The Comfort of Obedience

The Comfort of Obedience

The Bible is filled with so much wisdom and human experience that people can devote their entire lives to studying it, only to find at the end that they’ve only scratched the surface of everything it teaches. That’s one reason why this book so amazing, and it’s just one more bit of proof that this is the living, breathing Word of God.

Still, there are just some stories in the Bible that stand out in our minds. Maybe they’re the ones we learned as children from our parents or in Sunday school, like the story of Noah’s ark. Maybe they’re ones that stand out because they seem to speak to our longings in a very deep way, like the parable of the prodigal son. Maybe it’s because they’re just so dramatic, like David and Goliath.

As we start this new year, I thought it’d be nice to go through the Bible and take a look at these stories we love so much through fresh eyes and see what they can teach us. And we’re going to start today with one of the strangest and most famous stories of the Old Testament – Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac.

When we think about what God says the Christian life should look like, our minds usually go straight to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” If Christ is our Lord, then our lives should be defined by faith, hope, and especially by love. Those are called the three great virtues. The early church fathers added four more to those:

Prudence, which is knowing the right thing to do in any situation.

Justice, or righteousness, especially when it comes to treating people fairly.

Courage, which means confronting your fears.

And temperance, which is self-control over your thoughts and actions.

Christianity teaches that if you live by faith, hope, love, prudence, justice, courage, and temperance, then you’re living a godly life. But there’s another Christian virtue not mentioned in that list because it acts like a thread that connects all of them together. It’s the one virtue that God uses to train us in all the others, and it’s maybe the toughest one of all. It’s obedience.

Over and over in the Bible, we find that God blesses and rewards obedience. James tells us in his letter that we should do more than just hear the Word of God, we need to put those words into practice. We don’t just need to learn, we need to obey.

Jesus says we should obey because how we live is our testimony to God, and the world is watching.

Psalm 128 says, “Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him.”

Everything depends on your obedience to God. Your happiness does, and your peace, and even your faith, because if you find yourself always struggling with whatever God tells you to do, then you have one of two problems: either you’re secretly worshipping yourself and think your problems are better off in your hands instead of His, or you don’t trust that everything God says is true.

Your faith in God is shown by your obedience to Him, because faith is just another word for trust. And it’s hard to obey God if you don’t have complete trust that He knows what He’s doing. That’s what this story in Genesis is all about. There is no greater and more important aspect of your Christian life than to obey God, and there’s no greater example of that than what Abraham does in Genesis 22. So let’s read about it. Turn there with me now. Genesis 22, verses 1-18:

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”

2 He said, “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 on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.

5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together.

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.” So they went both of them together.

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.

10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”

12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven

16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, 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.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 22:1–18.

And this is the word of the Lord.

It’s easy to understand why this story makes us so uncomfortable. In fact, atheists will often point this story out as a good reason to not believe in God. Because what kind of a God tells a father to build an altar, put his own son on top of it, and then murder him? Any God like that cannot be a good God, cannot be a loving God, and so that shouldn’t be a God worth worshipping. Right?

What would you say to someone who told you that? Because the facts are true. That’s exactly what God tells Abraham. Why is God doing this, and what is God trying to tell us through this story?

We get a clue right at the beginning of verse 1. Look at the first three words: “After these things … ” That tells us something important. What’s getting ready to happen to Abraham here is a direct result of what’s happened to Abraham already, and that centers on Abraham’s wife, Sarah, and her maidservant, Hagar, and Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.

If you remember, God had promised that He would make Abraham into a great nation. That promise took a long time to fulfill in Abraham’s life, and while his faith in God never broke, there were times when it bent pretty far. One of those times was when he and Sarah decided they were tired of waiting for God, so they would take matters into their own hands. Sarah gave her servant Hagar to Abraham as another wife. And wouldn’t you know it, Hagar became pregnant and gave birth to a son named Ishmael.

Well, that all worked out as well for everyone involved as it does for any of us when we don’t trust and obey God. Meaning it was all one hot mess. Sarah hated Hagar, Hagar couldn’t do anything about it, and Abraham was stuck in the middle.

But then after years of waiting and doubting and hurting, Sarah finally gives birth to Isaac. It’s a miracle, because by then Sarah and Abraham are both very old. And in all the celebration that follows, Sarah’s jealousy of Hagar finally get the best of her. She tells Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away. Abraham doesn’t want to – Ishmael’s his son, after all – but God says let them go, because He Himself will take care of them.

Abraham has waited his entire long life for God to fulfill His promise. Now, God’s finally answered. Isaac is growing into a strong young man. Abraham’s life has finally found a calmness. He’s happy, he’s at peace with his neighbors, he’s wealthy. Abraham has reached a point in his life when he can finally rest and enjoy things. So you know what’s coming, right? A challenge. A tough time.

Here’s something that’s hard to learn for all of us, but you can absolutely bank on its truth – God does not want you comfortable for long. I know that sounds strange, especially in the modern American church where you’ll hear over and over again that if you have enough faith and do all the right things, you’re going to get a comfortable life as a reward. Well, that’s just not true. God doesn’t want you to have a comfortable life, because a comfortable life makes you lazy. A comfortable life gets your eyes off heaven and puts them on the things of this world. A comfortable life doesn’t make you grow, and that’s what God’s really after. God wants you to grow.

So “after these things,” in verse 1, after Abraham’s comfortable, God tests him.

That’s an important word – test. In the King James, that word is translated as “tempt,” and that’s one of those times the King James gets it wrong and the more modern translations get it right. Because God doesn’t tempt anyone, does He? This word in the Hebrew is better translated as “to prove,” or as it is here, “to test.”

Temptation says, “Do this pleasant thing and don’t worry that it’s wrong.” But trying, or proving, says, “Do this right thing and don’t worry that it’s painful.”

That’s what God does. He’s going to try Abraham in order to prove Abraham. And what’s God trying and proving? Abraham’s obedience. Abraham’s will to do what God tells him no matter what, and no matter how much it hurts.

And we see right away that all these years of trusting God has made Abraham into a person of deep faith, because when God calls him in verse 1, Abraham says right away, “Here I am. Here I am, Lord. Direct me. Lead me. Tell me what You want, and I’ll do it.” Pure obedience, isn’t it?

Then in verse 2, God tells Abraham what He wants. And I want you to pay attention to the way God says it, because every word is meant to show Abraham just how hard this is going to be.

First, God says, “Take your son.” Not one of your lambs. Not one of your servants. Your son.

And not just your son. God says, “Take your only son.” That can’t be Ishmael, because Ishmael’s gone. It can only be Isaac. The heir to the covenant.

And it’s not just your only son. God also adds, “whom you love.” The son who was the answer to your prayers, Abraham. The son who’s the apple of your eye. The only son you have left because you let Sarah drive your other son away.

God says, “Take your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and kill him as a sacrifice to me.”

Imagine that. Imagine God has promised that the entire world will be blessed through you and your children, and after years and years that child is finally born, and now God says that not only does that child have to die, but you have to be the one to kill him.

Notice two things here. First, God wants this sacrifice to be done in Moriah. Moriah is a three-day journey from where Abraham is living. Abraham has to agonize over having to do this for three solid days. And second, God never tells Abraham why he has to kill his son. He just says, “Go to Moriah and sacrifice Isaac to me.” God never gives a reason for it.

You know this command by God has sent Abraham’s world spinning. Everything about this feels wrong. But all those years of learning and stumbling and walking with God have taught Abraham that no matter what he faces in life, no matter how confusing things might get, there’s really only one thing he needs to do — he needs to obey. Look at verse 3. This is Abraham’s faith, right here. He is a good man. He is a good father. He’s confused and frightened and torn. But first thing the next morning, he sets out for Mount Moriah. Most Jewish scholars believe that Abraham got this message at night. So the soonest Abraham can leave, he leaves. There’s no wavering.

And notice in verse 3 that before he leaves, Abraham also cuts the wood he would use for the alter that Isaac will be sacrificed upon. Now, there’s wood on top of Mount Moriah. So why chop the wood at home and have to carry that all the way? Because of the same reason Abraham left early that next morning. If Abraham would have taken a week to get ready and then started out for Moriah, would that be obedience? No, it wouldn’t. And if Abraham made it to the top of Mount Moriah and then spent a few hours gathering firewood and trying to figure a way out of this, would that be obedience? No, it wouldn’t. That’s exactly why obedience is so hard. Given time, we can talk ourselves into and out of anything, can’t we? But when it comes to obeying God, you either do it or you don’t. Waiting to obey God is the same thing as not obeying Him.

So on the third day of their journey, in verse 4, Abraham looks up and sees Mount Moriah rising in the distance. He knows his time is up. He’s about to kill the son through whom God said the whole world would be blessed. But look at what Abraham tells his servants when they reach the mountain in verse 5 — “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”

Abraham knows what God has commanded him to sacrifice Isaac. And Abraham is obedient, so that’s exactly what he’s going to do. But Abraham still tells his servants that both he and Isaac are going to come back down. Abraham knows what God has told him to do, and it sounds terrible. But Abraham also knows God’s character and believes God’s promise, so he knows that God will never allow harm to come to Isaac. The only way that Abraham can obey God is if Abraham trusts God. The only way Abraham can walk up that mountain is because he knows God is somehow going to keep Isaac safe.

Those times in your life when God seems to make no sense are the times when you have to lean on who you know God is. But you can’t hope to lean on God unless you trust Him, and you can’t trust Him unless you know Him, and you can’t know Him unless you spend time every day reading His word and praying to Him.

So in verse 6, both Abraham and Isaac set off up the mountain. Isaac is carrying the wood he’s going to be burned upon, though he doesn’t know it yet. Abraham is carrying the fire and the knife he’s going to use to kill his son. And in verse 7, we have this tender moment between father and son that has to break Abraham’s heart.

Isaac says, “Hey, Dad?”

Dad. How many years did Abraham wait and pray to hear that word from his one true son with Sarah? And how many times has he heard that word from his son since? There’s a picture in our minds that Isaac is just a boy here, but he’s not. Isaac is actually about 25 years old. He’s a grown man.

Isaac says, “I’m carrying the wood, you have the knife and the flame, but I don’t see a lamb to sacrifice here.”

And watch Abraham response in verse 8 — “God will provide the lamb.”

Abraham is not tricking his son here. He’s not saying whatever it takes to get Isaac up that mountain. He knows he’s in a situation he can’t fix. What God has told him to do feels impossible, but instead of trying to solve the problem himself, Abraham just obeys. He tells Isaac, “I don’t know how this is going to turn out, Son, but I know God will take care of us both as long as we do what he says.”

What faith, right? We look at a faith like that and just marvel at it. We say, “I could never have that kind of faith.” But why not? What’s stopping you? Abraham didn’t have anything special. He was just a person. He didn’t have any extra spiritual gifts that you don’t. But he knows God. And because he knows God, he can trust God. And because he trusts God, he can obey God. It’s as simple as that. After 100 years of trying to walk in faith, Abraham has finally come to the place where his trust is absolute, even when he’s scared and confused like right here. And because his trust is absolute, his obedience can be absolute too.

They reach the place where the sacrifice is to be made. As Abraham builds the altar, he tells Isaac everything that God told him. We know that because verse 9 says that Abraham binds Isaac. That was how sacrifices were made. Remember, Abraham is an old man now, but Isaac is in the prime of his life. So the only way that Abraham can tie up his son and place him on top of that pile of wood is if Isaac lets him. Isaac knows what’s about to happen, but he doesn’t struggle. It’s taken years for Abraham to trust God, but Isaac’s already learning that lesson.

Isaac lies on that altar. The fire’s waiting nearby. Abraham stands over his son and raises the knife, and he’s thinking, I can’t do this. This is my boy. This is God’s promise. But his faith screams out, God said do this thing and so He’ll make it right. God, please make it right.

That blade goes higher, and inside Abraham there’s a war going on — I don’t want to do this, God. Don’t make me do this. But I will obey, God. I will obey.

And just before Abraham plunges that knife into Isaac’s chest, he hears his name being called. Verse 11 says the voice is from heaven, and it’s the angel of the Lord. Whenever the Old Testament refers to an angel as an angel, then it’s just an angel. But whenever it’s the angel of the Lord, then it’s Jesus. It’s Jesus speaking or appearing before his human life on earth. The angel of the Lord says in verse 12, “Don’t lay a hand on the boy,” and Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught in a thicket. He cuts Isaac’s binds and offers the ram as a sacrifice instead.

Abraham calls that place Jehovah-jireh, meaning “The Lord will provide,” and that name combines two things: God’s constant watching over us, and His constant response to our cries of faith.

This is a hard story to read, isn’t it? And still so hard to understand, because what God commands Abraham and what Abraham is willing to do goes against everything we know to be right. But it had to be that way, because this was Abraham’s greatest test. This story isn’t in the Bible just to show us how faithful Abraham was. It’s not in the Bible for Abraham’s sake, it’s in the Bible for your sake. Because just like God tested Abraham, He’s going to test you. Maybe He’s even testing you now. And God will do that because testing you is the only way you’re going to learn to trust Him, and trust is the only path you can take to real obedience.

This story is in the Bible to show you three things: how God tests you; why God tests you; and the rewards of God’s tests.

How does God test you? How did God test Abraham? Abraham had given everything he owned to God except for the one thing that was most precious in his life — Isaac, his son and greatest blessing. All through the Old Testament, we read that God is a jealous God. God doesn’t want some of you or most of you. God wants all of you. So if you have 100 things and give God 99 of them, you can bet God’s test is going to come straight for that one thing you’re hanging onto, and do you know why? Because that one thing you’re holding onto is really your God. That’s the one thing you value the most, love the most, and trust in the most. It’s the thing you’re afraid of losing the most. For Abraham, that one thing was Isaac. What’s yours? It takes a lot of courage to answer that question honestly. But that’s exactly how God tests you.

But why does God test you? Why did God put Abraham through such a terrible ordeal, and why does He allow you to go through such painful trials? The answer to that is found in what God is really asking Abraham to do here.

On the surface, Abraham is being asked to give up control over the most precious thing in his life and give that control over to God. But if we go deeper, we see that what God is really asking for here isn’t the sacrifice of Abraham’s son, it’s the sacrifice of Abraham’s heart. Hanging over these eighteen verses are two questions that God keeps asking to Abraham — “Who do you love more, Me or your son? And what do you love more, Me or My blessings?”

That’s exactly what God asks you too — “Do you love Me, or do you love that one thing you won’t give Me? Do you love Me, or do you love the blessings I give you?” Because the only way to live the life that God wants you to live, the only way you’ll ever have true joy and peace in this life, is if you answer like Abraham answers — “God, I choose You over Your blessings. God, I trust you even though I don’t understand what’s happening. God, I will obey even if it hurts me.”

Listen: Only when you show your faith and trust in God when you don’t think you can does God truly become Jehovah-jireh in your life. That’s when He becomes The Lord Who Provides. God did that for Abraham. He provided the ram. And what’s the most important thing to remember about that ram? It was there the whole time. That ram didn’t just pop up out of nowhere, did it? That ram was born before Abraham even knew this day would come. God kept that ram safe its whole life just for this day of sacrifice before Abraham even knew there would have to be a sacrifice. While Abraham was walking up one side of that mountain with his problem, God was already sending that ram up the other side as a solution to that problem. The ram was there when Abraham tied Isaac. The ram was there when Abraham put Isaac on top of that wood. The answer to Abraham’s problem was already being supplied. But it was only revealed to him when he trusted God enough to obey.

When you take that final step of faith, when you finally give God everything, that’s when the reward comes. Look at verses 16-18. This is God basically repeating the promise He’d made all the way back at the beginning when he first called Abraham to leave his home in Ur. But there’s one important difference. This time, in verse 16, God swears it. Before, God had promised. Now that promise becomes an oath.

God’s promise is a guarantee. It’s what God’s going to do once all the conditions have been met. God’s oath means those conditions have now been met, and the promise starts happening right now. And what took place in that moment to turn God’s promise into Abraham’s reality? Obedience.

There will come a time in your life when God will ask something of you that seems impossible. When you’ll have to go through something you don’t think you can endure. He’s doing that to show you that He remains Jehovah-jireh, the Lord who provides. In those times He will provide for you the same thing that He provided Abraham — strength equal to the challenge, grace to save you, and a blessing that goes far beyond anything you can hope for. But you have to trust. You have to obey. And if you do that, you will meet a God who will never let you fall. A God you can truly call Father.