that blesses others for generations to come. God wants to give us generations of blessing and we get hung up on the Isaac.

At the end of the day I don’t really think Abraham’s greatest fear was in losing his son. If that was his greatest fear he would have just stayed home. In climbing the mountain, we can see that the one thing that Abraham feared even more than losing his son Isaac was letting down his Father God.

Faith is not just showing up, Faith requires stepping up.

Prayer: God, what new thing needs surrendered in my life today? What is the Isaac that I don’t believe you can replace. Help me not to get so focused on the sacrifice that I lose sight of Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides.