Offering Our All

Trust

Genesis 22:1–5 (NIV)

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, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded 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.”

Trust is the vehicle that moves us through the narrative. This trust in the Lord took over a hundred years to refine in Abraham. Throughout Abraham’s life, he has failed to have faith and trust in the Lord but has instead taken the course of his life into his own hands. But now the testimony of his past sidesteps has given way to the truth that the relationship between God and Abraham was always designed to preach to the world is now solidified in Abraham’s heart. He will trust in the Lord.

The symbolism is tremendous in this passage to the continued story of salvation that the sacrifice of Isaac is designed to foretell. The area of Moriah is mentioned again in 2 Chronicles 3 as being the place where Solomon would build his temple, the place of sacrifice. The journey from Abraham’s dwelling to Moriah was three days, much as the journey of Christ from death to resurrection was 3 days. Abraham was convinced of his son’s resurrection, he promises it to the servant in verse 5.

Conviction

Genesis 22:6–11 (NIV)

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

“God Himself will provide the lamb.” What powerful words of conviction spoken by Abraham. It was getting all too real that the promise could be in jeopardy. Abraham had waited his whole life fixated on the hope of inheritance. It was more than the focus of his heart. The hope of inheritance had been the motivating truth in both his and Sarah’s life for decades. Now all of that would be laid on an altar before the Lord, but Abraham allowed his view of God to remain fixed on the testimony that the Lord had so faithfully given Abraham in the most difficult moments of His life.

2 Corinthians 1:3–7 (NIV)

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

The comfort that the Lord has revealed to us about who He is serves as the equipping for future comforts and for comforting others. Our conviction that God not only invites us into Christ’s suffering, our suffering is met with the same comfort as Christ experienced. Jesus on the cross endured for He believed that His Father would provide the means for salvation and resurrection. Abraham raised the knife before Isaac believing that His Father would provide the means for salvation and resurrection. As you face tomorrow, will you believe that Your Father will provide the means for salvation and resurrection?

Provision

Genesis 22:12–19 (NIV)

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.

God desires our everything because He knows that our everything is temporary apart from Him. Our victories are lost to eternity when accomplished apart from Him, but in Him, even our failures have eternal glory. He delights in nothing less than all of us because our design is to do life with Him. This is what the prophet means when he says:

Micah 6:6–7 (NIV)

With what shall I come before the Lord

and bow down before the exalted God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

To obey and surrender all of ourselves to the Lord is to find new assurance.

Hebrews 6:16–18 (NIV)

People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged.