What is the most precious thing that you would give up for someone?
In some ways, that’s a measure of love, isn’t it? The more you love someone, the more you would sacrifice for them.
That’s one of the problems with our society today. We are reluctant to give things up. Our attitude is that if I’m entitled to it, then I’m entitled to it. And yet love doesn’t try and claim my rights, but freely gives up my rights.
When I was at school, the question was about your last Rolo. The one at the end of the packet. You’d only give that to a very good friend.
How about God? What would you give up for him? Which is another way of asking how much you love God. The more you love someone, the more you would sacrifice for them.
This is where the next instalment of Abraham’s life comes into its own.
The Story so Far
Genesis chapter 22 starts with the words “after these things”. We won’t understand this story properly unless we remember where we’ve come from, so let me remind us of a bit of the background.
25 years earlier, God appeared to Abraham and promised him that he would give him numerous descendants, and that by blessing him and his family the whole world would be blessed.
The trouble was that, for God to keep this promise, Abraham needed a family. But he and his wife Sarah had been unable to have children. So at the age of 99, God appeared to Abraham again and made him a very specific promise. Within 12 months, Abraham and Sarah would have a son, and they were to give him the name Isaac.
Then in chapter 21 the miracle happens. Isaac is born to Abraham, aged 100, and Sarah, aged 90. The most magnificent miracle. But the reason why it’s so significant is that God’s plan is back on track. Abraham has a son. So God can keep his promises. So this fallen, broken and painful world can be blessed once again through Abraham and his family. Phew!
The birth of Isaac has been a long time in coming. Abraham’s had to wait 25 years; we, the readers have had to wait 10 chapters. And in that span, we’ve watched Abraham trying to trust God. Trying to hold on to that promise. The writer of Genesis hasn’t given us Abraham through rose-tinted spectacles. At times, Abraham managed to trust God against the odds. At other times, circumstances made it just too hard to keep believing God would ever keep that promise.
And then, chapter 22 verse 1: After these things. Here’s what comes next.
And what comes next is that God tests Abraham. He’s not trying to trip him up. He’s not tempting him. He’s testing him. Is his trust in God genuine?
Now, of course, we the readers have been let in behind the scenes at this point. Abraham didn’t know that God was testing him. But we’ve been let into the secret. If we didn’t realise this was a test, we wouldn’t understand the story. Worse than that, we might think there was a moment when God actually wanted Isaac sacrificed, when we know from elsewhere in the Old Testament that even the thought of that appalled God.
But Abraham doesn’t know it’s a test. And that’s what makes this story so tense for him.
The Test
Here’s what God tells Abraham to do. Verse 2: 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.
God leaves no scope for Abraham to misunderstand who he means. It really is Isaac. And you see Abraham’s problem. There’s the emotional problem for him – this concerns his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loves. But there’s a bigger problem. God has promised that he will keep those big promises through Isaac. If he sacrifices Isaac, that’s the whole plan in the bin again. What God is asking him to do is something that will undermine what God has promised.
That’s his real dilemma. God has made him a promise. God has given him a command. If he keeps the command, it looks like the promise will be undone. So does he trust God? Does he trust that God must have a reason for the command, and that God is powerful enough to keep his promise if Abraham does what he’s been asked to? I’m sure Abraham couldn’t see what God’s plan was, but trusting God is about realising that God is bigger than we are. That God may have reasons for his commands that we can’t see.
You have to trust God to obey him when he asks you do something you don’t understand.
So what will Abraham do?
The story is told with great care. The narrator doesn’t rush. We can feel the tension with every step. Abraham sets out on the fateful journey. He gets up early .He saddles the donkey. He takes two servants along. He wakes up Isaac, and he goes and cuts the wood he’ll need. There might not be much vegetation at the spot God has in mind, so they’ll have to carry it. And off they go.
It’s a long journey. And we can be sure it really was a long journey! What did they talk about together? What was going through his mind? This was not going to be a rushed decision. And then on day 3 Abraham sees the spot in the distance. No doubt a lump in his throat.
Then there’s a pause. Abraham asks the two servants to stay there with the donkey. Only Isaac and Abraham go on together. The last bit of the journey is just for the two of them. No servants. No Sarah. No donkey. Isaac has to carry his own wood. Abraham carries the fire and the knife.
Then comes the question that doubtless Abraham was dreading: Fire. Wood. Dad – where’s the lamb we’re going to kill? God will provide one, says Abraham. He didn’t know what God was going to do. But he did trust that God had a plan. Somehow, it would be alright. It had to be. Isaac didn’t press the matter further.
Then they get to the spot. In case the tension hasn’t been a bit much already, things slow down further. They build the altar there, stone by stone. They arrange the wood. And then Abraham binds Isaac and places him on top of the wood. Isaac could have run off if he’d wanted to. He’d learnt he could trust his dad. He’d learnt he could trust his God. He lets Abraham do this.
And then finally the story slows down to slow-motion, as Abraham slowly lifts the knife. If it was in the cinema, the pause at this point would be too much to bear. Most of us would close our eyes. We can’t bear to watch. But then there’s a voice. A voice from heaven.
Abraham! Abraham! Here am I. 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 there, caught in a thicket, is a ram. Abraham doesn’t need to be told – he can see that God has provided this ram so that the ram can be killed instead of Isaac. The ram could be killed, so that Isaac didn’t have to be.
The ordeal is over for Abraham. He knew God had promised to bless him through Isaac. He knew God had asked him to sacrifice Isaac. Now Isaac is safe. He was able to sacrifice a substitute ram instead. Abraham has obeyed God. God will keep his promise.
The ordeal is over for God, too. Verse 16, God speaks a second time: Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. Verse 18. In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.
God was testing Abraham. Did he really fear God? Did he really trust God? And now God knows the answer. At one level God always knew this – he could read Abraham’s mind and heart. But now he really knows it – he can see it on the canvas of history.
Those promises that God renews to Abraham echo the ones that God made to Abraham right at the start. The Abraham story has come full circle. All God wanted was for Abraham to trust him. In chapter 15, he did that, and God counted him as his friend. We don’t have to impress God; we just have to trust him.
But now we can see that trust. It’s not a hidden thing anymore. It’s not in his heart. Abraham trusts God enough to obey him. To do what God asks. His trust is now out in the open, for anyone to see, written in the way he lives.
This story invites us to trust God and his promises in such a way that we actually live as though they were true.
Faith that makes a difference
Now, what does that look like in practice? That will be different for each of us. But I thought I’d give us a few examples to help us see the kind of thing it means. Hopefully that will help us each work out what real trust in Jesus Christ will look like for us.
So, if we truly trust the promises of the gospel, that will affect our holidays. I’ve known some people who retire and then draw up a list of all the places they wish to see before they die. We must get to Australia, Florida, South Africa, Nepal, and so on. Or there are those surveys you can click on Facebook from time to time, that suggest there are 100 places everyone should visit – how many have you been to?
And so we start an endless round trying to take them all in. Two expensive holidays a year in the hope we might not die before we’ve visited most of our list.
And if you think your best enjoyment of this planet comes in this life, that’s a consistent thing to do. But if you believe that Jesus will come back, renew this earth, and live a perfect life here with all his friends, getting to know him and helping others to know him becomes far more important.
Here’s another example. Truly trusting the promises of the gospel will affect our money. One friend of mine took a demotion a few years back. He voluntarily cut down to 4 days a week and took a slight pay cut on those 4 days a week, because the changed responsibilities would allow him to spend more time serving in his local church.
Now that wouldn’t be the right thing for many of us to do. In these recession years, most of us are just glad we have a job! But doing something like that wouldn’t even occur to most of us. Many of us live for our careers. Yet if the good news of Jesus is true, surely, as we look for work, we ask what will give us the best opportunities to serve Christ faithfully, and what will give us the best opportunities to tell others of him.
Or take evangelism. That’s a word that scares most of us, partly because it conjures up images that make us cringe. But if we really believe that the good news of Jesus is true, this is another area of life that Jesus will touch. Nobody’s suggesting we should be on the street corners with a sandwich board, or try and get a slot on TV.
But surely, if we love our friends, and if we believe that the difference between good and bad fortune in this life is nothing compared to eternity with or without Christ, we’d want them to know him wouldn’t we? And if we want that, surely we’d try and talk to them about him when we get the chance, and we’d pray that they’d come to know him.
Let me give one last example – time. There are so many pressures on our time these days, and weekends are precious times. Yet following Jesus is hard. At times his promises feel miles away. At times he asks us to do things that are not easy. Abraham has told us that. So if we’re going to do that, we need the support of one another. We need to meet regularly with other Christians so that they can encourage us to keep going, and so that we can encourage them.
One church I was in, lots of people owned a caravan. For the summer months, they’d pay to park it somewhere. But then they had to get their money’s worth. So several people, at the heart of the church fellowship, were away at least every other week at the caravan. It may not be the caravan that makes us drift from church – you’ll know what it is for you. But if the gospel is really true, it’s worth carving out the time to help others hold onto it.
As I say, those are just examples.
What God asks of us is to trust him. His promises are magnificent. But if we really are trusting him, it makes a difference to the way we live.
Jesus – the pioneer of our faith
Now maybe you’re thinking this all sounds like a bit too much. Is God asking us to give up too much? Is he asking us to love him too much?
So as we round off, let me bring us back to those promises. Let me bring us back to God’s love for us. To what he gave up for us. The Christian message is not that we need to earn God’s love by being obedient to him. It is that God gives us his love through what he did for us.
One and a half thousand years after this, there was another Father. He had a Son, his only Son, whom he loved. This Son was descended from Abraham. This Son was one about whom amazing promises had been made. All the nations of the world would be blessed through him. And then the day came when this Son would have to place some wood on his back, and carry it up a hill. The hill was to be the place of his execution, and the wood on his back would be the means of his execution.
When Jesus reached the top of the hill, the story would slow down to slow-motion. Only this time there was no ram caught in the thorns. There was no ram to take the place of the only Son of God. That is because he was the ram. He climbed that hill to die because he was taking our place. It should have been us who were there that day. But the Lord Jesus freely chose to become the ram who would be killed so that we do not have to be.
And he took our place so that God might give us the wonderful things that he’s promised – the past is forgiven, he’s with us in the present, and we can look forward to a wonderful future.
And for us to have that, God the Father did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. And Jesus, God the Son, allowed himself to take our place.
Don’t ask how much you’d give up for God until you see how much he gave up for you. See how much he must love you. And all God wants us to do is to trust him – those promises really are true. And that trust can be seen in the way we live, as we live out our love for God, giving him whatever he asks. Will you do that?