What do you know about God?

Well, we are continuing our series on faith, / / Ancient Faith for Modern Times. And this week we are going to wrap up looking at the life of Abraham. We’ve been looking at Abraham for the last couple weeks, this will be our third week in his story.

The first week we looked at Hebrews 11:8-10 where it says, / / It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going.

It continues to say he gets there but never actually inherits the land for himself. He was shown what would come more than 400 years later through the nation of Israel. And yet there he is, without even one son to carry on his legacy. Yet, at the age of 75 he believed God and set out on a journey that would ultimately change his life, and the lives of all humanity.

Then last week we went further into the wrestling of faith that both Abraham and his wife, Sarah, struggled with. I mentioned this last week, but I think Hebrews is incredibly kind to them when it simply says, / / [Sarah] believed that God would keep his promise.

I wouldn’t say that was particularly true for most of the story.

Do you remember what they did?

The promise that Abraham is going to father a great nation comes when he is 75 years old, and for 10 years nothing happens. God shows up to Abraham again and reconfirms the promise. But he’s 85, which means Sarah is 75-76, and what is her response? “Clearly God isn’t talking about me. Here, take Hagar my servant and have a child with her.”

Can I just say as a side note, it does not work to take a supernatural promise and try to make it happen in your own strength by defying the word of God. If God promised you a child, don’t go handing your husband over to someone else thinking God messed up, thinking God couldn’t possibly use you. If God said he would do something, he is very capable of doing it in and through you, but you have to be willing to take hold of the promise and be faithful. Don’t hand it off to someone else and say, “You do it!”

And obviously I’m not saying we just sit back and wait for God like there’s no natural strength involved, there most certainly is. In fact, I think that has been the real underlying truth coming out in this series.

By faith Noah built a large boat...

By faith Abraham went...

By faith Sarah had a child...

Except, none of those people did any of those things simply by believing. There was most definitely action involved. Faith without works is dead, as James tells us.

But, after waiting for 10 years, at that point I think Sarah has given up. Hagar has a son, Ishmael, and there you go, everyone is happy... except they aren’t. It’s a huge mess. You can read it in Genesis 16, but the short version is. Sarah despises Hagar because she’s become pregnant with her husband, go figure. Sarah blames it on Abraham. Abraham says, “She’s your servant. do what you want with her.” And so Sarah ends up treating Hagar so poorly that Hagar runs away and God has to actually send an angel to tell her to go back.

Genesis 16:16 says,/ / Abram was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born.

And the next verse, Genesis 17:1 says, / / When Abram was ninety-nine years old.

So another 13 years has past. No new babies to be heard of. God comes to give the promise again. And from how Genesis 17 is written, it’s pretty clear to see that both Abraham and Sarah have actually given up on the promise. This is why I say that Hebrews is so kind it keeping it short and simply saying that Sarah believed God would keep her promise. Because at 99 for Abraham and 90 years old for Sarah, Genesis 17:17 says that Abraham laughed to himself in disbelief when God reaffirms his promise, and Genesis 18:12 says that Sarah laughed silently to herself when she heard God say she would still have a child.

God has to correct them both, and they took the discipline, they took the correction, God reaffirms the promise and sure enough a year later they have a baby boy, Isaac.

But talk about a journey. 25 years from the promise to giving birth to your first child. I get bent out of shape when I’m in a restaurant and have to wait 25 minutes for my food.

And you would think that Abraham is done, right? He’s shown he is a man of faith. Let the poor old man live out the rest of his days in peace. But we get to Genesis 22 and the first verse says, / / Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith...

Come on, really?

You ever feel like that? Going through life, things have been hard, you feel like you’ve championed in your faith and you get to this point where you’re like, “OK, we are good. I’m so glad I learned that lesson, God. Thank you for teaching me such good things. You are a wonderful teacher and I love you.”

And you wake up, “some time later” and you think, “God, I learned this already… remember?”

I’ve actually had a few of these moments in the last few weeks. As many of you know we’ve been working with the school to install a fire suppression sprinkler system, because they can’t actually get 100% approved until they have a working sprinkler system inside the building. They are in year 3 of their lease. This has been a LONG project with a whole lot of ups and downs. Thankfully they have been very understanding and gracious in the process, as I believe I have, and we are working towards the end of the goal. In fact, we are super close. We’re almost done. But it’s taken every single penny we had in savings to cover the cost, including funds we had reserved for other purposes. It’s not the ideal situation by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ve had what we needed when we’ve needed it, even if just barely.

So, we are all sure that we are done. The last contractor has finished their work, all we are waiting for is inspection. Except, not quite. The sprinkler system needs to be hooked up to the alarm system. Well that makes sense, but of course none of us are sprinkler installation experts, so we have had more, “How would we have known this” situation. Which we have had more of those situations than you can shake a stick at.

Remember, no money left, thought we were done, and the first quote we get for this is $18,000. I bought fell out of my chair.

Now, thankfully it sounds like this was just a bad company trying to get us to buy all new alarm equipment. Unnecessary. But still. It’s going to cost us something. One more thing.

Then I come in Monday evening and our sound board isn’t working.

Now, I can look at this from a few different angles:

Is this God testing me, again, on faith for financial provision? I don’t know.

Is it the devil, trying to break me and the church? No, maybe the bad contractor quote is, but no.

Is it from my own doing, have I grieved the Holy Spirit with sin? not that I’m aware of.

Is it simply just life being life? I don’t know.

But if you’re anything like me walk away from moments like that going, “God, how am I supposed to handle this?”

Here’s the thing. And this is just a side note. Humanity likes to place blame. We like to know who we can argue with over what’s wrong in our lives. It rarely works out, to be honest. But we want to blame someone. And it goes all the way back to the garden. “The woman YOU gave me made me eat the fruit.” “The snake you made conned me into it...” We aren’t sure if we want to blame God, our spouse or the devil. And we certainly aren’t taking ownership of it ourselves.

/ / The problem with being focused on who to blame is that it robs us from being focused on the One with the solution! As long as I’m unwilling to let go of the hurt, or pain, or being upset at the situation and the people involved, I’m not able to go to God with it. Why? Because I’m focused on my anger. I’m focused on my pain. I’m focused on being right. I’m focused on how they hurt me or how bad they are, how much I don’t like them, that I won’t forgive them because they don’t deserve it.

As long as you’re focused on the problem the solution won’t be visible.

So, / / First, we have to direct our attention off the problem and bring our eyes up to God.

Second, we need to make sure we are asking the right question.

A lot of times our human nature wants to ask, “God, why are you doing this to me?”

or “God, why are you allowing this to happen?”

maybe, “God, why are you blessing them and not me.” or “God, why are they allowed to do this to me?”

All wrong questions in my opinion.

The question we should be asking is, / / “God, what do you want to do in this situation, and how do you want me to partner with you?”

Remember, this whole series has been about God saying something that gives an opportunity for faith, or to believe, and humanity responding in that faith with faithfulness. It is not just believing, but believing to the point of doing.

And when we stop blaming, when we stop asking God why this, why that, and simply quiet ourselves before Him, then in the quiet we can begin to hear His leading. And at that point then it doesn’t matter WHO or where the trial is coming from, you’ll pass the test.

Blame it on the devil. Blame it on Aunt Thelma. Blame it on God. Doesn’t matter any more. You’re choosing NOT to blame anyone, and simply look to God for what He has called you to do so that you can be faithful in your belief.

Now, in regards to Abraham, here we are at Genesis 22 and it says, / / Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith.

Now, if you know the story, you know where we are going. If you don’t, that’s ok, we’ll get there.

Let’s jump back to Hebrews though, and we’ll go from there.

So far Hebrews has said that Abraham started walking without know where he was going, by faith. And also that him and Sarah believed God would keep His promise and she had a child who became a great nation.

The writer of Hebrews says some really great things in vs 13-16, and we might jump back to that, but for now let’s read Hebrews 11:17-19, / / It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God had told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.” Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.

Now, if you don’t know this story, you’re thinking, “What???” I get it.

So, let’s fill in the gaps here and look at what this testing is all about.

If you’ve got your bibles you can jump to Genesis 22, or it’s up on the screen. Starting in vs 1.

/ / Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith. “Abraham!” God called.

“Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.”

“Take your son, your only son - yes, Isaac, whom you love so much - and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”

The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.”

So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked on together, Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

“God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.

When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. At that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Yes,” Abraham replied. “Here I am!”

“Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its thorns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yire (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

Then the angel of the Lord called again to Abraham from heaven. “This is what the Lord says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed - all because you have obeyed me.”

Then they returned to the servants and traveled back to Beersheba, where Abraham continued to live.

Ok, if you’re sitting there and thinking, “Wow, this is kind of a messed up story.” You’re not wrong, from the surface. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are people who have read this and thought, “Yup, this bible thing just isn’t for me.” I get it. And let me just say, it’s ok to wrestle with scripture. In fact, it’s necessary for you to wrestle with scripture to truly find what God is speaking through the pages.

I’ve said before, I grew up thinking it wasn’t ok to ask questions, which just brought on more questions, and I saw friends turn away simply because they didn’t understand, weren’t allowed to ask about it, and didn’t want to deal with the confusion. And a lot of those types of people, unfortunately, have no problem with God, they just don’t understand how to reconcile the God they know with the God they read about.

Who wants to follow a God that asks you to kill your only child and burn them on an alter?

Anybody? Any takers? … of course not.

So, if you read this story at face value, you will be both heartbroken that this is the God you serve, and possibly very confused about this God you serve.

Now, hear me clearly, and I hope to make sense of all of this. I am not saying God didn’t say this to Abraham. I’m not saying God didn’t ask Abraham to do this. And I’m not saying that we disregard scripture or look at it and say that there’s an error. What I’m saying is there is a whole lot more going on than just what we read.

Alright, so, let’s look at a few things here this morning:

/ / 1. God Never Wants Human Sacrifice

Let alone child sacrifice.

By the time you get to Leviticus and Deuteronomy when Moses is writing down the law of God, we find this is what God thinks about these things:

Leviticus 18:21, 20:2-5, “Do not permit any of your children to be offered as a sacrifice to Molech, for you must not bring shame on the name of your God. I am the Lord.” “If any of them offer their children as a sacrifice to Molech, they must be put to death. The people of the community must stone them to death. I myself will turn against them and cut them off from the community, because they have defiled my sanctuary and brought shame on my holy name by offering their children to Molech. And if the people of the community ignore those who offer their children to Molech and refuse to execute them, I myself will turn against them and their families and will cut them off from the community. This will happen to all who commit spiritual prostitution by worshiping Molech.”

Molech is the god of, or the act of child sacrifice through fire. There’s some debate on whether Molech was the deity, or god of child sacrifice, or that the word was used for the actual sacrifice, to another god. Either way, the concept here is you are sacrificing a child and God is so absolutely against it that he calls it spiritual prostitution deserving of death.

Ok, let’s argue for a second that this is specifically to not offering child sacrifice to a god named Molech. Not sure why anyone would do that. But just to cover all the bases here, or if you’re not convinced yet. Jump over to Deuteronomy 12:29-32, Where Leviticus is the written law, Deuteronomy is a retelling of it before the people of Israel go into the promised land. / / “When the Lord your God goes ahead of you and destroys the nations and you drive them out and live in their land, do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example.’ You must not worship the Lord your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods.

“So be careful to obey all the commands I give you. You must not add anything to them or subtract anything from them.”

Ok, so you saw that in there, right? Do not worship the Lord your God the way other nations worship their gods, because they do child sacrifice, which is detestable to the Lord. He hates it.

And you could ask, and you wouldn’t be wrong in doing so, “Wasn’t the law written 400 years after the promise of Abraham?” We looked at that last week. And there is no part of the bible that says BEFORE Genesis 22, when it says that God tested Abraham’s faith, that God says anything against child sacrifice. So, I’m not implying that there is a law to follow here. Abraham is not living under the law.

But let me ask you this. Are we living under the law? Romans 6:14, / / Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

Ahah...we aren’t under the law either. So, is child sacrifice ok now? No, of course not.

So, even though Abraham is not under the law, we have to remember that the bible is clear that the nature of God does not change. Malachi 3:6 says, / / “I am the Lord, and I do not change...”

Hebrews 13:8 says, / / Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So do not be attracted by strange, new ideas.

Abraham knows the heart of God.

I was having a conversation with someone this week and just mentioned that I was going to be teaching out of the story of Abraham and Isaac and that child sacrifice was going to come up. And they responded, “Ya, I never got that one.” I don’t disagree. It confused me for a long time. But there are two verses in the story that show what’s really going on here. All the evidence I need to see that Abraham understood the heart of God is found in Genesis 22:5, 7-8,

First, vs 5. / / “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then WE will come right back.”

Now, vs 7-8, / / Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

“God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.

WE will come right back…why? Because God will provide a sheep...

What is God doing with Abraham? God is calling Abraham OUT of the world to become the nation after God’s heart. He’s establishing a kingdom that will never end through the nation of Israel. That’s what Hebrews is saying, isn’t it?

Hebrews 11:14-16, which is talking about the men and women of faith we’ve been reading through, says this, / / Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Hebrews 11:10 also says, / / Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.

Look at what we talked through last week.

Thin about all that Abraham and Sarah have gone through:

/ / God’s promise leads to belief...

Belief leads to obedience...

Obedience leads to excitement...

Excitement is lost with time...

/ / Time creates doubt...

Doubt pushes them to trying it their own way (Hagar)...

More time creates disappointment...

Disappointment turns to disbelief...

/ / Disbelief turns to giving up...

But then… renewed promise?

But that promise is met with laughter in shame and disbelief...

/ / God has to put them in their place...

They turn again to faith...

Faith leads to faithfulness...

The promise is fulfilled in Isaac!

And all of that took 25 years to the birth of Isaac. And now Isaac is at least old enough to be on this journey and carrying fire wood, so maybe 8, or 10, or 12… This journey of learning and establishing faith is greater than 30 years. And then God says, “Go kill your son?”

No, sorry. Abraham doesn’t believe it. Not that he doesn’t believe God said it. He clearly does. But he knows there’s a purpose to the request. So he follows. Remember what we’ve been saying: / / Faith is not blindly following a God you don’t know. Faith is knowing God so much you will follow Him blindly because you trust him.

Abraham has come to know the heart and promise of God.

And listen, I’m not the only one who things this. James Goodman, a history professor at Rutgers University, and who has written extensively about this topic, said this in a blog post from myjewishlearning.com,

“Today an extraordinary number of Jews and Christians believe that the story was a polemic (a written piece expressing a strong critical attack) against child sacrifice or an explanation for its abandonment. Since I myself prefer not sacrificing children to sacrificing them (in all the forms that the sacrifice of children takes), I don’t see anything wrong with that. Many people believe the Bible contains practical lessons, teaches how we should behave. I would much prefer that those people believe that God things we shouldn’t sacrifice children than he thinks that we should.”

Hebrews 11:19 says, / / Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again.

For Hebrews to make that claim it is assuming something that Abraham had not seen in his life to that point - the first mention of resurrection is hundreds of years later with the Prophet Elijah. So, the writer of Hebrews interpreting the scripture in light of what we know of God now.

To look at this story and ask, “Why did God ask this?” is of course, one way to look at it. But I prefer to look at it and ask, “Why did Abraham know it wasn’t what God was really asking?”

/ / 2. Does God Really Test Us?

James 1:2-3, / / Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

James seems to think so. Or at least he understands that our faith does indeed get tested.

Asking does God really test us might be a big statement. Too big maybe.

Am I Abraham, the father of faith, the father of nations? I am not.

Yet, my faith gets tested on the daily. Why? I don’t know.

I asked earlier, ever have those moments where you’re going through something and you just want to argue with God that you’ve already gone through this before and so you shouldn’t have to go through it again because you learned your lesson the first time, except, maybe you didn’t because you’re now arguing with God about it? Right...

Jesus said very clearly in John 16:33, / / “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

The ESV translates trials and sorrows as tribulation. The greek word means pressure. Under Pressure!

Now, Jesus doesn’t say God will bring trials and sorrows. He simply says that because we live in this world we will experience trials and sorrows. Why? Because trials and sorrows come with the territory of living in a world where there are forces at work other than just God and you.

I’m going to lay out an argument here that whether it is God testing us, or the devil, or your neighbor or spouse, or whether it is just life coming at us, the remedy is still the same. If God is testing us it will be by doing something against his character. Like, “Sacrifice your child.” It’s so far out of God’s character that Abraham knows he can follow without it actually putting his son in danger. That’s my interpretation anyway, and I believe that because he tells his servants that they’ll be back, and tells Isaac that God will provide a sheep.

Deuteronomy 13:1-4 says, / / “Suppose there are prophets among you or those who dream dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, and the predicted signs or miracles occur. If they then say, ‘Come let us worship other gods’ - gods you have not known before - do not listen to them. The Lord your God is testing you to see if you truly love him with all your heart and soul. Serve only the Lord your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him.”

So, if someone comes and says, “I heard the Lord, this is going to happen...” And what they say happens. You’re like, “Wow, they really must have heard God.” But then they say, “I also heard God say we should go do this....” and lay out something that you know is contrary to the teachings of God.

What do you do?

This could easily be the main topic of any and all messages. / / You must know the truth and word of God for yourself.

Don’t let anyone, or any situation fool you by telling you God is saying something that you should know God would never say! You have to have a baseline to live from because you will encounter trial, sorrow and lies that will try to derail you.

Whether it is life, the devil or God himself saying something to you, you have to know what God is like in order to not be tripped up into following something that is not of God.

Let’s ask a sub question to this idea. / / Does God lie?

Numbers 23:19 says, / / God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?”

Ok, I want to turn to the story of Jonah for a quick moment here. If you know the story of Jonah, he’s alive during the reign and terror of the Assyrian empire. The Assyrian empire is eventually the nation who conquers the northern Kingdom of Israel and takes them off into exile in 722 BC.

The story of Jonah is about 60 years prior to this point. The northern kingdom of Israel is still alive and well and Jeroboam II is the king, considered one of if not the greatest ruler of Israel’s norther kingdom.

So, Israel is in a good place. But, the Assyrian empire is rising in power and conquering everyone. Enter Jonah.

Jonah 1:1, / / The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Ammittai, “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgement against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.”

Nineveh, if you don’t know this, is the capital of the Assyrian empire. And roughly 600 miles away from Israel where Jonah is.

Now, Jonah is a great story, go read it this week. He gets shipwrecked, sits in a fish for a few days, gets thrown up on a beach. Good stuff.

But what I want to show you in regards to how God speaks is this. The message that God tells Jonah to bring to Nineveh is this: / / “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”

Just to make sure, I went and read through 32 translations of that particular verse and there is no invitation for repentance. No invitation for turning to God. And it’s not Israel, these aren’t God’s people. So he’s not asking them to turn back to him. And of the 32 translations I read the words used are simply overthrown, overturned, destroyed and demolished. It’s not looking good for Nineveh.

What happens? Well, the king and his nobles send a decree out to everyone in the city:

/ / “No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.” (Jonah 3:7-9)

But God hadn’t asked them to do that. He didn’t say, “I’ll destroy you if you don’t repent.” He simply said, “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed.” It seems to be pretty set in stone.

Jonah 3:10 says, / / When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.

Wait, I thought God didn’t change his mind.

I thought if God said it, he would do it.

That’s what we’ve read!

Well, Jonah gets a bit upset. He says in Jonah 4:2, / / “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.”

Why tell this story?

Because Jonah knows what Abraham knows… the heart of God.

Jonah knows that God is merciful, and if the people of Nineveh turn from their evil, he won’t destroy them. But Nineveh is a threatening army against Israel. Jonah wouldn’t mind them being wiped out. So he doesn’t want to go warn them. He wants to let them be destroyed. And he knows if he does warn them that if they by chance they change their ways, God will relent because God is merciful.

And the second thing at play here is:

Why did God say he would destroy them and not even mention a way out?

As someone with type 2 diabetes, let me tell you what we do when someone is doing something they shouldn’t be doing. We give them the worst case scenario. Not the best case scenario, but the worst case scenario.

Why? In hopes they change.

I have had multiple doctors warn me of having my feet amputated. I didn’t even have any issues with my feet. But there it is. Diabetics can lose their feet.

Let’s just throw this into context for all of us. What do we define sin as? Missing the mark. Right? Paul says in Romans 3:23, / / For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

Probably all of us in some way, shape, or form, whether it is small or large, are doing something that is falling short of God’s best for us.

We’re doing something that is missing the mark of perfection. And I can say that confidently because none of us are perfect. If you are, let’s meet after and you can tell me how you do it.

So, if we are missing the mark, what is one good way to get someone to correct course?

“You’re going to crash!!!!!”

The way you are going is leading to destruction.

In forty days you will be destroyed. Not true. But got your attention, didn’t it? Or maybe it is 100% true, but this is going to inspire change.

See that promise I gave you? Go sacrifice it please. Not true, but got your attention, didn’t I? Now let’s settle once and for all God does not require child, or human sacrifice of any kind and never will.

/ / 3. Hold On To the Promise & the Truth

Alright, let’s finish with this thought this morning.

First things first. Abraham knows the promise. He’s 30 years deep in his walk in faith to God. So he knows God isn’t going to take it away because since day one the promise has been generations will come from Abraham, and even when he tried to bypass Sarah through Hagar God said, “No, it will not be through Ishmael, it will be through your son that you will have with Sarah.”

Sarah only had one son. Isaac. God is not going to take the life of Isaac. Whether it is what I’ve said that Abraham knows the heart of God and that he himself says, “God will provide a sheep.” OR that Hebrews is right in saying, Abraham knows that even if Isaac dies, God will raise him from the dead. Either way. The end result is the same, Isaac will live.

And second, Abraham knows the truth about God. God does not want, desire or demand human sacrifice. It’s 100% against his very nature. Why did God say it that way? I don’t know, maybe we can ask him in the end. We can make assumptions that it’s about seeing how far Abraham would go. How faithful he would be. And maybe that’s true, but I can’t honestly see God putting that on anyone.

1 Corinthians 10:13 says, / / …God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

I think through his promise and through his conversation, without saying it, God had already given Abraham the answer.

James also says in James 1:13, / / And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never temps anyone else.

If you are being tempted to do something that is contrary to the word of God then you already know it’s not true. But for that to happen you have to know the nature, character and word of God so that you aren’t fooled. And there may be purpose to it. James says the testing of our faith produces endurance.

Paul says in Romans 5:3-4, We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

Here’s the thing, and lets close out with this:

You will never know your resilience if you are never tested.

You will never know your level of faith if it is not questioned.

You can’t possibly understand how strong you are until your strength is pushed to its limit.

Living a life of faith demands testing. Why? Because our faith is made stronger in it.

The more I think about it the more I see this story as one of the greatest stories of faith because it truly asks the question, / / How well do you know the God you say you serve?

And I would ask you the same question. I am asking myself the same question:

How well do we know the God that we say we serve?

How well do we know the Jesus we say we follow?

How well do we know the Holy Spirit we say lives inside of us?

How well do we know their character and the truth of who they say they are and the way of life they are leading us into so that when trial comes, when sorrow comes, when questions come that challenge our faith and even present to us a path that seems like God, we know what we are meant to do.

Let’s pray this morning.