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Genesis 22:1-19Sermon: “This Is A Test; this is ONLY A Test!”

Introduction:

  • We all face storms in this life. When we do, who will we hold on to?
  • Our faith will certainly be tested in this life. When that happens, will we trust Jesus?
  • This account is not just a test of Abraham’s faith, but a pivot point where three common Biblical themes are presented.
  • 40 years have passed since God called Abram in chapter 12.
  • Most important event in the 40 years (to Abraham - 100 & Sara - 90)
  • Birth of their miracle child, Isaac.
  • The beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promises.

I. Tested Faith

  1. An impossible command!
  2. “Take your son,” Go,” “Sacrifice him.”
  3. No reason is given.
  4. Losing a son after killing a son – an incomprehensible situation and crime.
  5. Passage has caused many to doubt God.
  6. Added complication: without Isaac, God’s promises mean nothing!
  7. Sometimes we, the readers, are given info characters don’t have.
  8. Book of Job, for example.
  9. From V1: “God tested Abraham.”
  10. This is an extraordinary divine act. Isaac is in no danger.
  11. Why would God test people?
  12. “Tests are designed to stretch you.”
  13. Tests help us grow in our faith.
  14. Abraham has been tested from the beginning.
  15. Life is a test!
  16. But Abraham doesn’t know that.
  17. Pace of Abraham’s reaction: deliberate, measured, to the point.
  18. Following God calls us to do difficult things.
  19. Abraham’s intent: to carry out God’s instruction.
  20. Vv 11-12: God stops Abraham – it’s a test!
  21. NOT a test of blind obedience…
  22. …but a test of Abraham’s faith!
  23. Measured by Abraham’s willingness to obey God’s will over Abraham’s feelings.
  24. Abraham is NOT to have faith in the life of Isaac, but in God and His promises.
  25. Abraham passes because he trusts God enough to risk losing Isaac!
  26. Trusts that God would never break His promises.
  27. Evidence of Abraham’s faith.
  28. V5 – “We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
  29. Expects Isaac to return with him.
  30. Genesis 21:12: “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named,” and he believes God with all his heart!
  31. V8 – “God will provide for himself the lamb.”
  32. Trusts God to keep His promises, even when conventional wisdom disagrees.
  33. Doesn’t know how God will do it – figures resurrection (see Heb. 11:17-19)
  34. God wants us to trust Him more than we trust this world.
  35. He wants us to value Him more than we value us.
  36. He wants us to value His wisdom more than our own.
  37. He wants us to value His affection more than human affection.
  38. That’s the test we face every day of our lives!
  39. Most of the time, not life-or-death situations as in this case.
  40. Called to sacrifice many things for the Lord.
  41. Tested to decide who we’ll believe: God or the world, in things like:
  • What we believe.
  • World says anything.
  • John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
  • Whether happiness is more important than marriage & children.
  • Whether possessions are more important than Christ.
  • Matthew 6:24: "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
  • Whether sexuality requires restraint.
  • 1 Cor. 6:18: “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”
  • Tested by life itself:
  • Philippians 3:20-21: “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”
  • 1 Cor 15:51-58: “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
  • Hegg’s definition of faith: a life-dominating conviction that all God has for me through obedience is better by far than anything Satan can offer me through selfishness and sin.
  1. Abraham passed his test! How are WE doing?

II. Expensive Sin

  1. We’ve been seeing that sin is expensive (Genesis 2:17)
  2. Penalty is death!
  3. Righteous and just consequences of turning away from righteous and just God.
  4. This account is foreshadowing of Heb. 9:22:

“Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

  1. Picture of Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”
  2. Expecting God to overlook it is ridiculous – because sin is expensive.
  3. This account very practically brings those principles to life.
  • Steve Faraar in Finishing Strong: “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you’re willing to pay.”
  1. We MUST recapture the horror of sin!
  2. At its heart is a lack of faith of God!
  3. Should bring us godly sorrow, a desire for repentance & forgiveness.
  4. Application: How do you see the sin in YOUR life?

III. Sacrificial Atonement.

  1. Atonement: “making amends for doing wrong.”
  2. Sacrificial atonement: “Someone or something else sacrificing to make amends for what we do wrong.”
  3. Parallels between sacrifice of Isaac & sacrifice of Christ.
  • Location
  • “the land of Moriah (v2)
  • 2 Chronicles 3:1 “Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah…”
  • Plausible that Jesus was crucified at same place.
  • Sonship
  • Isaac, son of Abraham
  • Jesus, Son of God
  • Action
  • Isaac willingly carries wood to place of execution, & is about to be sacrificed on it.
  • John 19:16-17: “So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.”
  • Jesus willingly carries cross to place of execution & is sacrificed on it.
  • Attitude:
  • Isaac complies.
  • Jesus (Matt. 26:39) “…not as I will, but as you will.”
  • Provision
  • Abraham “Yahweh-Jireh” (the Lord will provide)
  • In Jesus, the Lord provided (v. 14)
  • Point - Hebrews 10:10: “And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”