Genesis 22:1-18
First Sunday in Lent - 18 February 2018
Vicar Nathanael Jensen
It’s approximately 2000 B.C. Abraham has been called by the Lord, and he’s been very, very blessed by the Lord. Twenty-five years after God first gave him the promise of a son, God kept his promise, despite the fact that Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90. As our lesson today begins, years have passed, but their son Isaac is still their pride and joy. We read, “Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.’”
And you kind of want to just stop right there and ask, “God, what are you doing?! Why would you tell him to do that?!” But know for sure, God isn’t playing a trick on him. And God isn’t tempting him. He’s not telling Abraham to sin. God cannot sin and he cannot tempt people to sin. To do what God tells you to do is not sin, but obedience.
As the lesson says, God is testing Abraham. He’s giving Abraham an opportunity to show his faith. He’s giving Abraham an opportunity to show that he will do anything if God tells him to. But perhaps you’re still a little uneasy about it. I mean, why does God have to test him? Doesn’t God know everything? Yes, he certainly does, but he doesn’t just simulate scenarios in his mind as if we’re some robot or computer. He gives us the real opportunities to put our faith into real action. And he doesn’t just do it for his sake. No, he does it for our sake – for us to have the joy of showing our love for him and our trust in him, for us to grow in our faith and grow closer to him, for us to learn more and more about his promises and to learn more and more about his amazing love. Specifically, in our lesson for today, we, as Abraham did, learn more about God’s Amazing Love…That Always Provides.
As we consider God’s testing Abraham, the essence of the test is pretty clear: Whom do you love more? Is it your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love? Or is it me, God. Are you going to spare your son from this sacrifice I’ve commanded or are you going to trust me and obey my word? And we get tested in the same way: What or whom is it that you love most? Is it your, fill in the blank, your only fill in the blank, which you love or whom you love? Or is it God?
While considering Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son and with today being the first Sunday in Lent, I’d like you to consider that tradition of sacrificing or giving something up for Lent. Nowadays, the tradition has mostly lost its meaning, and it isn’t something that God in any way commands us to do, but imagine if he did. Imagine if for the rest of this Lent season, until Easter, God asked you to give up your cell phone …or your big-screen TV …or your Netflix or watching the NCAA tournament…or your favorite hobby…or your newest car…or your comfy home…or your savings account…or your parents…or your spouse…or your son or daughter. And remember, it’s not me or the church asking you to give it up, it’s God. Would you be willing to do it, eagerly, not begrudgingly? Trusting God and gladly doing what he commands? Or do you love those things and those people more than God? Whom do you love most? And Lent’s only 40 days long, what if it was for good?
Now, that’s just a hypothetical scenario, but it makes you think. From that list, God hasn’t asked us to sacrifice those things. He allows us to love and enjoy them. His tests to us haven’t come in such a seemingly drastic form as his test to Abraham did. And even still, how often haven’t we failed the test?
When given the opportunities to show our love for God above all things, how often haven’t we placed those people and things over God? Putting acquiring things and enjoying them above hearing God’s Word and valuing it as our highest treasure? Defining who we are by the things we have or do and the people who surround us rather than rejoicing that our identity is first and foremost as a child of God? Spending time with our loved ones and getting wrapped up in all these activities but let our relationship with God and their relationship with God slip? Holding onto those people and things so tightly, loving and trusting in them to provide everything we need to make us happy, that we’ve actually been choking out our faith and love in God? And when God has allowed one of these things or one of these people from us, or perhaps part of our health to be taken from us, questioning if he knows what he’s doing. Yes, sadly we’ve often failed to put our trust in God and his promises and haven’t loved the Lord our God above everything else.
And a quick skimming of Genesis reveals that Abraham too didn’t always pass the test, but here he does. We read, “Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled 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. 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.’
We’re not given any of Abraham’s thoughts, but we see his actions. He obeys, right away, with no hesitation. And it’s not like he can just go and get it over with. He’s walking with his son Isaac, knowing what he’s going to do to him for three days. But pay close attention to his words, “We will worship and then we will come back.” How could he say that? He knew what he was going to do. Was he just lying so his servants didn’t try to stop him? No, it was faith.
God had given and repeated promises to Abraham. He had promised that Abraham would become a great nation, the father of many, through Isaac, that he would inherit the land through Isaac, and that through Isaac’s offspring, all nations would be blessed. And he trusted that God would keep his promise, just like God had kept his promise to give him a son, even when he was 100 and she was a barren 90 year-old and it was physically impossible.
We’re not given any of Abraham’s thoughts here in Genesis, but the book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham recognized that God could do the physically impossible again. We’re told, “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead.”
Even if he sacrificed Isaac, Abraham knew God could not and would not break his promise. God would provide. Even though he had those two words of God which didn’t seem like they could stand together – the command to sacrifice Isaac and the promise to make Abraham a great nation through Isaac – he trusted God. He loved God most of all.
That’s why, when Isaac is carrying the wood and he asks his father, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Again, he wasn’t just trying to cover up what he was about to do. He was confessing his faith in God. Whether he killed Isaac and then God raised him to life, or if God had some other plan, he truly trusted that God would provide.
And God didn’t let him down. As Abraham was there on Moriah, having already bound his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood, having reached out his hand and taken the knife to slay his son, his only son, whom he loved, the angel of the Lord called out to him and stopped him. He had passed the test. He really was will to do and sacrifice anything for God. He loved God more.
And there was a ram, caught by its horns, not a coincidence, but God’s providence. And Abraham sacrificed the ram instead of his son Isaac. So Abraham called the place, ‘The Lord Will Provide’ – a testimony for generations to the timeless truth which he had put his faith in and which the Lord had demonstrated once again.
But the ram on that mountain was really just the beginning of God providing. The Lord providing that ram wouldn’t have done any real, lasting good for Abraham, or even Isaac, and definitely not us if that were the end of the story. Abraham was obedient here, but as mentioned before, he wasn’t always. And we haven’t always been obedient to God and put him first and loved him most. Because what Abraham deserved was much worse than losing his son. What Isaac deserved was much worse than losing his earthly life. What we deserve is much worse than being slain on an altar. What we deserve is eternal punishment. But that isn’t the end of the story.
After sacrificing the ram, the Lord reaffirmed this promise to Abraham – “through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.” That’s the promise to provide what Abraham needed most, what Isaac needed most, and what we all need most. That’s the promised blessing of a Savior from sin.
And just like Abraham had to wait a long time for his son Isaac to be born, the promised offspring through which all nations on earth would be blessed didn’t come right away either. But at just the right time, the Father sent the offspring of Abraham, who was also his Son, his only Son, Jesus, whom he loved – as we heard the Father proclaim on the mountain of transfiguration. Jesus faced the devil’s temptations to selfishly love himself and use his divine power for himself, to forego his suffering for himself, and much, much more, and he passed the test, every single time.
Then the Father watched as his Son willingly carried his wooden cross, as he allowed himself to be bound to the cross, and the Father sacrificed his Son – pouring out his anger over sin, pouring out eternal punishment, pouring out our death, on him. And thus simultaneously pouring out his amazing love on us – amazing love that always provides, as the Son provided the perfect sacrifice instead of us, for us, in our place. The Son and the Father were actually working together in perfect harmony to provide for us. And then just as Abraham knew God could do with Isaac, the Father raised Jesus from the dead. Sacrifice completed. All sins paid for. All nations of the earth of all time blessed in him with the free gift of forgiveness and life.
There is the ultimate proof of the Lord’s amazing love that always provides, which is what the apostle Paul pointed out in our second lesson from Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” From Abraham’s perspective, it might not have seemed that whole time that God was for him. For us too, it might not always seem that God is for us, but it’s true! Even when God is testing us, he is for us. Even if we must sacrifice something, even everything else we love, God is always for us, and here’s the clear proof of it: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.” That’s what the Father did. He was willing to give up what he loved and treasured most – his Son, his only Son, Jesus, whom he loved – for you. That’s how much he loves you! That’s amazing love!
And what else does that show us? Paul continues, “How will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” If God was willing to give up his Son for you, is there absolutely anything else that he’d hold back from you? No. That’s why he says ‘all things.’
It may not be all the things we want, but his amazing love always provides all things that we need, all things for our eternal good, all things for our eternity. That’s God’s amazing love that always provides, no matter what comes, whether trouble or hardship or persecution or all those other things Paul lists. That’s why we can be confident and put our trust in God no matter what the test, no matter what the sacrifice, because nothing in all creation can separate us from the amazing love that God has poured out on us – amazing love that always provides for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So it’s approximately 2000 A.D. You and I have been called by the Lord, and we’ve been very, very blessed by the Lord. No matter how old we are, whether we have children or not, we have beloved and treasured blessings which he has given us. But the one which we trust in and love most of all is God himself.
Treasure that amazing love that always provides by being in his Word, spending time with you and your family to be strengthened in that loving relationship, knowing that he is the source of true joy and happiness both now and forever, and that your true identity is as his dearly loved child, whom he loves so much that he was willing to sacrifice his Son to make you his.
When you face those tests and have the opportunity to show your love for God above all things, like Abraham, stand firm in God’s promises. Look back and see that he kept his promise to bless all nations, providing a perfect sacrifice and Savior from sin for you, yes even his own Son. And look ahead, trusting that in his amazing love, he will always provide for us here on earth, and then will raise us from the dead too to give us all things with him forever. Rejoice in these tests as opportunities to show your love and trust in God above everything else.
Because “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? He will! That’s Amazing Love…That Always Provides! Amen.