People God Trusts: Trust With Resurrection
People God Trusts • Sermon • Submitted
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Intro:
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?
Today, we will continue with the thought, [People God Trusts], the title of my message is [Trust with Resurrection].
I once heard the story of a pastor who boarded an airplane, got to seat and discovered he was next to a well known theologian and Bible professor.
Longing to learn something that would help him in the ministry, he struck up a conversation with the theologian. In the course of their discussion, the theologian opened up about the loss of his son.
His son passed away as a child after a prolonged illness. He shared about the long days and nights in the hospital and the moment when they heard there was nothing more that the doctors could do.
On the last day of his son’s life, the boy did not want to go to sleep. The dad explained how everything would be okay. He spoke about heaven and being with Jesus.
The last words the boy said to his dad was, “Dad, I’ll see you in the morning” he closed his eyes and passed away in the night.
The theologian looked out the window and there was long silence. He then turned to the pastor and said, I’m ready for morning.
I have never forgot that story.
We sing of Some Glad Morning we clap our hands on In that Great Triumphant Morning. But let’s think of this for a moment—
The sun rises, only after a long dark night.
Resurrection occurs, only after a death.
Many of us can think of losing something or someone precious and dear to us. Thankfully as followers of Christ, we have hope in the resurrection!
But as the loss comes near of when the loss occurs, resurrection power seems so far away. That is how Martha felt after her brother Lazarus died.
Martha wanted to know, Jesus, why didn’t you come sooner. If you had come when he was sick, Lazarus would still be alive. What was Jesus’s answer?
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
Jesus’s promise to Martha is available for EVERYONE. There is weight behind His words for the angel declared—
5 Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?
6 He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee,
Jesus possesses resurrection power. Through His death, burial, and resurrection, He overcame death, hell and the grave. Now, we have HOPE that He will bring dead things back to life.
We all have this confidence of the resurrection. But today, I want us to see, as we read in our text, how God wants people who will have faith in His resurrection power.
For those who trust Him with impossible situations, He will reveal His resurrection power.
We’re looking at people God trust. As I mentioned, throughout Scripture, God desired to fulfill His plan and purpose. For some reason, instead of just doing what He wanted to do, He decided to use people.
He opted to work through people He could trust to accomplish His will.
It is easy to trust God, but does God trust us?
He can never love us more than He does right now, but He can trust us more!
As I prepared this message, I felt in my spirit that God wants to reveal His resurrection power today. He wants to resurrect our joy, our peace, our hope, our confidence, our trust, and our faith.
What we have to do is GIVE Him what we have and let Him do His work. To see how this can happen, let’s look at a pivotal moment in the life of Abraham.
If God is to trust us with resurrection power, then we have to choose, [Retain what We Have] or [Release what we Have] so God can [Replace what We Have].
Let’s begin
1. Retain What We Have
1. Retain What We Have
1 Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
2 Then He said, “Take now 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.”
Abraham walked close with God. The Lord turned His sight on Abraham, making a covenant with him. The Lord promised to bless his descendants.
The only problem for Abraham was that he did not have any descendants. He and his wife, Sarah, were unable to have children.
They did everything they could to make God’s promise come to pass. Abraham thought perhaps his servant Eliezer would become his heir. But that was not God’s plan.
Then Sarah devised a plan where he would have a child with her servant Haggar. In their minds that would work because the child would be Abraham’s blood heir.
Still, that was not God’s plan. For twenty-five years they waited until finally, at the age of 100, God gave Abraham a son, whom he named Isaac.
Life was great for Abraham and Isaac. Everything he could ever imagined or hoped for was wrapped up in one package, his son.
Imagine his surprise when God decided to speak to him again. Generally when God spoke to him, it was to bring good news:
I am giving you the land of Canaan
I will bless you and your descendants
I will be back this time next year and Sarah will have a son
I would say that God’s voice was an appreciated addition to Abraham’s day. God spoke to Abraham— and he replied Here I am.
There is no way that Abraham could imagine what God would say next— take your son, yes your only son, whom you love so much, to Moriah and sacrifice him as a burnt offering.
Talk about a gut wrenching message and a heart breaking choice. What will he do? Will he retain what he had? Will he choose to hold onto the one person that consumed his identity?
Isaac meant the world to him and now God asked, give him back to me.
None of us have been in the exact scenario as Abraham, but we have all had to choose to retain what we have with God. We have all had to decided how much of ourselves we will give to God.
Abraham had to make a choice, give God everything, or retain what I have, the promise I wanted twenty-five years to receive.
Could God trust Him with such a request? Would he retain or…
2. Release What We Have
2. Release What We Have
3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.
4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off.
5 And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”
What a difficult request God made. But Abraham had faith in God. He trusted God knew exactly what He was doing at all times.
He did not always have such confidence in God, as we already looked, there were many times he took matters into his own hands.
But now that he was in his 100s, he learned that God’s ways were higher than his, so he decided to trust God and release what he had.
He decided instantly to obey God, but following through on the obedience was a process. He got up early and started chopping wood.
No one quite knew what he was doing. Then he saddled the donkey and instructed two of his servants to go with him and Isaac.
To go from Beersheba to Mount Moriah was a forty-five mile journey that took three days. It is hard to imagine what went through his mind.
How could he watch Isaac walk and play on the journey knowing his impending plans. Finally, they arrived. Notice his trust in God, he told his servants, WE WILL WORSHIP.
But notice his words, WE WILL COME BACK TO YOU.
He had faith in God. He released the future to the Lord and trusted that God would keep His promises and words.
By now, Isaac can sense something is not quite right. Perhaps he could tell Abraham acted a little off than normal. Now, they start to walk on and it is just them and the wood.
Naturally, he wondered, where is the sacrifice?
First that lets me know that Isaac was accustomed to his father offering sacrifices of worship to God. He was raised in a home where they not only believed in God, but they honored him.
Then, Abraham once again shows his great faith— God HIMSELF will provide the lamb
8 And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.
9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood.
10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
By this point, Abraham took Isaac, laid him on the altar, tied him down and grabbed his knife. He lifted it in the air, ready to release what he could have easily retained.
Even as I typed these words, my heart was heavy. I know how the story ends, but it shows me how much trust Abraham had and how much God looks for those who trust Him.
Remember, God can never love us more than He does right now, but He can trust us more!
Do we trust God to RELEASE everything to Him? If we do, we will see that He will...
3. Replace What We Have
3. Replace What We Have
11 But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.”
12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
13 Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son.
14 And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”
In an act of pure obedience, just as he prepared to follow through on God’s instructions, the Lord sent a messenger. An angel spoke, ABRAHAM, ABRAHAM.
Do not harm the boy. Do not hurt him, for it is obvious that you truly fear God. You chose to release what is most important to you. You would not even withhold your only son.
Just then, Abraham looked and saw a ram caught in a thicket. He took the ram and offered it as a sacrifice to God.
Notice, once Abraham released what he had to God, the Lord offered a replacement. What a miracle— God provided JUST What He needed at just the right time.
But Abraham would have NEVER witnessed God’s power in this manner had he not trusted God. His faith in God was deep.
How did he trust God, what did he expect God to do?
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18 of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,”
19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
Faith operated powerfully in Abraham. Not only was he willing to offer Isaac, his only son, he also believed that God could rais Isaac from the dead.
Remember, he told his servants, WE will go to worship and WE will return.
He had that much faith in God. He knew God kept His covenant and could not break His word.
God replaced Abraham’s need to sacrifice Isaac with a ram in a thicken.
But Abraham believed that he had to follow through on God’s instructions, the Lord would replace death with life and bring Isaac back!
Abraham had faith. No wonder the New Testament authors looked back to Abraham’s faith as an example.
3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?
What did Abraham’s obedience and trust in God do?
15 Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven,
16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—
17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.
18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
In essence God told Abraham— you are the type of person I can trust. I asked you to release what is most important to you and you did not retain what I requested.
Instead, you willingly gave it ALL to me.
What did God give as a result of His obedience?
God promised His blessings upon his life all because he chose to obey and trust God.
God kept His word because Abraham trusted in God’s word.
Close:
Trust with resurrection. Abraham trusted that God would RAISE Isaac from the dead. No wonder he chose not to retain what God asked to release.
When I read this chapter and prepared this message, I really had to trust God that He wanted me to preach this today. As a dad, I have a hard time wrapping my head around this story. It is the first time I have paid it much attention since June 2, 2021 when Davis came into this world.
As I thought it all through, I couldn’t help but see how the Trinity was at work in the account of Abraham and Isaac and God.
Abraham is an example of God the Father’s love. As Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, God actually sacrificed His son.
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Abraham had faith that Isaac would rise from the dead, the Father knew that Jesus would rise from the dead!
Just as it was a three day journey before God provided a replacement for Abraham with a lamb in the thicket, Jesus lay dead for three days before the lamb of God rose out of the grave.
But what about the work of the Holy Spirit?
Abraham had great faith.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:9
9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,
The Holy Spirit poured out great faith on Abraham to trust God for resurrection power. But where does resurrection power originate?
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Abraham was ready to sacrifice Isaac in faith that God would raise him from the dead.
The Father sacrificed the Son and the Holy Spirit raised Him from the dead.
My point today is simple— Resurrection power is here and available for EVERYONE!
And as I prayed over this message and this service, I felt very strong that God has a word for everyone.
We have all faced loss of some sort, some of the loss has been more obvious to some and others have suffered through loss and no one can tell.
But loss changes us. When we lose someone or something, a part of us seems to go away with them.
Maybe the person has gone to heaven or maybe there is a relationship that seems beyond repair.
Perhaps there have been life circumstances that have taken us by surprise and the loss seems overwhelming.
Whatever the loss we’ve faced, life has a way of changing us.
But I believe that the Lord is here to reveal His resurrection power over each of us.
If we’ve lost someone, the Lord wants to resurrect our joy and peace
Maybe we’ve lost a relationship, the Lord wants to resurrect hope of restoration
It could be that we’ve lost our hope that God will answer a need, we’ve prayed and prayed and prayed, and nothing seems to happen, the Lord wants to resurrect our faith
Perhaps we’ve lost our ability to dream about the future, I feel in my spirit, God wants to resurrect old dreams that seemed dead
Whatever the situation, whatever the need, whatever the problem, whatever the request— Jesus is here and the same power that raised Him from the dead is present to bring resurrection power to us!
We do not have to retain it any longer.
We can release whatever we have amd
God will replace it with His resurrection power