Jehovah Jireh - Genesis 22:14
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Opening Advent Introduction: We are a little over half-way through the Advent Season. Advent, historically, is a time in the life of the Church, and the life of the people of God when we carve out a bit of space intentionally in our life to focus our thoughts on the miracle of the incarnation. When we break our regular rhythms and think about the reality of God dwelling among us.
Advent Theme: In keeping with the theme of our Advent Worship Night yesterday evening, we are going to spend these last two Sundays of Advent considering two different names of God. Throughout the Scriptures, many different names are associated with God, titles that all confer various meanings. These names carry all kinds of weight and significance about our understanding of who God is, and who we are. Today, the name of God that we want to focus in on is Jehovah Jirah, which means ‘The Lord will Provide.’
Personal: Look back on your life for a moment. How has God provided for you? How has he made a way, when you couldn’t see a way. How has he made sure you were taken care of when you needed it most? The Lord will provide!
Context: This name for God, was first given by Abraham, right after the story when he nearly sacrificed his son. But this name has far deeper signficance, and paints a vivid picture not only of the incarnation, but of who God is in our daily life. Let’s start with the story of Abraham and Isaac, and see where this name originated.
Explicatio
Explicatio
This story begins all the way back in the first book of the Bible, in Genesis, right at the end of chapter 21.
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.
Planted a Terebinth Tree: I wanted to start this verse because we see something interesting, something relatable. Abraham is a little 100 years old at this point. He’s an old man who’s lived a long and beautiful life of ups and down of wars and peace. All Abraham’s life, he and his wife Sarah had been infertile. But God had promised that one day he would have a son. And Abraham waited decades for that promise to come true, until he was so old that he doubted he or his wife could have children. And then, miraculously God gives them a child, Isaac. Isaac becomes Abraham’s greatest treasure. And then he and his family settle in. He buys some land. He builds a house, and he plants a tree. He’s got his wife in one arm, his son in the other, a glass of ice tea on the table. He’s got it all.
Personal: Don’t you know that it is just like God, to never let us settle for too long. God has a way of shaking us up, and calling us to new heights and new places of faith.
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 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.” 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.
Burnt Offering: What was a burnt offering? At this point in Israel’s history, the full sacrificial system in the temple had not yet been developed, of which burned offerings were part. But the idea of a burnt offering was consistent even in Abraham’s days. When someone offered a sacrifice of an animal to God as a burnt offering they were in effect saying “Just as this animal is wholly given to God on the altar, so I wholly give myself to the Lord.” If that burnt offering involved shedding blood (which it often did), typically the offerer would lay his hands on the animal, and symbolically transfer his sin and guilt to the animal who died in place of the sinner.
Contradiction?: As we read this, we think to ourselves “How could god command Abraham to sacrifice his own son as the burnt offering!”
Theologically: This is the promised son. God told Abraham he was going to redeem the world through this boy. This boy had to live, had to grow up, had to have children otherwise God’s entire plan could not function. This is the promised boy. If Abraham kills him, then God contradicted Himself. This makes no sense.
Biblically: God is seemingly contradicting himself because Genesis 9 God says murder is bad, and yet here, God is commanding Abraham to brutally murder his son. This makes no sense. Commit murder.
Relationally: How is Abraham going to explain this to Sarah, Isaac’s mother? How would that conversation go with your wife? Maybe that’s why the text says Abraham rose up early in the morning, he avoided the conversation with Sarah. This makes no sense.
Which I Shall Tell You: Not only does it not make sense on so many levels, but look carefully at those verses. God asks Abraham to do what is certainly the going to be the most difficult awful thing he has ever done in his hundred year life, and God doesn’t even tell him the details. He says, “You just get going Abraham, I’ll tell you the exact mountain when you get there.” How many of you when you embark on something that you know is going to be difficult, you want a roadmap before you set out? What’s it gonna cost? Where are we going to live? Does the budget line up? Have we communicated with everyone properly? God says to Abraham, “I’m about to do something remarkable in your life Abraham, but you’re going to have to get going without all the information. You’re going to have be obedient to my Word without knowledge of how what I’m asking you to do could be possibly be for good.” Here’s a hundred year old faithful man, receiving this difficult word from God, and in a moment of spiritual maturity verse 3 says he rose early in the morning and headed off.
The Third Day:
On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.
Now I want you to picture this for a moment. Three days, they travel. For two nights they camped under the stars. I wonder if Abraham’s mind was wrecked for these three days. I wonder if he looked back every hundred yards. Do I turn back? Can I really go through with this? For three days they walked through the valley of death as Abraham with every step grew closer to the painful moment ahead. All Isaac knows is he’s out with his dad. This is Father/Son time under the stars, out in nature. Just Dad and son.
I and the Boy Will Come Back: Now something remarkable is exposed in verse 5. Read it with me.
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.”
They get to the moment, Abraham looks to his servants and says, “Hey, me and the boy are going to go up the hill.” Keep in mind that no one else knows that Abraham is about to murder Isaac. And then he says to servants, “I and the boy will come back to you.” How is that possible? What is going on in Abraham’s head that he thinks he can both sacrifice Isaac on an altar and walk back down the mountain with Isaac. Keep your fingers in your bibles here and I’m going to jump forward to Hebrews 11:17-19 which tells us exactly what Abraham was thinking in this moment. It reads:
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, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
Abraham’s got this faith that says that God’s promises will come true. No matter what happens, no matter how impossible it seems, if God said it, it will happen. So in this moment Abraham is fully intending to kill his son in obedience to God’s command, and yet what’s going on in his mind is this, “God’s got to have some kind of miracle planned to bring this boy back to life, because God said this boy was the promised son.” Again, he doesn’t have all the answers. All he knows is that the God he worships is able to make dead things come to life. He’s seen it once before, when God made Sarah’s womb which had been empty for 80 years fertile. If he could do it then, he can do it now.
Isaac’s Perspective:
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. 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?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.
Now Moses is drawing this story out for us, as a master story teller. He’s allowing us to feel every moment of pain in this story. Can you imagine Abraham loading Isaac up with wood. The young strong boy putting his arms out, “load me up dad. Come on, I can take more.” Isaac looks to his dad, “Dad we forgot the lamb.” And I can just imagine the painful weary eyes of Abraham turning from his son, wiping a tear from his eye, “God will provide for himself.” There is our word “provide.” This whole passage is about Abraham’s belief, even before God provided, that God would provide. He didn’t know how, but he trusted that God would provide.
Isaac Doesn’t Resist:
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. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
The moment Isaac realizes that Abraham has intended to kill him all along. Notice Isaac doesn’t flee or fight. He could. He’s young, Abraham’s old. Isaac seemingly willingly submits to His father. Why? What would cause a young man to submit to His father like this? Well, I imagine that Abraham has been a good Dad. He’s been a present Dad. He’s been involved in this boy’s life, and this boy, now a young man has watched the faith of his father. He seen that his Dad can be trusted. He’s seen that his dad does the will of the father. He’s seen that his dad is willing to listen and obey God no matter the cost and that has developed inside of him a trust that that every son should have with his father. This man will point towards godliness, I can trust him, because he is submitted to the will of God.
Fathers - do your children trust you this way. If you came home one day and called your family to do something that they, you, and everyone else said, “that makes no sense!” Would they say, “That's my dad, he's listening to God. I can trust him.”
He’s Gonna Do It: Abraham ties up his boy and lays him on the altar. I can imagine tears streaming down his face and Isaac’s. He leans up over the wood with his knife in his hand raised up above his head, certainly looking for the part on Isaac’s body where he would kill him the quickest, cause the least amount of pain. And he’s gonna do it.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 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.” 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.
God Provides a Substitute: At the last moment, God provides in a way that Abraham certainly was not expecting. An angel of God commands him to stop. And in place of Isaac, God provides a ram that providentially had its horns caught in a bush nearby. And so the ram is substituted for his child, and the blood of the ram is subsituted for the blood of Isaac.
What Was the Point: What was the point of all this? Well, God says that there was an element that it was a test. Don’t worry, God will never test any of you in this way. Abraham was to be the Father of the nation of Israel, through the whom the messiah would eventually come. God did not test Abraham to see if Abraham was strong enough, God already knew that. God tested Abraham to prove Abraham’s own faith to himself, and to form his son Isaac’s faith in the process.
The Lord will Provide:
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.”
Here, the name of God, Jehovah Jireh, is given for the first time. The Lord will provide. Because in Abraham’s most vulnerable and precious moment, when Abraham didn’t know where provision would come from, but he was hanging onto hope in God’s faithfulness to His Word, God provided.
Jehovah Jireh: God Will Provide.
Applicatio
Applicatio
Now, what does all of this story have to do with Christmas, and with Advent? Everything! During Advent we are preparing our hearts to remember the great truth that God has provided. Permit me to lay out five wonderful truths about God’s provision in Christ to reflect on.
A Forgiveness of Sin: The incarnate Christ, that child that entered into the human story in Mary’s womb is the provision of God. God’s people throughout history longed and looked forward to the coming of the one who would destory the works of the enemy, and put an end to sin once and for all. When Mary was found with child, Joseph originally thought she had been adulterous and determined to end their engagement quietly. But an angel appeared to him in a dream. The account of that is in the first chapter of the gospel of Matthew.
But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
This child in Mary’s womb was God in the Flesh, Emmanuel which means God with us. He entered into the human story for a purpose “to save his people from their sins.” His was a human life, in every sense of the Word. He was born. He grew up. He learned. But it was much more. This child in the womb would grow up and would teach us through his life what the story of Abraham and Isaac is actually all about.
The Greater Isaac: See, just as Abraham led his son up a mountain, so did God Father, lead God the Son up what many commentators believe is the very same mountain. Just as Isaac willingly submitted to the Father’s plans, so did Christ the Son willingly submit to his Father’s plans. But here is what is different. God did not require Abraham to follow through, but instead provided a substitute. But God the Father, did not spare his own Son. No angel’s voice held him back. The knife came down fully on the Son, as all of God’s wrath against sin was placed on him.
Christ Has Become the Substitute: Christ has become the substitute. Just as a ram was substituted for Isaac, so now is Christ, the final sacrificial lamb, our substitute. Christ has become the final propitiation for sin. Rather than the knife of God’s wrath falling on us, for our sin, it fell on Christ in our place.
Jehovah Jireh - God has provided.
B Our Daily Needs: But as Christians, God has provided so much more abundantly, even that. We read in Matthew 6 that God has determined to provide all of our daily needs.
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
The Word of God says that a Christian need not concern themselves about the worries of the world, what to wear and what to eat, but we need only concern ourselves with honoring God, and God will always provide for us. O how many times have I seen this be true. Let me give you a short list of ways I have seen Jehovah Jireh provide even in these last few weeks.
I’ve seen multiple marriages having difficult conversations, finding Christ leads them back to unity and reconciliation. Jehovah Jireh.
I’ve seen folks who could not explain the wall up in their heart for why they could not believe in Christ as their Savior, have that wall toppled over so they could believe in him. Jehovah Jireh.
I’ve seen mothers with young children who do not know where the help is going to come from, find relief and support from the unlikeliest of places. Jehovah Jireh.
I’ve seen desparate plea’s for God’s mercy, met in that moment in the most unlikely of ways, where God just overwhelmingly tells a person “I’m here and I love you.” Jehovah Jireh.
And all of that is just this week. Jehovah Jireh - Our God Will Provide!
C The Grace to Live For Him: Third, God will provide everything we need in order to live a life that pleases him. The Apostle Paul says in the fourth chapter of Philippians,
I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
When a person believes in Christ, they are transformed into a being who longs to live for God through Christ. They are given the Spirit inside of them, that bears witness to their faith, and points them in the right direction. And when a Christian, filled by the Holy Spirit, desires to please God, to live a life that is a fragrant offering to God. God says he will make that pursuit possible.
Practical: Here is what that means practically. If ever you are at a crossroads, and you’re trying to figure out, how do I do this in a way that honors God? Or what is the decision I should make that is most honoring to God? Or how should I go about this in a way that Christ would be honored. If that is your heart and your posture, then God will supply your every need. He will make a way when you cannot see a way.
Jehovah Jireh - God will provide!
D Everlasting Love: Fourth, God will provide you with everlasting love. In Romans chapter 8, after the Apostle lays out all of us have been forgiven by Christ and are therefore part of his family. He says these powerful words.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Oh this is wonderful doctrine indeed! This is doctrine worthy of our study. It feeds the soul. It ravishes our very nature to understand the depth of the love of God for you.
Once Saved Always Saved: Here we have one of those classic verses that is a strong defense of the great Reformed doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints, what is sometimes “Once saved, always saved.” This doctrines says that you are eternally secured in Christ by a bond of love that cannot be broken. By Grace, through faith in Christ, you are loved permanently by God. It cannot waiver. It cannot break. No demon can rob you of it. No difficulty can tarnish it. No weakness of yours or sinfulness of yours can cause it to be removed. It was put in place by God Himself, and no power in heaven or on earth is capable of breaking the seal that God has engraven.
Speak to the Heart: Paul begins that little section with the phrase “For I am sure…” But the real meaning behind that little phrase is “I am persuaded…” Paul was persuaded that this was true. And Christian, you must be persuaded as well. If you don’t know this doctrine well you will have a very difficult time really believing that God is Jehovah Jireh. You see, some in this room are not convinced of the doctrine of the Perseverence of the Saints. They believe right now that they are capable of behaving in such a way that they could lose their authentic faith in Jesus. O Christian, what a fearful way to navigate this life. That places the burden of holding onto your salvation on your own shoulders. Who will provide? You will provide. Who will sustain you? You will sustain you. No, no, no. Christ’s love for you is overwhelming and he will provide and sustain until he takes you home. Rest in home. Take joy and comfort in the knowledge that your salvation is secure in Christ.
Jehoveh Jireh - God will provide!
E The Desires of your Heart: Fourth, God will provide you with the desires of your heart.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Does this mean that God will grant us every secular pleasure we ever ask for? Of course not. He’s God. But notice the order of how this verse is written. First, we delight ourselves in the Lord. What happens as we do that, is that our heart comes into alignment with the heart of God. Our desires begin to change to be in alignment with his desires. And then, when we pour those desires out at the feet of Jesus, because they are simultaneously God’s desires, he fulfills them, and he provides.
Our Will / His Will: We must understand, God will always accomplish God’s will. The question we have to discern is, are we in alignment God’s will? Is that which we most desire, of God? Is that which we are most laboring for, of God. If not, we have no certainty that God will provide. But if you align yourself with the will of God, truly God will provide the desires of your heart.
Jehoveh Jireh - God will provide.
Sabbath, the law, the church family,
Conclusion
Conclusion
There are many names of God in Scripture. Today we have focused in on one of them, Jehovah Jireh which means God will provide. As you head towards Christmas morning, I want to place a challenge before you, to reflect deeply on all the ways God has provided for you. To let that stir up inside of you a sense of wonder and worship.
