WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.480 Recently, our kids got smartwatches, and it's really convenient for us to be able to call them 00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:13.580 and text them, know where they are now that they're a little older. One of the coolest features is 00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:19.019 that now I can pull out one of my devices, and I can look, and I can see exactly where they are 00:00:19.019 --> 00:00:24.920 at any given time. Little blue dot. And there's a lot of reassurance in that little blue dot. I can 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:29.440 pull it out, and I can look at that dot, and I can say, there he is. And I know where in the world 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:35.219 my child is, and that brings me great comfort, until the voice in my head says, or maybe somebody 00:00:35.219 --> 00:00:43.500 stole the watch. Maybe he's, you know, been kidnapped or in a gutter somewhere, and this isn't him, 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:52.900 and then the reassurance evaporates. We live in a time where there's a kind of paradox between safety 00:00:52.899 --> 00:01:01.640 and anxiety. I mean, on the one hand, we are by far the safest people probably who have ever lived 00:01:01.640 --> 00:01:08.700 on the planet Earth. Due to all of our advancements in science and technology, medical advancements, 00:01:09.700 --> 00:01:15.120 the fact that we have done things like remove all lead and asbestos from our homes, the fact that we 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:22.739 can…we know so much more about what to eat and ways to keep ourselves alive longer, that we can put 00:01:22.739 --> 00:01:29.619 GPS trackers on our children. We are the safest people in history. On the other hand, at the same 00:01:29.619 --> 00:01:36.719 time, we are by far the most anxious, fearful people ever to have lived. And it is a paradox. 00:01:37.399 --> 00:01:42.199 And there's been this promise that many people have held on to since really the Enlightenment, 00:01:42.739 --> 00:01:49.939 that if we can master our world, if we can gain greater control and greater knowledge through 00:01:49.939 --> 00:01:54.340 things like science and technology, that the extent to which we do that, the extent to which we will 00:01:54.340 --> 00:02:00.459 see a drop in anxiety and fear, right, that that control that we will have will lead to a reduction 00:02:00.459 --> 00:02:05.060 in fear. And people like Bertrand Russell actually said, you know, the reason we have fear is religion. 00:02:05.620 --> 00:02:09.539 And if we can abandon all of that superstition and embrace science and technology and reason, 00:02:09.939 --> 00:02:16.259 fear will go away. Well, turns out we were wildly off base, wildly off base. 00:02:16.259 --> 00:02:23.819 It's actually impossible to live life without fear of any kind. And I think that we've come to see that 00:02:23.819 --> 00:02:31.859 as a society. Fear is unavoidable. The only choice we do get is what to fear. According to Scripture, 00:02:32.500 --> 00:02:41.459 the choice is really this, fear God or fear everything else. That's the choice. 00:02:41.460 --> 00:02:51.060 And in the Scripture, fearing the Lord means trusting Him. It means trusting Him above everything else, 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:57.900 ultimately trusting God. And what it says is if you trust the Lord, that actually sets you free from 00:02:57.900 --> 00:03:03.439 all other fears and anxieties that might plague you. If not, then you will always be afraid. 00:03:03.439 --> 00:03:10.020 And we're going to learn more about this by looking at Genesis chapter 22, which is this incredible, 00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:17.340 mysterious, in some ways beautiful, and in some ways disturbing story about Abraham and Isaac. But 00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:24.939 it's really about a man named Abraham and how he learns to trust to fear the Lord. Why do we lack trust? 00:03:26.219 --> 00:03:32.520 How do we build trust? What makes God worthy of this kind of trust? Let's pray. 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:39.939 Lord, we thank You for Your Word, and we thank You that we can come to a passage like this that 00:03:39.939 --> 00:03:49.879 has mystified people, has challenged people for centuries, and we can come with the trust and the 00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:55.560 hope that You, in the power of Your Spirit, can use this to speak to us. We need to hear the voice of 00:03:55.560 --> 00:04:02.500 our Father this morning in the power of the Spirit through the living Word, Jesus Christ. And that is 00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:08.300 what we pray for, that as we open these written words, we would encounter the living Word. And we ask 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:15.919 this in His name. Amen. So, as we look at this story, the first question we want to hold in our minds is, 00:04:16.019 --> 00:04:26.319 why do we lack trust? The passage opens in verse 1, after these things God tested Abraham. So, that's a 00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:31.939 clue for us as the reader. We need to understand what happened up until now in the story to make sense of 00:04:31.939 --> 00:04:38.659 why God would do this now. The reason God tests Abraham has something to do with things that happened 00:04:38.659 --> 00:04:45.039 earlier. When we first meet Abraham, God calls him to leave his family and his father's house, 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:50.879 meaning his inheritance, leave financial security, leave the place where you're known and loved and 00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:57.839 supported, leave all of that behind, and go to a foreign land, the land of Canaan. And then God makes 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:03.040 a series of incredible promises. I'm going to give you land. I'm going to give you a name. I'm going to 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:09.819 make of you a generation that will lead to another generation that will lead to innumerable descendants. 00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:15.959 I will build a great nation out of your descendants. At this time, Abraham, they don't have kids. Sarah, 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:20.159 his wife, is barren. God says, I'm going to give you children, and they're going to become a nation. 00:05:20.160 --> 00:05:25.300 I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless the world through you, and I'm going to protect you. 00:05:25.860 --> 00:05:31.560 So he gives him all of these blessings and all of these promises, and Abraham goes, but almost 00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:41.320 immediately, he runs into trouble. He goes to Canaan, but a famine comes. Even though God promised 00:05:41.320 --> 00:05:48.580 to bless and provide for Abraham and his family, Abraham decides to go find food in Egypt. So they go 00:05:48.579 --> 00:05:56.419 down to Egypt. Then Abraham worries that the Egyptians will kill him once they see his wife. 00:05:56.419 --> 00:06:01.399 If they think they're married and she's very beautiful, they'll kill him because he's in the 00:06:01.399 --> 00:06:08.259 way of them having her. And so even though God promised protection, Abraham decides to lie and 00:06:08.259 --> 00:06:16.060 pretend she's only his sister to allow her to be taken into Pharaoh's house. We don't know enough 00:06:16.060 --> 00:06:21.120 about the culture to know exactly why this would help, frankly, but we know that he did it to try 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:27.600 to save his skin and to try to preserve their lives so they would survive their time in Egypt. And then, 00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:33.980 of course, Abraham's wife is barren. And even though God promised to give them a child, Abraham decides 00:06:33.980 --> 00:06:41.020 to sleep with Sarah's servant, Hagar, to produce an heir through her. God had made the promise, 00:06:41.180 --> 00:06:48.740 but just in case God doesn't come through, this is a bit of life insurance. And it's not that Abraham 00:06:48.740 --> 00:06:55.500 has no faith. In fact, he's held up as a paragon of faith. It says in chapter 15 that Abraham believed 00:06:55.500 --> 00:07:00.720 God and God counted his faith to him as righteousness. So Abraham has faith in God. 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:05.360 What he lacks is trust in God. 00:07:07.319 --> 00:07:12.180 See, again and again, Abraham takes matters into his own hands. He tries to take control. 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:17.240 He takes measures to ensure that whether or not God comes through, 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:24.780 things are going to work out the way they should. He ends up lying to people. He ends up causing 00:07:24.780 --> 00:07:33.079 conflict in his own family. Because at every turn, Abraham is hedging his bets. He's hedging his bets. 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:37.699 God has made this promise, but in case God doesn't come through, I've got a backup plan. 00:07:39.079 --> 00:07:45.840 And what we see here is that there is actually a difference between faith and trust. There's a 00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:52.099 difference. Faith means believing that God is who he says he is, that God will do what he says he will 00:07:52.099 --> 00:08:01.139 do. Trust means acting on that belief, actually living as though that is fundamentally true. 00:08:01.139 --> 00:08:09.819 You can have faith that an airplane can fly. The laws of physics will kick in, and it will get off 00:08:09.819 --> 00:08:15.419 the ground. Trust means actually getting on the plane and taking off. It's not trust until you've 00:08:15.420 --> 00:08:23.080 left the ground. When you're still on the tarmac, it's faith waiting to be acted upon. 00:08:24.500 --> 00:08:29.460 The reason this is important for us is because if you're like me, and I think a lot of us, 00:08:29.460 --> 00:08:35.019 if we're really honest, many of us here have faith in God, right? Some of us are Christians, 00:08:35.139 --> 00:08:41.779 some of us are not. Those of us who are here who are Christians, we have enough faith in God that 00:08:41.779 --> 00:08:46.579 we've given our lives to him. We've accepted forgiveness through Jesus. We've been baptized. 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:54.220 We have faith in God, but some of us have never learned to trust God. We have faith but not trust. 00:08:55.299 --> 00:09:01.279 So let me put it to you this way. How can we tell whether or not those of us who have faith in God 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:09.179 also trust God? And I would say this. Look at your life and look at the places where you struggle most 00:09:09.179 --> 00:09:15.839 to obey God. I don't know what that is for you. I have some idea of what it is for me, but in your 00:09:15.839 --> 00:09:22.519 own life, whether it's how you spend your money or your time, how you treat your body or the things 00:09:22.519 --> 00:09:29.439 that you do with your body or your priorities, or how you conduct yourself in relationships, how you deal 00:09:29.439 --> 00:09:38.019 with conflict and anger. Behind every disobedience, you will find, if you look hard enough, you will find 00:09:38.019 --> 00:09:47.600 a failure to trust the promises of God. Behind every disobedience, you will find there is somewhere in 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:54.720 there a place where you are failing to trust and act on the promises of God, and you have taken 00:09:54.720 --> 00:10:02.639 matters into your own hands. You've said to God, I like my plan better than yours. It does a better job 00:10:02.639 --> 00:10:09.580 of making me feel safe in meeting my needs. So, one example might be work. I say that because a lot 00:10:09.580 --> 00:10:15.639 of us work in various ways, and work is a gift from the Lord. It is good to work hard and to be 00:10:15.639 --> 00:10:23.699 ambitious. There is such a thing as godly ambition. But ultimately, God calls us to trust Him to provide 00:10:23.699 --> 00:10:30.439 our daily bread. He wants us to come to Him as a Father and to pray and to trust that He will give us 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:38.480 only what we need for the day. So, when we look at our own lives, why are some of us in our jobs 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:44.280 willing to do unethical things or go along with unethical things in order to get ahead? 00:10:44.800 --> 00:10:50.800 Why are we willing to tolerate that? Why do we say, well, this is just the way my industry is? There's a 00:10:50.800 --> 00:10:57.320 certain amount of unethical stuff that you just have to…it just comes with the territory. Why do some of 00:10:57.320 --> 00:11:05.060 us habitually put work before family and friends? Why do some of us stop coming to church because we 00:11:05.060 --> 00:11:12.900 work too much on the weekends and we'll just find a sermon online or listen to worship music on our 00:11:12.900 --> 00:11:18.520 AirPods? And the reason behind this is because we're trusting in success and financial security more than 00:11:18.520 --> 00:11:24.920 God's promise of provision. We're ultimately saying, this is my plan to make sure that I am okay, 00:11:24.919 --> 00:11:31.939 and this comes first. And you can really do this with any area of your life where you struggle to 00:11:31.939 --> 00:11:40.559 obey and prioritize and follow God's will. And the problem with this, aside from the fact that it means 00:11:40.559 --> 00:11:48.319 we're not following Jesus fully with our lives, the problem is anything that we trust other than God 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:57.000 is transient. That's the biggest thing. Money, health, safety, comfort, intellectual ability, 00:11:57.220 --> 00:12:01.840 achievements, and accolades, any one of these things can be taken away in an instant. 00:12:03.620 --> 00:12:09.600 And I have a…I have a…I have a…I kind of a hunch, a suspicion that we all know that deep down, 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:18.200 that we know deep down that there is a kind of fragility to our lives, and that any of these 00:12:18.200 --> 00:12:25.200 pillars that are holding us up at any moment could be swept out and our life could come crashing down. 00:12:25.980 --> 00:12:31.820 We know that the things that we trust in are ultimately transient and unreliable. And I believe 00:12:31.820 --> 00:12:38.519 that's a huge reason why there is so much anxiety in the world. We have the internet, which gives us 00:12:38.519 --> 00:12:43.860 access to…we can know about tragedies and horrible things all around the world all the time, every 00:12:43.860 --> 00:12:49.179 minute of the day and night. We can doom scroll and just…and I don't think that we are designed to 00:12:49.179 --> 00:12:57.279 know that much tragedy all at once. I think there's a major, major overexposure. But I think that along 00:12:57.279 --> 00:13:04.779 with that, there is a sense that at any time, tragedy could strike. And the things that I'm relying 00:13:04.779 --> 00:13:10.120 on to keep me safe and make me feel provided for, those could be taken away from me. 00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:19.100 The only thing that is not transient is God. Everything else is. Everything else is grass 00:13:19.100 --> 00:13:26.279 that withers and fades. So, the question is, how do we build more trust in God? This is the second 00:13:26.279 --> 00:13:31.899 question as we look at this text. And this is really, I believe, the purpose behind God's test of 00:13:31.899 --> 00:13:38.679 Abraham. We see that at the end of the story. God's purpose here is to refine and strengthen 00:13:38.679 --> 00:13:46.559 Abraham's trust in God alone. We have after many chapters since the promise was first given to 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:53.399 Abraham, Isaac, the child of promise, is born in chapter 21. And it seems as though everything is 00:13:53.399 --> 00:13:59.860 finally going to work out. And then in the very next chapter, Genesis chapter 22 verse 1, it says, 00:13:59.860 --> 00:14:05.279 after these things, the child of promise is born, God's plan is being enacted. 00:14:06.759 --> 00:14:13.820 After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, 00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:21.639 take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love. There's an emphasis…in case we miss…there's an 00:14:21.639 --> 00:14:27.940 emphasis on that. And go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the 00:14:27.940 --> 00:14:34.640 mountains of which I shall tell you. Now, this time, Abraham and Sarah are living in tents in the land of 00:14:34.640 --> 00:14:43.260 Canaan. And in that culture, child sacrifice was normal. So, we read this and we're shocked by it. 00:14:44.180 --> 00:14:49.340 But in this culture, this kind of thing would not have been shocking. It was normal for his neighbors 00:14:49.340 --> 00:14:57.100 to understand that dealing with the gods meant you had to sacrifice to show your devotion to them. 00:14:57.160 --> 00:15:04.120 That's essentially what religion was in this ancient world. Make sacrifices and appease the gods, 00:15:04.259 --> 00:15:11.180 and hopefully you will have children and copious crops. But Abraham is undoubtedly shocked and 00:15:11.179 --> 00:15:18.919 heartbroken because he thought his God was different. Up until now, God had blessed Abraham because of 00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:26.199 his faith, not his sacrifices. And God had made this amazing promise to give them a son and through that 00:15:26.199 --> 00:15:32.459 son to raise up a nation of people. And now God is commanding him to sacrifice that son. So, the big 00:15:32.459 --> 00:15:38.959 question in this passage is this, how will God fulfill His promises through Isaac if Isaac is dead? 00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:47.100 How can God give a command that would nullify the promise? It seems as though they're working 00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:51.540 against each other. God promised to do this through Isaac, and now God's saying, kill Isaac. How does 00:15:51.540 --> 00:15:58.360 that happen? This is the big question. So, what is God doing? This is…and Abraham has no idea how to 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:06.620 make sense of this. Why is God doing this? What is God up to? Last year, I read a story that I just…I love 00:16:06.620 --> 00:16:12.620 this story. It's a true story. It was an interview with a 15-year-old boy named Jacob Smith. And Jacob 00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:18.700 Smith is legally blind. They've done these recreations of what he can see, and it's just a little circle 00:16:18.700 --> 00:16:24.679 in the very middle, a kind of blurry circle where he can see light and make out some things, but the rest 00:16:24.679 --> 00:16:30.440 is dark. And so, he's legally blind. It's like…I think his vision is like 2,800 or something like that. 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:38.820 He…and of all things, he's a free-ride skier. Now, I don't know if you know about free-ride skiing. 00:16:38.940 --> 00:16:42.600 Most of us, like we went skiing a few weeks ago, and we go on the groomed runs, and it's nice. 00:16:43.800 --> 00:16:50.760 Free riders, they go in the wild, ungroomed part of the mountain that you kind of hike up, 00:16:50.800 --> 00:16:54.940 and then you're going down through…you know, there's like chutes and, you know, 00:16:54.940 --> 00:17:02.900 craggy, jagged rocks and steep cliffs and drop-offs. And Jacob Smith regularly competes as the only 00:17:02.900 --> 00:17:08.779 blind skier in these free-ride competitions. Everybody else is sighted. And so, there's this 00:17:08.779 --> 00:17:14.880 big question, how does he do it? How in the world does he survive? He listens to the voice of his 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:22.759 father. There's a two-way radio, and his dad stands at the bottom of the mountain, and he guides him 00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:29.259 one turn at a time. And at one point, the interviewer asks Jacob, how much do you trust 00:17:29.259 --> 00:17:37.140 your father? And Jacob says, well, I mean, I trust him enough to turn right when he tells me to, right? 00:17:38.740 --> 00:17:45.420 What you got to understand is when Jacob looks right, he only sees darkness, right? He looks right, 00:17:45.460 --> 00:17:52.660 and he only sees darkness. His father says, turn right. For him, that means turning into the darkness. 00:17:53.579 --> 00:18:00.119 So, what he has to decide is, do I trust the voice of my father enough to turn into the darkness, 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:04.339 even though I have no idea if that might take me right off a cliff? 00:18:07.879 --> 00:18:14.660 Right? And so, over time…I can't imagine the first time Smith went up the mountain and the first 00:18:14.660 --> 00:18:22.180 run. That must have been terrifying. Over time, with every turn, every time he's trusted the voice of 00:18:22.180 --> 00:18:28.759 his father, with every turn, he built trust. And now, he will only ski listening to his father. He 00:18:28.759 --> 00:18:37.420 doesn't trust anybody else. That's the difference between faith and trust. You know, Jacob has faith 00:18:37.420 --> 00:18:43.360 in his father. He believes his father can guide him safely down the mountain, but it can only become 00:18:43.360 --> 00:18:50.160 trust if Jacob goes to the mountain. He has to go up on the mountain, and on that mountain, when his 00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:55.320 father tells him to turn into the darkness, and he does it, that is when his faith is converted into 00:18:55.320 --> 00:19:05.980 trust. And so, God is sending Abraham to the mountain because this is the only way that Abraham 00:19:05.980 --> 00:19:12.559 is ever going to learn to trust the voice of his father. He's telling Abraham, I want you to turn 00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:20.339 into the darkness, and I want you to trust. I want you to trust in my voice. And you can imagine Abraham 00:19:20.339 --> 00:19:25.579 looking into the eyes of his son. He has to decide whether or not he trusts his father enough to turn, 00:19:25.900 --> 00:19:32.299 even if it might take him off a cliff, into hopeless despair. You know, Proverbs 3.5 says, 00:19:32.299 --> 00:19:37.740 trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. And that is literally 00:19:37.740 --> 00:19:43.899 what Abraham is being asked to do. By everything that you see, Abraham, everything that you understand, 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:51.279 this is leading you straight into catastrophe. Lean not on your own understanding. Trust the Lord with 00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:58.359 all your heart. You know, I have a friend whose father has been a source of a lot of pain in his life. 00:19:58.359 --> 00:20:05.419 Now his father has dementia, and he needs my friend to care for him. 00:20:06.699 --> 00:20:11.639 And I was talking, we were just talking and praying about this a couple of weeks ago, and he said, 00:20:12.179 --> 00:20:18.740 you know, I don't know why God is doing this. He says this, he says, you know, God, I don't know why God 00:20:18.740 --> 00:20:28.660 would do this. I'm being called to care and to love and to, you know, to tenderly care for the person 00:20:28.660 --> 00:20:34.579 who's probably hurt me more than anybody else in my entire life. And of course, my friend doesn't 00:20:34.579 --> 00:20:41.640 have to do this, but he feels that God is calling him to do it. And I would say this is a point in his 00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:47.920 life where God is calling him to turn into the darkness. This does not make sense. This doesn't, 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:54.720 this is not right. It is not fair. Are you going to trust the voice of your father? And that's what 00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:58.440 it means to be on the mountain. I think right now in his life, my friend is on the mountain. 00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:05.540 And for some of us, obeying God means putting ourselves at financial risk to help somebody out, 00:21:05.539 --> 00:21:11.559 because we feel that that is what God is calling us to do. For some of us, obeying God means embracing 00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:17.299 unwanted singleness as something that God has called us to either for a season or for our lives. 00:21:18.159 --> 00:21:23.960 For some of us, it means giving up a secure job because God is calling us to go somewhere 00:21:23.960 --> 00:21:30.879 that doesn't feel secure. It feels very dangerous. Or it means being open about your faith in a hostile 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:37.020 environment. All right, but in these situations, we find ourselves on the mountain. 00:21:39.180 --> 00:21:46.800 That's where God has sent us. For those of us who really struggle to trust God, that is sometimes 00:21:46.800 --> 00:21:53.920 what God does precisely to do in our lives what He's doing in Abraham's life. And for those of us who 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:59.740 struggle to trust God, we need to ask, do I struggle to trust God because I actually live my life in a way 00:21:59.740 --> 00:22:05.779 that makes trust unnecessary. Right? Maybe every time God calls me to the mountain, I got better 00:22:05.779 --> 00:22:12.160 things to do. And I've lived a life that makes trust in God unnecessary. I've hedged my bets so well that 00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:20.440 I've got contingencies for everything. Right? When God sends us to the mountain, we tend to choose safety 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:25.720 over obedience. And what that means is we don't realize that the absolute safest place you can be 00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:34.059 anywhere is in line with God's will. That that turn into the darkness is the safest decision you can 00:22:34.059 --> 00:22:42.440 make. If Jacob didn't do that, he might go off a cliff. Maybe there have been times for others of us 00:22:42.440 --> 00:22:46.319 who struggle to trust with God. Maybe there have been times when you did trust God, but things didn't 00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:50.920 go the way you hoped. You said, well, I did that turn, and it was really, really, really painful. 00:22:50.920 --> 00:22:58.460 And this raises a very important point. God never promises that our lives are going to be free from 00:22:58.460 --> 00:23:02.820 suffering. He never promises that He's going to do what we ask Him to do or what we want Him to do. 00:23:03.900 --> 00:23:10.019 What He does promise, and you can read this in Romans chapter 8, is that no matter what happens, 00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:16.279 nothing can ever separate us from His love. And that no matter what happens, all things work together 00:23:16.279 --> 00:23:23.480 for good for those who are called according to His purpose. It doesn't promise that we will ever 00:23:23.480 --> 00:23:32.339 understand God's motives. But the clearest promise in Scripture is that even if we never understand 00:23:32.339 --> 00:23:39.799 God's motives, we can always trust God's character. We can always trust His character. 00:23:39.799 --> 00:23:46.159 Which brings us to the last question. What makes God worthy of trust? 00:23:47.799 --> 00:23:53.659 So why do we struggle to trust? How can we build trust? Okay, but why would we? Why would we want to? 00:23:54.159 --> 00:24:04.319 Why build trust in God above all else? Abraham arrives at Moriah. Just imagine the scene. He sets the wood on 00:24:04.319 --> 00:24:10.799 Isaac's back. He begins leading Isaac up the mountain. And you can imagine three days of just 00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:17.919 uncomfortable, brutal silence. And then Isaac finally asks the question that's been hanging in the air 00:24:17.919 --> 00:24:28.059 for three days. He says, my father, I see the fire and I see the wood, but where's the lamb for the offering? 00:24:28.059 --> 00:24:36.059 And you can imagine Abraham looking into the face of his son, all the confusion raging through him. 00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:42.299 Abraham can only say, God will provide for himself the lamb for a bird offering my son, which is a way 00:24:42.299 --> 00:24:47.519 of saying, I have no idea what's going to happen. I'm doing what God told me to do, and I don't know 00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:51.460 what's going to happen, and none of it makes sense, and I'm terrified, and I'm on the edge of this cliff, 00:24:51.559 --> 00:24:55.899 and everything is dark, and I have no idea what the next 10 minutes hold, but I'm pretty sure 00:24:55.900 --> 00:25:03.820 it's going to wreck my life, and it's going to end yours. He says, God will provide a way. He must. 00:25:04.120 --> 00:25:08.220 When you're turning into the darkness, that's all you can say sometimes. I have no idea what's going 00:25:08.220 --> 00:25:14.080 to happen. God has to be able to provide a way. They reach the top of the mountain. Abraham builds 00:25:14.080 --> 00:25:19.920 the altar. He stacks the wood. He binds his son. He lays him on the altar. He takes the knife in hand, 00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:25.019 and as he's raising it, at the last possible moment, God intervenes. He says, Abraham, Abraham, 00:25:25.900 --> 00:25:32.880 do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God. 00:25:34.259 --> 00:25:39.700 Abraham sees a ram caught in some thorns, and he goes over, and he takes that ram, 00:25:39.740 --> 00:25:46.820 and he sacrifices that ram in the place of Isaac, and we see in this moment 00:25:46.820 --> 00:25:55.000 Abraham has finally learned to trust God. God says, don't do anything to him, 00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:02.059 for now I know that you fear God. He's learned to trust God with his whole heart. He's learned not 00:26:02.059 --> 00:26:07.400 to lean on his own understanding. He's learned to trust that no matter what God calls us to do, 00:26:07.480 --> 00:26:14.039 no matter how impossible or hopeless it might seem, he's learned that God will always provide a way for 00:26:14.039 --> 00:26:20.960 us. He doesn't promise that it will be easy, but he promises that he will always provide a way for us, 00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:28.120 and so in verse 14, Abraham calls the name of this place, the Lord will provide, as it is said to this 00:26:28.120 --> 00:26:33.000 day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. When God takes you to the mountain, 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:38.660 he provides a way through. He brings you down to the bottom intact. 00:26:38.660 --> 00:26:50.560 The question that we need to ask, though, last question, why? Why would this matter so much? 00:26:50.820 --> 00:26:56.220 Why put Abraham and Isaac through such an ordeal just to teach them this lesson? 00:26:58.100 --> 00:27:04.120 Why make a promise to Abraham and then tell Abraham to stand in the way of that promise? 00:27:04.119 --> 00:27:11.339 It just sounds like a mind job to be given a promise, stake your life on this promise, 00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:17.279 and then he commands Abraham to stand in the way of that promise being fulfilled. Why would he do that? 00:27:18.919 --> 00:27:25.799 The answer is that God doesn't just make promises to Abraham and his children. The very last promise 00:27:25.799 --> 00:27:32.319 God makes in this passage when he restates the promise is a promise that he makes to all human 00:27:32.319 --> 00:27:39.200 beings everywhere. God promises to bless all the families of the earth, all the nations of the earth, 00:27:40.439 --> 00:27:41.279 but 00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:46.839 we stand in the way of that promise. 00:27:49.399 --> 00:27:50.799 We are the ones 00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:56.819 that stand in the way of that promise being fulfilled. Let me put it another way. 00:27:56.819 --> 00:28:05.359 How do you bless all the people of the earth if all the people of the earth hate you and reject you 00:28:05.359 --> 00:28:08.480 and pretend as though you don't exist? 00:28:10.319 --> 00:28:14.579 Right? Blaise Pascal wrote that all people ultimately hate the idea of God. 00:28:15.539 --> 00:28:18.720 He says, we despise it, but we also fear it may be true. 00:28:18.720 --> 00:28:26.059 Irreligious people, right? Atheists ignore and reject God. 00:28:26.680 --> 00:28:29.700 But he also says, religiously devoted people 00:28:29.700 --> 00:28:30.900 also 00:28:30.900 --> 00:28:36.839 hate God. Right? Virtually every religion that exists is based ultimately on what we are willing 00:28:36.839 --> 00:28:42.140 to sacrifice for this or that God. Now, thankfully, it's not always children, 00:28:42.140 --> 00:28:49.460 but ultimately all kinds of other things. So, religion, ancient and modern, is essentially a 00:28:49.460 --> 00:28:55.640 quid pro quo arrangement. It's not driven by love. It's not driven by affection. It's driven by fear and 00:28:55.640 --> 00:29:03.480 guilt and entitlement. I do this so that God won't punish me, or I do this so that I will be rewarded. 00:29:03.480 --> 00:29:07.560 And when I do do the thing that I'm supposed to do, when I sacrifice the thing I'm supposed to 00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:14.359 sacrifice, then I'm entitled to get what I'm owed from my God. There is no love that enters into the 00:29:14.359 --> 00:29:20.879 equation. It's fear and guilt and entitlement. And under all of this, there is, as Pascal would say, 00:29:20.980 --> 00:29:28.279 a bitterness toward God, a bitterness toward this kind of arrangement. And so, for in most religions, 00:29:28.399 --> 00:29:35.779 the goal of being good is to not have to deal with God, right? It's to get the things that we want 00:29:35.779 --> 00:29:41.539 and get on with our lives, and to have enough fire insurance to know that we don't have to fear 00:29:41.539 --> 00:29:50.399 punishment from our God. But there is no love. So, the greatest obstacle facing God's promises is us. 00:29:50.399 --> 00:29:57.339 How do you bless and save people who hate you, either by disobeying you or through their obedience 00:29:57.339 --> 00:30:06.359 toward you? When God restates the promise to Abraham, it's slightly different. Not only does 00:30:06.359 --> 00:30:12.980 He restate His promise to the whole world, but here He mentions one of Abraham's offspring, 00:30:13.939 --> 00:30:20.740 one individual singular through whom all of God's promises will be fulfilled. 00:30:20.740 --> 00:30:29.420 thousands of years after these events, one of Isaac's descendants, a man named Jesus, 00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:37.400 would make the same journey as Isaac. Jesus would go to Calvary. 00:30:39.579 --> 00:30:45.099 Right now, of course, before it was called Calvary, before the temple existed, this mountainous 00:30:45.099 --> 00:30:54.879 region around Jerusalem was known by another name, Moriah. It's the same place. And there, 00:30:54.980 --> 00:30:59.359 the Father would take the wood, and the Father would lay that wood on Jesus' back, 00:31:00.259 --> 00:31:08.159 wood in the shape of a cross. And there, the Father would lead His Son, His only Son, whom He loved, 00:31:09.059 --> 00:31:15.079 up the mountain. And there, the Father would raise the cross, and He would put Jesus on it. 00:31:15.099 --> 00:31:21.599 And there, He would raise the knife of His wrath. But this time, there would be no intervention. 00:31:22.819 --> 00:31:31.279 The knife would fall. The Lamb of God would be slain. And then we would see Jesus do what Isaac 00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:40.139 never could have done. Through His death, He would atone for all of the rebellion and hatred and sin 00:31:40.140 --> 00:31:48.300 of the world. And then He would rise to life again to become a blessing to every man, woman, 00:31:48.300 --> 00:31:57.780 and child on the earth. So, I ask you again, how can God possibly fulfill His promise to bless and save 00:31:57.780 --> 00:32:08.940 a world that hates Him? He doesn't demand a sacrifice. He provides the sacrifice. He becomes the sacrifice. 00:32:08.940 --> 00:32:18.900 And He uses His own death as the means of blessing and salvation. He subverts human ignorance and hatred 00:32:18.900 --> 00:32:30.360 with sacrificial love. On the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided. The cross is the ultimate picture 00:32:30.359 --> 00:32:40.459 of that being true. So, to pull all of this together, how do we know that we can and should trust God above 00:32:40.459 --> 00:32:49.019 everything else? Well, whatever circumstances you are facing, however dark or hopeless or overwhelming 00:32:49.019 --> 00:33:07.819 tomorrow seems, a God who would be willing to do this for you is a God you can trust. 00:33:09.319 --> 00:33:14.799 Through Jesus, He has already overcome the two things that we should fear most, 00:33:14.799 --> 00:33:24.559 sin and death, the things that separate us from God. And He has secured our future. We know how the story ends. 00:33:27.059 --> 00:33:35.379 So, when God calls you to turn right, trust Him, because truly in Him, we have nothing to fear. 00:33:35.380 --> 00:33:40.380 Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for this. 00:33:45.940 --> 00:33:50.820 Lord, may the weight and the gravity of this not be lost on us, 00:33:51.380 --> 00:33:57.320 because I know that there are many here, many of us, who are staring into the darkness. 00:33:57.319 --> 00:33:59.319 Lord, may the Lord be lost on us, but we thank you for this. 00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:06.899 And I pray that, Lord, Your Holy Spirit would do in us, through Your Word, what human reason and words cannot accomplish. 00:34:07.799 --> 00:34:14.519 That as we come around Your table, as we pray and sing, as we confess our faith, 00:34:15.059 --> 00:34:22.460 that You and Your Holy Spirit would minister to us, minister to those greatest places of fear and anxiety and dread. 00:34:22.460 --> 00:34:32.840 Lord, minister to us, heal us, with the strength of Your promises, Lord, with the assurance of the cross. 00:34:34.220 --> 00:34:38.360 Help us to trust Your character, that it would glorify You. 00:34:38.860 --> 00:34:40.800 We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.