If I Just Had...

Finish this sentence for me in your own heart and mind this morning: “If I just had...”

What is the one thing your heart wants more than anything else?

For some, this might be a possession. You know that if you could just get this thing, you would finally have enough.

For others, this may be a relationship. You are wanting a husband or a wife or a child or even a grandchild.

Maybe for others, it is a resolution to something—peace in your home, a wayward child returning to Christ, a diagnosis and a treatment.

For some of us, there is something that our heart is longing for, and we desperately want it.

For others, there is a different question to ask.

Maybe you are actually satisfied with your life overall, and there isn’t anything that stands out.

In fact, you are on the other side of the question we just asked.

You prayed for a long time for something, you waited, you worked, and you finally have what you longed for.

I want you to picture this relationship or this thing in your mind—what do you feel like you couldn’t live without, or where do you turn for comfort when things are going bad?

What if you had to give that up?

Maybe it is a good or wonderful thing—you prayed hard for a healthy marriage or for restoration in a relationship with a friend, or maybe even for a child, and God saw fit to do it.

Those are not bad things, but like anything else, those good things God gives us can become bad things when we make them god-things.

As we look back at Abraham’s life this morning as it is recorded in the book of Genesis, we are going to see Abraham facing this very question: What if God calls you to sacrifice the one thing your heart wanted for years? How would you respond?

From that question, I want to challenge us with another. As I say to myself, “If I only had…,” I need to answer this question: Do I want the thing God will do more than the God who will do it?

God gave Abraham and Sarah the child they had always wanted. Later, he put Abraham’s faith to the test and showed us what it looks like when someone cares more for God than even their greatest treasure.

Let’s set the stage a bit. Open to Genesis 21, and leave your Bible open because we are going to flip around a bit.

Last week, we saw Abraham and Sarah get promised that they would have a son of their own in less than a year.

Abraham was 99 years old when God made the promise that clear.

We are skipping another account of Abraham’s failure and God’s continued faithfulness, but we will pick back up in 21:1-7...

Isn’t this beautiful? “And the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.”

What a beautiful picture, isn’t it? A 100-year-old Abraham holding his newborn son and everyone laughing for joy at what God alone could do.

The son’s name, Isaac, means “He laughs.”

Sarah’s laugh of disbelief at God’s promise has turned into a laughter of joy because they finally have the child God promised them 25 years before.

Don’t move too quickly past this little section: God kept his word.

Through this entire series, we have seen that God is faithful to keep his word.

Abraham and Sarah have seen it first hand as they hold Isaac in their arms.

Not everything is ideal in their home, though.

If you remember, Abraham and Sarah decided to go around what God said and Abraham had another son by one of Sarah’s slaves.

That son, Ishmael, is about 14 or so when Isaac is born.

The tension that started when Ishmael has conceived hasn’t gone away as we will see.

Pick up in 21:8-10...

We don’t know exactly how old Isaac was, but it is likely he is around 2-3 years old at this point.

Just like Hagar had mocked Sarah, now Ishmael was mocking Isaac.

Sarah has had enough, and she demands that Abraham send them away.

We see Abraham’s discussion with God in 21:11-13...

Abraham knew God’s promise, but as a good dad, it still hurt for him to have to send his other son away.

After all, Ishmael is an older teenager by this point.

God makes it clear, though, that now is the time for them to go. He sends them away and meets with Hagar again in the wilderness, reaffirming his care and concern for her and Ishmael.

It is a beautiful story, but we aren’t going to get into it right now.

After Ishmael and Hagar leave, an undetermined time passes.

Finally, everything is like it is supposed to be.

Abraham and Sarah are enjoying watching their true son, Isaac, grow.

Life is good, and they have the answers to their prayers for the last 30 years.

Can you imagine what it was like for them to look up every morning and see their little boy playing and running around?

When you have waited so long for something, you enjoy it so much more.

They finally had their child.

Some years later, God challenges Abraham to do the unthinkable.

We really have no idea how old Isaac was, but some think he was probably about 11 years old when God comes to Abraham again.

Pick up in 22:1-2...

From the outset, we know something Abraham doesn’t: this is a test. God does not intend for Abraham to kill Isaac, but Abraham doesn’t know that.

Put yourself in Abraham’s shoes for a minute here: This child is the one God told you was the key to everything else he promised.

You had another son, but God told you to send him away.

Isaac is all you have left. He’s your boy; he is the one you prayed for and have loved and have raised, and now he is to die at your hand.

I can’t imagine what was going through Abraham’s heart and head in the moments after God told him what to do.

Here’s what we do know, though: Abraham demonstrated incredible faith.

How do we know that? Verse 3.

He got up, he saddled his donkey, he split the wood, and he set out with his son and two servants to go make this sacrifice.

Don’t miss this subtle detail in verse 4 — “On the third day...”

Whether there is another significance in the three days or not, let’s just think about this on a practical level. For at least portions of three days, you have been thinking about what is coming.

For three days, Abraham could have called the whole thing off.

For three days, you are walking closer and closer to the place where God has told you to sacrifice your own son.

Here, the words of Abraham begin to back up the faith he has already demonstrated. Read verses 5-6...

“The boy and I will go worship; then we’ll come back to you”

We will go, and we will come back.

The writer of Hebrews later tells us that Abraham believed God was able to raise Isaac from the dead.

Now, keep this in mind: we do not have any indication that anyone had been raised from the dead at this point in history.

It might have happened, but we haven’t seen it recorded in Scripture.

So all the miracles in the Old and New Testament where someone is brought back to life or the account of Jesus’s resurrection hadn’t happened yet, so when Abraham is believing God is able to raise the dead, he is trusting God to do something never before seen in history.

As God had Moses record this event, you can’t help but notice something missing.

Abraham saddled the donkey and split the wood.

Now, he takes the wood off the donkey and places it on his son to carry.

He takes the fire and he takes the knife, but something is missing.

The two of them walk on together.

As Isaac and Abraham leave the servants behind with the donkey, Isaac finally asks about it. Read verse 7-8.

Maybe Isaac thought they would buy a lamb as they traveled, and now they are headed up the mountain and still don’t have the most obvious element of what they need.

Again, look at the faith Abraham demonstrates: knowing what God was calling him to do, Abraham points Isaac to God’s ability to provide.

Abraham and Isaac finally arrive at the place God appointed for the sacrifice.

I can’t imagine the heaviness in Abraham’s heart. Pick up in verse 9-10...

I can’t imagine it. God doesn’t tell us how this all went, but there must have been a moment where Isaac realized what was going on and had to surrender himself to the reality that he was the sacrifice.

Even believing that God could raise him, Abraham’s heart must have been breaking at what he was going to do.

He bound his son, laid him on the altar, and took out the knife.

At that moment, God intervened. Pick up in 11-14...

Abraham has passed the test, and God provides a sacrifice in Isaac’s place.

Like with Sodom, God knew what was in Abraham’s heart.

Now Abraham knows as well. He has had the opportunity to demonstrate his complete and total trust in God.

Let’s bring this around to where we started this morning.

Isaac was Abraham’s “if I only had...” for a lot of years.

He was the thing Abraham prayed for, even the very object of the promises God had made.

He was his son who finally brought laughter to his home again.

Now, God called him not only to give Isaac up, but to actually kill him and offer him as a sacrifice.

Abraham’s radical, steadfast obedience to the Lord in this moment proves that he was more concerned with God himself than with what God was going to do.

Without hesitation, Abraham went and did what God told him to do.

We don’t know all the thoughts that swirled in his head in the days and moments leading up to this, but if he had questions about how God was going to keep his promise, he didn’t doubt about God’s character or ability.

He knew he and the boy would go, and he and the boy would return.

He knew God would provide for the sacrifice one way or another.

What if that were you? What if God was calling you to take that person or that thing or that relationship or whatever it is you find your greatest comfort in--what if he called you to take that thing and give it back to him as a sacrifice?

Let’s be clear—I am not telling anyone to go kill anyone or anything.

Let me give you an example, though, of what this could look like.

I had a friend one time that God was leading to follow him in some major changes.

Through a series of events, God was calling this friend to change careers and relocate to serve Christ in a different capacity.

This friend was also heavily involved in a hobby that he was really good at—one that if he stuck with it could have been a source of income. However, that hobby took a lot of time and investment and may even have become part of his identity in some respects.

I remember our conversation where he felt convicted that it was time for him to give up this hobby so he could focus on what God was calling him to do.

He started going through the process of getting rid of his equipment and stepping away as an act of obedience.

As he did, God worked and allowed him to not only stay in the hobby but use it as a way for him to tell others about Jesus.

Like Abraham, he demonstrated his trust in the fact that God was worth him giving up something he loved and was gifted at doing.

He had no promise that God would give this back to him; instead, he trusted God enough to follow him no matter how it went.

Are you willing to do the same thing?

Are you more interested in that thing or in the God who gave it to you?

Are you willing to trust that he knows what is ultimately good and best for you?

God accomplished so much through this event. He allowed Abraham the opportunity to pass the test and show to himself and others how deeply he trusted the Lord.

He set the stage for redeeming Israel as his firstborn from the nations by taking them from Egypt, and he gave a picture for the Israelites to look back on about how God redeemed all their firstborn.

Even more than that, though, God gave us hints of what was to come.

You may think it cruel for God to put Abraham and Isaac through this, but in all they went through, they were giving us a picture of what God would one day do for us.

One day, God would send his one and only Son to earth.

He would be offered as a sacrifice, just like Abraham’s one and only son whom he loved.

As Jesus, God’s Son, was led to a mountain to die, the wood of his cross would be laid on his back to carry, just like Isaac carried the wood for the offering.

Unlike Isaac, however, the Son of God had already been so badly beaten that he staggered under the weight.

There, on a hill not far from the place where many believe Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, the Son of God would be bound and nailed to the cross

God did not send a ram this time; instead, Jesus was the sacrificial lamb who died for the sin of the world, which includes your sin and mine.

God didn’t stop the sacrifice; instead, he allowed his son to be killed and pay the penalty for all you and I had ever done.

This is the God who calls us to trust him instead of just looking for what he can do.

This is the God who Abraham trusted, and he is the God who loves you so dearly that he often gives us wonderful things.

However, he is the God who offers us a relationship with himself that is so vibrant that he should be our answer to “If I only had...”

If I only have Jesus, then I have everything I could ever need.