06.28.2015 Stories for Children (or not!) Abraham goes to Sacrifice Isaac

6-28-2015 from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

My name is Jason Slack – I am one of the Pastors at H2O Kent. We have been really blessed with our partnership with Grace Summit.
I am excited to announce that we are planting a church this fall at Akron. We have had a bible study going there for a couple years – we are partnering with Bowling Green to plant that church and look forward to it.
We have a program called The Well – an incoming class – 7 weeks – an accelerated track to get new people involved – getting them fully linked in to H2O with a strong vibrant community. This past year we had a group of 50 students go through and many of them are at Colorado LT. There are 28000 or so students at Kent – but we guess that fewer than 3% are involved in a campus ministry or church.
It is an honor to speak with you – every time Pastor Mike asks, I am so honored.
We recently went through a sermon series called Children’s Stories – for most of the seasons of my childhood, I had no church background – so I never heard the traditional stories that are often repeated over and over to children. When I became a Christian just before college, a lot of the Christians I knew had a great understanding of all these stories – so I secretly went out and bought a children’s Bible storybook! I’ve come clean since then. We recently have been ministering to Josie – and she had no church background, so we did the same thing for her. The Children’s stories are simple and yet complex – because children can understand them and scholars can pull out new meaning.
When we went through this series, we worked together to give
Video
This story has a different feel from most children’s stories – not like the short little guy climbing a tree or rainbows and boats – I doubt there are children’s rooms painted with the scene of Isaac and Abraham. This is a darker story – where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
You may have heard that the moral of this story is to value God more than anything else in life.
Or maybe God wanted to test Abraham to see if he was worthy enough to be the father of God’s people.
Maybe there is a deeper understanding we can come to. I think we will find – as we look at the story – it is more about the nature and character of God more than about Abraham – so we can trust Him because of who He is. We will find that the whole thing is one of the earliest pictures of preparing the way for the story of Christ.
Genesis 22
22 Some time after these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham replied. 2 God said, “Take your son—your only son, whom you love, Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you.”
In case you did not hear these stories growing up – like me – Abraham is known for his faith and obedience. He is referred to as the father of the Hebrew people.
Genesis 12:1-3
2 Now the Lord said to Abram,
“Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household
to the land that I will show you.
2 Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you,
and I will make your name great,
so that you will exemplify divine blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
but the one who treats you lightly I must curse,
and all the families of the earth will bless one another by your name.”2 Now the Lord said to Abram,
“Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household
to the land that I will show you.
2 Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you,
and I will make your name great,
so that you will exemplify divine blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
but the one who treats you lightly I must curse,
and all the families of the earth will bless one another by your name.”
God is making promises to Abraham – through descendants and land – so that Abraham’s family could go and spread to bless the whole world.
In the NT, Abraham is referenced as the primary ancestor of our faith. He is the source of God’s promise to bless all people and the nations.
Genesis 13
16 And I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone is able to count the dust of the earth, then your descendants also can be counted. 17 Get up and walk throughout the land, for I will give it to you.”
When Abraham was 86 – they kind of took matters in their own hands – and had a child, Ishmael, but God told them that was not the child of promise – and so when Abraham and Sara were 99, God said it would come through Sarah – and so they had a son named Isaac – they laughed, his name means laughter.
Now God is asking them to sacrifice this son.
Test – to prove – it expects success – general testing is a positive thing – the goal of tempting is to make one fail – testing is to succeed. God was testing Abraham to reveal how much Abraham had changed. It leads me to ask, God tests us? How is God testing me? What is God using to test? Not for your demise, or mine, but to prove and to show you how He has changed your heart. What in your life right now will reveal the faith, hope and love that God has placed in your heart?
Abraham’s response was, "Here I am – ready to obey."
I like what God says – Mt. Moriah is believed to be the place that David built an altar and then the temple was built.
Child sacrifice was typically condemned in the Bible – it is not to be participated in – but some of the fertility gods required it – and Abraham would have been aware of it.
Gen. 22:3 Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out for the place God had spoken to him about. 4 On the third day Abraham caught sight of the place in the distance. 5 So he said to his servants, “You two stay here with the donkey while the boy and I go up there. We will worship and then we will return to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. Then he took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them walked on together. 7 Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father?” “What is it, my son?” he replied. “Here are the fire and the wood,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 “God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham replied. The two of them continued on together.
Did you catch the depths of Abraham’s obedience? He got up early in the morning. He cut enough wood for the sacrifice. He set out to get there for 3 days. The children’s stories often show Abraham as grieving and questioning and wavering – but the scripture does not indicate that that is how that happened. It is not that there is not enough love for Isaac – but Abraham had confidence in God’s character. Who is God to me? What is His character to me?
If our obedience is wrapped up in performance, it will crumble – but if it is rooted in God’s character -it will stand. Abraham believed that God would fulfill the promise through Isaac. Even as he took his son to kill him. Did you catch – we will worship, and we will come back. Doesn’t that sound odd to you? He knew God and obeyed decisively.
Heb. 11: 17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He had received the promises, yet he was ready to offer up his only son. 18 God had told him, “Through Isaac descendants will carry on your name,” 19 and he reasoned that God could even raise him from the dead, and in a sense he received him back from there.
So God’s command could not contradict the promise.
Abraham knew God and believed.
9 When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand, took the knife, and prepared to slaughter his son. 11 But the Lord’s angel called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am!” he answered. 12 “Do not harm the boy!” the angel said. “Do not do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.”

13 Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. So he went over and got the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of that place “The Lord provides.” It is said to this day, “In the mountain of the Lord provision will be made.”

15 The Lord’s angel called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “‘I solemnly swear by my own name,’ decrees the Lord, ‘that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will indeed bless you, and I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be as countless as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the strongholds of their enemies. 18 Because you have obeyed me, all the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using the name of your descendants.’”

19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set out together for Beer Sheba where Abraham stayed.
There are many instances of obedience – even to the point of taking the knife in his hand.
Did you notice that Isaac was completely willing? He was not a little boy – he was a young adult – he was carrying the wood for his own sacrifice. Even though they did not understand everything – they were still obedience.
This ram was the first example of a substitutionary sacrifice. This idea can be foreign to us – we don’t understand the ceremonial sacrificial system – thankfully – but it was to show the seriousness of sin – and to point to Christ’s ultimate sacrifice. He told his son – God Himself will provide the Lamb…
John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Tim Keller – Counterfeit Gods – P. 18 – The willingness for the sacrifice shows how much Abraham loved God – and God’s sacrifice of Jesus shows how much God loves us.
Takeaways:
God was speaking and Abraham was listening. Often, those who are quietest are the best listeners. I am challenged to be quiet before Him.
Secondly – I am impressed by Abraham’s ability to treasure God. He knew God’s character –and he was willing to give up everything because he knew God’s character – and it makes me ask if there are things in my life – even good things – do I treasure God more than all those things?
Abraham knew God and believed the promises and was able to take the posture of complete surrender.
Abraham decisively obeyed God – and God reiterated the blessing – renewed blessing from obedience.
Having come through the testing, there is renewed joy.
I love that this story paints a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ – giving a full picture of just how much God loves us.
We will take communion together - …
Remember the sacrifice – and remember that we can trust Him.