Introduction

Often in a play there is a four-act structure that divides a story into four major parts: The setup, the rising action, the crisis, and the resolution.

One writer describes the midpoint of a story as that where the stakes are raised; that is, where the enormity of the task confronting the protagonist is fully revealed. The hero of the story is in crisis mode.

This is what we find in chapter 22 with Abraham who is the main character of Genesis chapters 12-25. He is a major biblical character through whom the seed of the Messiah will come. (the one that was promised in Genesis 3:15). It seems after years of patiently and not patiently waiting that a happy ever after ending has taken place. The promised son has been born and grown into a young man. His “rival” if you can describe Ishmael that way has been vanquished along with his mother.

This is where we are at in the beginning of chapter 22. But then the crisis comes. Abraham is confronted with an enormous task that none of us would ever want to face. He is called upon by God to sacrifice his son, his only son. An almost automatic question that comes to our mind is why would God call Abraham to offer his son and how should I apply this to my own life.

First I would say that the Bible is not primarily a book of rules from which we learn to obey. It’s a book about God who He is and how we should respond to who he is. Often we are called to imitate the lives of biblical characters. But not always and not in this case. Sometimes the patriarchs and prophets in the Old Testament are called to do things we will never have to do.

• This is primarily a story from which we are to learn what it means to love God above all things and the extent that our God has gone to love us.

In it we see Abraham’s love for his son and his love for God. And in a greater way we see the love of our Father and the love of our Savior - for one another and for us.

And we see that in biblical love, the highest type of love, one is willing to sacrifice whatever it takes for the one that they love. Love is costly and because it values its beloved it will willing make great sacrifices. Let us pray and ask God to help us to grow in this love and a greater appreciation for his great love for us.

I. Reverential Love

The great call of the Christian is to love. Our church mission statement says that we are a church seeking to grow in love for God, love for one another and love for our neighbor.

The reason I have described it as reverential love is that in verse 12 we read: the angel of the Lord said to Abraham: for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” We are called to love God and to fear him. They go together, they intertwine together in a holy love for our Father in heaven. And Abraham had that.

There’s different ways of defining the fear or the reverence of God but one way to describe is that it involves living coram deo.

Live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.

• RC Sproul

Now right out of the gate in verse one we are told what is going on in this passage: After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”

When God calls your name, get ready! Be ready for he is a God who tests his people. And yet keep this in mind his testing is for our good. Peter in his 1st epistle is addressing Christians who are going through some trials in which they are being tested.

so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. (I Peter 1:7-8)

Testing purifies our love for God. When he tests us it is to reveal (not to himself since he knows all things) to us the progress of our faith and growth in godliness but also it is an instrument for us to grow and to bring praise to him. He’s at work in us during our times of testing. The dross is being burned away from our lives as he turns up the heat. And so in trials we should be aware of this process and cooperate with it.

He is a God who tests us every day. Our faith and maturity or lack of it is always being revealed to us. Daily. And usually in “little tests” but sometimes bigger tests. And here Abraham is being tested in a very big way and that is an understatement.

The tests of life that God sovereignly provides in our lives are the way of the Christian life. Because God, our God, is one who calls us to forsake all things and follow him. To love him above all things (reverential love). We see this in Abraham’s initial call from God (Abram):

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. (Genesis 12:1)

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Matthew 16: 24-26)

If you here today and you’re not a Christian you need to know that this is the call of Christ on your life. Give up everything and follow him.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-46)

For the Christian an evidence of salvation is the joyful giving up of all things to gain the kingdom of God. For Abraham and for all Christians, though there is an initial turning from the world and from our sin and from our idols, the Lord will often test us or prove to us where our hearts are at, in regards to that.

The non-Christian is called to give up everything in order to come into the Kingdom. For the Christian the Lord is at work testing and refining that.

Abraham expresses a beautiful response: Verse 1 And he said, “Here I am.” This is the appropriate response to our Father, Here I am. I’m here waiting to hear from you. A disposition towards God, I’m ready and willing to obey in all things.

In verse 2 the Lord said to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering

• This is the first part of the “drama” of this text. A knife is plunged into Abraham’s heart. “take your son, your only son Issac, whom you love… and offer him as a burnt offering. We must not move too quickly from this verse but stop to think about the agony in Abraham’s heart when he heard the Lord giving him this command. The son he has waited for years and years, who was born and was now a young man.
• This is what the Lord tells us everyday. Take whatever you especially love and sacrifice it to me in worship. This does not mean that we cannot enjoy the blessings of this life but as we do we are to handle them lightly and with a view of the greater blessings of the gospel, of being in Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him. (Philippians 3:8)

• All things includes the things that God has clearly blessed us with, things we give thanks for and pray for whether it be family or friends or a certain area of ministry or a vocation that we find much satisfaction in. Enjoy those things, steward them well but do not hold them tightly.
• Loving things that God has given us is right and good. But we must do so without grasping them or making them my precious. You can have a “my precious” which is an outright sin (cherished inquiry in my heart) and there can be a “my precious” which is not outright sinful but which we are holding too tightly or putting our identity in or pleasure outside the right measure.

But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally.

• Augustine: On Christian Doctrine

One of the ways that we do this is to grow in a self-awareness of when the Spirit of God is putting his finger on certain areas of your life. That can often be evident in times when we are impatient or anxious or angry or jealous or trying to control a situation in an unhealthy way. This can be in little things or in big things. I’m not trying to make any rules but we should always evaluate how much time and effort we give to certain activities. Sports, music, social media, hanging out with friends the list is long

Abraham did not do this, he did not hold on to his precious son but it tells us that he rose early and saddled his donkeys, cut the wood for the sacrifice and started his journey. We do not know what emotional state he was in (we can only imagine) but regardless he was a man who imitated Jesus whom it was said of:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51)

When God calls us to do hard things we should be like Abraham. We too should get up early and promptly seek to follow through on what is before us. EG: Maybe you lied at work (misled someone) and you must go and talk to your boss about it and maybe you’re going to lose your job. Or maybe you need to go to a friend or family member and have a difficult conversation, knowing it might significantly affect the relationship.

For the Christian and the non-Christian: our God is God most glorious and he is worthy of us not having any gods before him. And having a people who are being conformed into the image of his Son.

4 On the third day (Calvary sighting) Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. It was Mt. Moriah. It was the place that David would later buy and and build an altar and offer a sacrifice to the Lord so that the plaque against Israel would be averted. It was the place where Solomon built the temple and later after the captivity of Israel when some Israelites came back and rebuilt the temple it was on Mt Moriah.

• For Abraham on this third day the drama and the agony continue. For two plus days he is continually confronted with the truth that this very bad dream in not a dream at all, it is reality - this is what God has called him to do. But he continued on because of his great reverential love for God.

We are going to move to point two and see how Abraham was able to get through trying time: .

II. Trusting Love

He was able to get through this most pressing trial of his life by his trusting love for God. Just as love and a reverential fear of God intertwine, so do love and faith.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Galatians 5:6)

He was a man of faith. He trusted God with his life and with the life of his only son. Hebrews 11 tells us this:

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Abraham according to Hebrews 11 is declaring in faith what he believes will happen. He is intent on obeying the Lord and yet at the same time he is believing (hope against hope!) that the Lord will deliver him and/or raise Issac up.

• 5 “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.
• He says in verse 8: God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.

Many of us have experienced this: “Lord, I don’t know how you’re going to do it” but I trust you to do it… to make a way, to deliver me, to provide for me. The Christian life is a life full of trusting our heavenly Father. That’s what faith is, it’s trusting God and his promises. And it involves entrusting everything we have into his hands. And in the testings of God we should ask ourselves “Am I trusting the Lord in this situation?”

Abraham was not the only one who was trusting in this passage. Issac emulated his father by trusting him. We don’t know exactly when or how Abraham told Issac that he was commanded to sacrifice him. In verse 7 through 8 we read: 7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” V 6 So they went both of them together. What a poignant scene.

In verse 9 we read 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. So somewhere between verse 8 and verse 9 he must have told Isaac of what was happening and seemingly Issac did not put up a fight but trusted his father.

Do you trust God even during difficult times in your life? Times when it seems that God or at least the world and everyone in it is against you? Times when things aren’t working out the way you thought they would.

One of the foundational ways that can help us trust God during these times is to be rooted in the gospel. In gospel truths.

The classic hymn God Moves In a Mysterious Way:

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense
But trust Him for His grace
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face

• William Cowper

For the Christian God’s face is always smiling upon us and that’s why we can trust him. His benevolent love is set upon us even when the circumstances seem otherwise. Please don’t say in your heart… Yes he disciplines us but even it’s done in love and it does not change the truth, the reality that we are accepted in the Beloved. He sees us in Christ. This is the essence of the gospel message.

Daily do we need to pray for afresh realization of the preciousness of the Gospel, a fresh appropriation of its blessed contents; and then there will be a renewing of our joy.

• A.W. Pink

This truth of justification by faith alone - Luther said was the foundation on which the church stands or falls. Even in dark times when you don’t know what’s up, which way to go or why this is happening to you we must believe it.

Practice drawing near to the Father regardless of how you feel. Inform your feelings of the truth of the gospel. I promise you that if you do this it will change your life. You must renew your mind in the goodness of the gospel. Ephesians tells us to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And if so it will flow into your heart.

This is how we are to get through difficult times by trusting our loving heavenly Father. The one we know and love and trust. Trusting his promises. When going through a trial are there specific promises of Scripture that you are reminding yourself of and holding onto and rekindling your love and your trust in our heavenly Father?

• Behold I am with you always
• Having been justified by faith I have peace with God
• Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Fortunately we have a great high priest, our Savior Jesus Christ who we can look to as our model in this. He trusted the Father in the most awful suffering anyone has ever suffered which is our third point.

III. Sacrificial Love

We have focused our first two points on Abraham and Isaac who are the main human characters in this drama. But in every biblical text we should remind ourselves what Phil often taught us in the past. The Bible is about God. And in this passage it’s not too difficult to see.

We see this drama which is playing out before us pointing us to a greater truth and a greater love than what the Patriarchs displayed. We see the amazing and sacrificial love of God on our behalf.

The agony that Abraham felt as he was going to sacrifice Issac was great but it was nothing compared to the distress that our Savior carried with him not for three days but for years as he knew of his own future sacrifice which would separate him in his human nature from God the Father

I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until is accomplished.

• Luke 12:49-50

Christian Standard: Or how great is my anguish.

Mt Moriah was not only the place where Abraham offered up Isaac but also where our Savior died at Calvary. The hill of Calvary was located on Mt Moriah.

The anguish that Abraham experienced was great, one that we would never want. But the anguish our Savior displayed was much greater. Because of his great sacrificial love for the Father and for us he bore our sins and carried our griefs, our sorrows, our transgressions and lawlessness against him.

For Abraham and for Isaac the Lord provided a sacrifice for them. A ram caught in a thicket.

But when our Savior prayed If you are willing, remove this cup from me. God did not provide another way, he did not remove the cup from him. He was the sacrifice for them and for us - for all who will place their faith in him.

We see this portrayed in verse : 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son and they went up the mountain together. The Son of God carried his own cross to Calvary though someone carried it part way because he had been beaten so badly. But the greater sacrificial love of Jesus is seen in verse: 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. And then the Lord intervened and provided a substitute, a sacrifice for him.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God I Peter 3:18

He became a propitiatory sacrifice for us. That is he bore in his body God’s righteous anger and wrath for our sins.

Jesus did this by surrendering to the will of God and willingly going to the cross because of his great trusting love for his Father even in the midst of him being forsaken by God for us. At the end of his life we read:

Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. Luke 23:46

This love is a sacrificial love. From eternity past the Father has loved the Son and the Son has loved the Father. Seven times in the gospels we hear the refrain this is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And yet he was willing to sacrifice him for us. John 3:16 is a very familiar verse but we should not let our familiarity keep us from seeing the great love of God.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things Romans 8:32

Because of his obedience Abraham was rewarded: because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely ___multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

But because of Christ’s obedience there is a much greater reward - a people for God’s own possession. And all who call upon his name in repentance and faith become part of that people.

On the day of days one great reality that matters.

Nothing should keep our minds busier on earth than this great reality: the Holy One of God was declared unholy, so that unholy sinners might stand unblemished before a holy God.

• Mark Jones