2-18-24 Grace-Tucson Sermon

Genesis 22:1-18 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke

First Sunday in Lent Sunday, February 18, 2024 “The LORD Will Provide.”

What would Abraham have been thinking? Did he think about when God called him out of Haran and told him that God would accomplish amazing things through Abraham and his family? Did he think about how God had promised to show him the place where he would establish his home and his family and a whole nation? Maybe Abraham thought about God’s protection and providence when famine struck his new land. Maybe he thought about how God had rescued his nephew, Lot. Maybe Abraham thought about the times he had tried to take matters into his own hands and how things never worked out on those occasions. And almost certainly Abraham thought about the many times that God repeated his promise: Abraham would have a child and an heir, a son who would be the one through whose line God would bless the whole world.

The twenty-five years between God’s first promise of a son and the fulfillment of that promise must have weighed heavily on the mind of Abraham. He must have remembered how he and his wife Sarah were both convinced that they could not have children at ninety and one hundred years old. But they had. God did exactly as he said, and after all that waiting, Abraham and Sarah had their son Isaac. How many of those events ran through the mind of Abraham, then well over one hundred years old, when God gave him a new instruction? Now God said this: “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains there, the one to which I direct you.”

What would Abraham have been thinking? I can only imagine that his mind was racing as all these facts filtered through. On the one hand, Isaac was the one he had waited for so long. He loved his son. God was going to use Isaac in amazing and special ways. And, on the other hand, God was calling Abraham directly to offer his son as a sacrifice, a burnt offering.

You and I are given a word of introduction and explanation. Our chapter begins, “Some time later God tested Abraham.” We know that God had some special purpose in mind. Abraham did not. It wouldn’t have been much of a test if God had first come to Abraham and said, “Abraham, now I am going to give you a test.” But it was a test. It was difficult. God’s clear word of instruction seemed to contradict his clear word of promise. God was asking Abraham to trust him and obey.

In a way, we don’t have to work too hard to figure out what Abraham was thinking. We face issues, too.

We face challenging decisions. We run across times in our lives when we are tempted to rationalize away the difficulty of our situation or the challenge of the decisions with which we are faced. And what do we think? Don’t we wonder whether God’s clear word of instruction is really so clear? Does God really expect me to wait for marriage to be with someone I love so much? Does God really expect me to put money into the offering plate when I could use it for things that would make a huge difference in my life?

Does God really expect my comfort level and my convenience to take a backseat to the needs of my neighbor? We understand that it is a real challenge to think about those times when God’s clear word of instruction seems to contradict what I want most and love dearly and think of as a gift from God to me.

We’re not told what Abraham thought, but we know what Abraham did. He got up early the next morning, prepared for the journey, and set off to obey God’s command.

And what was Abraham feeling? Can you imagine how the intensity of Abraham’s emotions grew on that three-day journey? Can you feel the lump in the throat he must have swallowed to say to his men, “Wait here while we go over, worship, and come back”? And then he watched his son, his beloved Isaac, carrying the wood that would burn on his altar. And how heart-wrenching it must have been to hear young Isaac turn to him and say, “Aren’t we missing something if we’re going to offer a sacrifice?” How many tears did Abraham need to fight back as he and Isaac trudged just a little further up the mountain?

We don’t really need to work that hard to imagine what Abraham must have been feeling, do we? No, I am not saying that we have faced a trial quite like this one, but we know the emotion of trials and tests that seem to pit God’s gifts against each other in our own lives. How do I confront the sin of a family member or friend when I know that will upset them, when I could lose that friendship? How much of a challenge is it for you when someone dear to you says, “You can skip church just this once to spend time with me”? How heart-wrenching is it for you when you are completely certain that what you want to do and what you should do are not the same thing?

It’s not a test when God asks you to do exactly what you feel like doing. A test is hard. A test like the one Abraham faced forced him to confront this question: do I do what God says? Do I put him first in my life?

Do I love him enough to sacrifice anything else, even that which I hold dear?

Was there another tear in Abraham’s eye when he finally took the knife and raised it above his son, now tied in place atop the altar? That’s what happened after all that Abraham thought and all that Abraham felt. He was ready to do exactly what God had said—right until the point that God stopped him.

What had Abraham done? He had passed the test. He had proven, not so much to God who knows everything, but to himself and to us who get to learn from this account, that his faith was strong enough to face a challenge like this. It didn’t matter what he was thinking, and it didn’t matter what he was feeling. What mattered was he had a clear word of instruction from God. And what mattered was God had given him his promises.

If the last few decades of his life had been on his mind since God gave this command, then Abraham would have been thinking not only about what God had accomplished, but also about his own failures.

He would have seen so clearly that he needed what God was promising. The biggest and best of God’s promises was not about the land or his immediate family. The best of God’s promises was about a Savior.

And God, through his very promise enabled Abraham to believe the promise that he would send a Savior, not just for Abraham, but for the world.

Abraham believed what he said when Isaac asked about a lamb for the burnt offering. He said, “The L ORD will provide.” When all was said and done, he named that mountain accordingly. And the L ORD did provide. He provided a ram in the bushes to be offered as a sacrifice instead of Isaac. He provided forgiveness for all of Abraham’s sins. He provided the fulfilment of his promises in preserving Isaac and his line. He provided a Savior, God’s own dearly beloved Son offered as a sacrifice for the world’s sin. He provided the one through whom he kept the promise repeated to Abraham on that mountain: “In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

You know that seed. You know that Savior. And if God gave him up for you and for your salvation, what do you possibly lack? If God is for you, nothing can stand against you. You have one who overcame Satan’s temptations on your behalf and in your place. You have one who always put God first. You have his perfect life offered as a sacrifice for you. And you have the good news that he rose again and conquered death so that you will have eternal life.

The theme of our service today asks and invites us to rethink trials and tests and temptations. So does this account from the life of Abraham. It’s natural to assume that challenges and trials, difficult decisions and emotionally charged choices, are bad. But they are not. Not for us, who have a perfect Savior. Not for us who have God’s gracious promises. Not for us when God uses challenges and difficulties to teach us about his steadfast love and his perfect power. Trials are beneficial for us when God uses them to teach and reinforce for us that he is worth the top spot in our hearts and lives. Through every trial and test, we can rely on God’s promises. We can say with Abraham, “The LORD will provide.”

The Text: Genesis 22:1–18 (EHV) 22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He called to him, “Abraham!” Abraham answered, “I am here.”

2God said, “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah.

Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains there, the one to which I direct you.”

3Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with

him, along with Isaac his son. Abraham split the wood for the burnt offering. Then he set out to go to the place that God had told him about. 4On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

5Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go on over there.

We will worship, and then we will come back to you.” 6Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and loaded it on Isaac his son. He took the firepot and the knife in his hand. The two of them went on together.

7Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father?”

He said, “I am here, my son.”

He said, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

8Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of

them went on together. 9They came to the place that God had told him about. Abraham built the altar there. He arranged the wood, tied up Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

11The Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!”

Abraham said, “I am here.”

12He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. For now I know that you

fear God, because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

13Abraham looked around and saw that behind him there was a ram caught in the thicket by its

horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

14Abraham called the name of that place “The L ORD Will Provide.” So it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”

15The Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16and said, “I have sworn by

myself, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your descendants greatly, like the stars of the sky and like the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the city gates of their enemies. 18In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”