Our Scripture reference is found in Genesis 17:1-19.
This is probably the fourth time I am discussing from this story. It happened on a mountain called Mount Moriah. Why do I keep coming back to this mountain? One reason is because we need to be reminded, over and over and over again about the wonderful story that happened in this mountain. I remember the first time I preached a sermon about this, the title was Approaching Moriah, then my second sermon was Revisiting Moriah, the third one was Return to Moriah. Maybe next time I will preach a sermon about this story, I will entitle it Moriah Carey (just kidding)
Another reason why God probably wants us to hear the story all over again is because most of us are simply not getting it. It doesn’t matter how many times we hear a sermon, what’s more important is – are we practicing what we have heard? Are we applying the principles in our lives? This is the reason why we always pray that we should be active doers of the word and not just passive listeners. It doesn’t matter how many times we listen to a sermon of a similar story from the Bible, I believe God will always have a fresh revelation for each one of us.
So we are going to learn once more from a man who is called “friend of God.” He is the patriarch of our faith especially by the Jews. Whenever we talk about worship, whenever we talk about faith, Abraham’s name is always mentioned. He is the real deal. The New Testament makes numerous references to him. This guy is a hero of our faith and a true worshiper of the living God.
Let us read from Genesis 22:1-19:
One of the biggest challenges we face today in relation to our faith is logic. Skeptics say that the Christian worldview is inconsistent with rational thinking. They say faith goes against reason. I don’t agree with that. Faith is not against reason. On the contrary, biblical faith and reason go well together. The problem lies in the fact that many people have a misconception of faith. If you go to Hebrews 11, whenever we have confidence in something that we cannot see, hear, taste, smell, or touch, we are acting upon a type of faith. All people put their faith in something, even if it is not a saving faith in God.
Now, Christians who openly profess their faith in God are faced with a similar dilemma. In our lives, sometimes things just don´t make sense. Since we are rational individuals, we ourselves try to find reason in everything that is happening in our lives.
A lot of times, our worship gets affected when things happening in our lives don’t make sense. We tend to question God. We tend to worship less.
As rational human beings, don’t we need to analyze each and every event happening in our lives and just proceed on those things that make sense. Don´t we deserve some explanation from the Lord when things don’t make sense?
And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. Who doesn’t want to be called “God’s friend.” But Abraham didn’t just get this title, he earned it! Before he can really be called a man of faith, God had to put him in a situation that doesn’t make any sense for him. God wanted Abraham to demonstrate his faith and his worship. This is the reason why when we pray to God to make our faith stronger or to understand the true meaning of worship – God will for sure create situations that will test our faith just like what He did with Abraham.
Abram was about seventy-five when God made a covenant with him for the first time (Genesis 12:1-3). His wife Sarah was barren.
The Lord said to him: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Despite this promise from the Lord, Abraham thought that obviously he cannot be a great nation because logic and even science dictates that he cannot have a son because his wife Sarah was barren. So Sarah had him sleep with her Egyptian slave named Hagar. You can find this in Genesis 16:1. They want to make sense out of God´s promise so they took matters in their own hands.
Abram was eighty-six when Hagar bore him Ishmael (Genesis 16:16)
This particular sin has caused mankind serious consequences through generations even up to our time today. The Arabs and the Bedouin tribes claim that they came from the lineage of Ishmael. But God was not referring to Ishmael as the child of promise. God said Abraham will have a son through his wife Sarah.
The Lord changed his name to Abraham when he was ninety-nine and reminded him of the covenant (Genesis 17:1-5)
And true enough,
A year later, his son Isaac was born. Abraham was 100 years old (Genesis 21:5)
Abraham loved Isaac so much. He meant the world to him. If you are a father like me, you know how much a father can love his son or daughter.
Abraham loved his son so much that God wanted to test him whether God is still occupying the first place in his heart. God wanted to test him whether he is still up for that covenant that he will make a great nation out of him.
We can learn something from this church. How many of us would pray to God for something: Lord, give me a son or a daughter. Or Lord, give me a husband or a wife. Or Lord, give me a job. Or Lord, please bring me to Canada. Or Lord please let me have a permanent residence visa. Sometimes, our prayers are very specific. Lord, please give me this scholarship. Lord, please let us go on this vacation. Lord, please heal my disease. And I promise you Lord, I am making a covenant with you Lord that I will worship you even more, I will serve in WCCC, I will do this and and I will do that…
Then, the Lord answered our prayers. He gave us the things we are asking from Him. And since we are now busy and occupied with the things that we prayed for… we are now busy with our children, with our spouse, with your new job, we are physically healed… we forget our covenant with the Lord. We forget our promise to Him. We did not honor our part of the bargain. And since God loves us so much and He does not want us to go astray, He then puts us into a test. He wants us to demonstrate if we are a still going to worship Him.
In the opening verses of chapter 22, it says there
1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.
2 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.”
What can you say about this command? Don’t you think it’s too much? Well, this is a pivotal period in history, a time when God was starting the foundation of the great nation of Israel. Who knows what’s in His mind? Whenever I read this story, I thank the Lord that He does not test us this way and I just pray that He wouldn’t. Otherwise, we’ll probably fail the test.
There were lots of pagan religions during this time and child sacrifice was common among them, but not with the God of Abraham...not with Yahweh! Yahweh is known to be a God with compassion to His people. Abraham was a hundred years old when the Lord gave them Isaac... the promised son. Sarah was about 91. God promised Abraham that his descendants will be like the stars in the sky that he cannot count them -- and it will be fulfilled through his son Isaac. That was God’s promise and now...God was commanding him to offer his son as a sacrifice? It does not make sense at all.
How can we relate our own life situations to the story of Abraham? I am sure each one of us encounters situations in our lives that don’t make sense.
Let us learn from the experience of Abraham.
We must be certain that the command is indeed coming from the Lord.
Our relationship with the Lord is very important. Our relationship with God must be intimate enough for us to know who He truly is in our lives. We must acknowledge and remember that God deserves to be worship even when things don’t make sense.
But how do we know God? We know God through His word. The Bible best describes to us who God is and how He has shown His great love for us. The Bible tells us how God sent His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to die for us. If the Bible is not enough for you to know God, look around you and be amazed of His creations. The Bible says “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” If the creation of God around you is not enough for you to know Him, look at the people around you. A lot of them has been changed by God and they reflect His image.
Jesus said…
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
John 10:27 NKJV
If we truly know God, His command, even if it doesn’t make sense to us, we know that it´s coming from Him.
If you notice from the story of Abraham, even if the command is not making sense for him, he got up early and made preparations. He did not dilly dally. He did not make excuses.
If we have the right relationship with the Lord, we know that even if the things that are going on in our lives are not making sense --- it will be for our own good. We may not see it at first, we may not understand it at first, it may not be rational or logical but as we obey the Lord, He slowly reveals to us what His plans us.
We should trust God well enough that He knows what he´s doing.
And this third point is very important and I would like you to take note of this…
He accomplishes His divine plan through things that don´t seem to make sense to us.
God puts us in certain situations that don’t make sense because He has a plan. He is accomplishing something far beyond what we can understand or imagine.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9 NIV
We don’t have the mind of God. We cannot always understand Him. He has no obligation to explain to us what´s going on in His mind. He is God. People sometimes try to play God. They want to understand everything. They try to reason out everything. They try to make sense out of everything that is going on in their lives. They go to universities, they take Master´s degree, they take Doctorate degrees –they think they already know everything. They study the Bible, they think they can explain everything. Remember that “the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight.”
We already know the story of Abraham in Genesis 22. This is the reason why I didn´t not spend too much time on the details. Like what I said, I preached three sermons about this story already.
Approximately one thousand years after Abraham’s visit to Mt. Moriah, a righteous king in Israel bought a land on the same mountain -- a threshing floor from a man named Araunah to build the Lord’s Temple. The name of this king is David. Araunah offered to give the land to King David for free – but King David refused. It was a kind gesture, but David insisted on paying for the land, and he gave Araunah fifty shekels of silver. David said “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing. (2 Samuel 24:24 NIV)”
From the time of David, another one thousand years have passed, a sacrifice is once again required. But this time, it’s different. This time, the sacrifice is to substitute for the sins of mankind. Biblical scholars believed that this sacrifice once again, happened on the same mountain, that the apex of Mt. Moriah was actually Mt. Calvary where Jesus was crucified.
This time, the sacrifice is not a ram caught in thickets or a son of an important leader like Abraham, the sacrifice is not 50 shekels of silver like what David gave to Araunah – this time the sacrifice is God’s only begotten Son, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world...not a Ram but a Lamb.
Isaac is a typology of Jesus. His story points to the greatest sacrifice of all.
Come to think of it…
Jesus´sacrifice didn´t make sense as well but He did it out of His great love for us.
Jesus is innocent. He did not sin and yet He suffered the most inhumane treatment known to man. He was mocked, he was tortured, he was crucified.
Does that make sense to you? That Jesus died for your sins and mine? It doesn´t make sense to me but it makes perfect sense to God because He loves us.
Let us pray.
Prayer:
Wherever you are, whatever you situation you may be -- you need the love of Jesus in your life. Please say this prayer sincerely from your heart:
Father God, I confess all my sins to you today. Please forgive me. Today, I open my heart to your Son Jesus Christ. I accept Him in my life as my Saviour and as my Lord. May the Holy Spirit come to my life and make me the kind of person you want me to be. In Jesus Name, I pray. Amen.
The above article is an excerpt from a sermon delivered at WCCC Richmond during its service on Sunday, January 29, 2017
I apologise if there are grammatical and spelling errors.
I also apologise if I have missed acknowledging or making proper references to my sources, if any, as it is purely unintentional.
If you are looking for a church in British Columbia, Canada please visit our website at:
www.wordchristiancommunity.com
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