What Are You Willing To Give Up?

Intro

Be sure to recap the story up to this point

Genesis 22:1–14 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.” 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. “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.”

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pray

What Are You Willing To Give Up?

[talk about it....]

[pic of working out and/or diet]

[talk about it]

[pic of Abe and Isaac]

That is what this story is all about really…[talk about how we typically look at this story of God providing, but really it should be looked at as a story of sacrifice]

Matthew 16:24 NIV

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

And that sacrifice is, in fact, implied in our very faith itself!

Just look at these famous words of our Savior. Whoever! That means everyone who at some point thinks that they are going to in some way claim the mantle of Christian, or Christ follower . Every single person.

I think that sometimes we exempt ourselves from these moments in scripture. We see words like this and think something like, “yeah…you heard him! He means you!” We are already saved, so we are ok. Jesus was talking about those folks who are saved after me.

But that’s a lie. He means us. Me. You. Every person who has ever existed. If those people want to be a disciple, there is work to do.

Disciple - a follower or student of a teacher

But what is a disciple? [elaborate]

…a disciple is simply “a follower or student of a teacher.”

But that just touches the surface. You see, there is some great implications when it comes to that word! It is bigger than just a student in a classroom. That word implies that the person labelled by it is actually doing something!

So what is it that they are doing? Well you don’t have to look far to figure that out. They share the same root, because at the heart of the matter, they are synonymous with one another!

That word can only

Discipline - training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character

Discipline! The disciple has to do something in order to be a follower, and the thing they do is a discipline! It takes discipline!

And that, church, is “training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.”

There is training. There is correction. What we are before we start this process isn’t what we are intended to stay! We are to be molded into something greater than what we are!

But church, hear this clearly, the only way we can be changed, and molded, is to sacrifice something!

[“You may know Jesus, but you need to do more than wait for Him, hoping He saves you when you die or when you realize that you might need Him.” ~ Haven Farris]

I was actually talking with one of our Youth this week when they said, essentially, the same thing…[elaborate on that idea]

[“You may know Jesus, but you need to do more than wait for Him, hoping He saves you when you die or realize that you might need Him.” ~ Haven Farris]

When Jesus says that we have to deny ourselves, He is telling us that we need to make some sacrifice of our time, our energy, in order to be considered His followers. And we may know Him, church, but if know Him in name only, and never let our lives be altered by Him we aren’t following at all! We have to deny ourselves; we have to make some sort of sacrifice if we expect to actually follow where He is leading us!

[pic of abe and issac]

Take your son…wait…I didn’t do the text justice there. Take your ONLY son. This promised child. The one you waited on for 25 years! The one from whom would come descendants that are more numerous than all the grains of sand!

Take that one to Moirah; which is Jerusalem. Build an altar there, and place wood on it. Take the boy and sacrifice him on that altar and then light it on fire!

What are you willing to give up? That is what I hear God asking there. What are you willing to give up for me?

You know, a lot of times in life we will look at something that we want, or something that is happening to us, and we intrinsically understand that there has to be a cost for it. We even have phrases for that stuff right?

Nothing good in life is free. You can’t get something for nothing. If it is too good to be true, it probably is...

I am sure you can think of countless more. My point here, though, is that we understand that there is a cost for everything we do, but sometimes, in faith, we forget that and act as if we aren’t called to change and to offer our own sacrifices in life.

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

…we understand, from the bottom of our souls, that there is a cost to every action! We get that there is a price for everything that we want or do!

But still, I pose the question to us all - when it comes to our faith lives, our lives with Christ, what are we willing to give up? What are willing to struggle with in order to be great in faith?

What are we willing to sacrifice to God so that our obedience can be made clear? What are we going to lay on that altar to show God that we are all in for His plans and for His life! What can we give up in our lives to put our lives on His path?

Understand, I am not talking about someone’s life here. I am speaking from the point of view of this story as a allegory for our lives! God calls us, everyone of us, every single day, to take the thing that we love more than Him. The thing that He might have set aside for us! The thing that we had waitied on for years! That thing that we have elevated higher than God! That is what we are called to take to the altar!

THAT MIGHT BE OUR PLANS OR OUR DREAMS, BUT IT MIGHT EVEN BE SOMETHING FAR MORE COMMONPLACE AND PRACTICAL! MAYBE OUR JOBS. OUR MARRIAGE, OUR KIDS, OR OUR FRIENDSHIPS THAT PULL US AWAY FROM GOD. MAYBE WE HAVE PLACED SOME EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES BETWEEN GOD AND US. WHATEVER IT IS FOR YOU - THE THING THAT YOU HAVE PLACED HIGHER THAN GOD MUST BE LAID DOWN AT THE FEET OF THE CROSS OF THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD IF YOU WISH TO EVER ELEVATE HIM TO THE PLACE HE NEEDS TO BE IN YOUR LIFE!

Listen, we need to take the prophetic voice of this text to heart. Whatever it is in our lives that we hold on to more than God only prevents the actual sacrifice of God to be made for us!

I mean, imagine, just for a second, what the story looks like if Abraham refuses. Anyone who has ever spent any time studying the old testament can answer that easily. If Abraham would have refused, God would have taken Isaac, and likely all that Abraham had.

[fuzzy mirror pic]

But what about us? What makes us think that isn’t applicable to us? It is like we don’t recognize our own faces in that mirror! Listen, we all replace Jesus with something in our lives at some point. It might even change for you daily! But whatever you have replaced Him with will not bring life! It will only bring spiritual death!

Just like Abraham, if we aren’t willing to offer those things up, we stand the risk of having it taken from us! So we need to be like Abraham, and willingly sacrifice those things to God, and be content with His plan and provision!

He is there in the thickets of our lives! He is there calling out to us to stop and to see the offering that He always intended for us! He is there, when we don’t understand life, and all that we are seems lost in the confusion of all He wants us to be! He is there, calling out to us - “I will provide!” Jesus calls to us from the cross, reminding us that He has already paid the price for us so that NOTHING IN THIS WORLD could ever get in between God and us!

Listen church, it's not every day that someone gives their life for you, much less someone who gives you life in the midst of our own deaths and the midst of our own troubles in this world! That kind of sacrifice deserves us giving everything we can and not just a couple cursory moments a month, or a few fleeting thoughts! That kind of sacrifice demands our utter obedience and our total worship!

That kind of love demands our very lives. All that we are. All that we could ever be. All that we have.

That is what we must be willing to sacrifice, church.

[“we all replace Jesus with something...”]

So what are you willing to give up?

That kind of love,

Matthew 16:25 NIV

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

The answer to that, has to be everything.

This is our moment, church. This is our chance to take God seriously. Just imagine what would happen if we all took Him at His word? Imagine all that God would do with us and through us, if we just offered Him all that we are and all that we have - Time, talents, energy.

Everything.

No more holding back. Be willing to give it all up, so that God can provide you what you needed all along. Just put those things on the altar, and let God take care of the rest.

Invitation