Series--Abraham: Faith in God Message: Abraham: Faith in a Disturbing God Bill Hybels is a pastor and leader and writer in the Chicago area who has been used by God in extraordinary ways to help people trust Jesus and radically respond to the world s deep needs. God has used Bill s words and example to shape significantly shape my character and ministry. A significant part of Bill s character and maturity goes back to the unusual parenting of his father. His father was determined to grow him up. You have perhaps heard of a dad who wants to teach his child to swim by throwing the child into the water and forcing him to swim. Bill s Dad took that approach to a whole new level. His methods are described by Bill s wife, Lynne, this way: In grade school Bill s dad gave him skis and put him on a train bound for Aspen. Bill took the train to the end of the line, asked the conductor how to get to the Aspen Inn, and was gruffly informed that Aspen was twenty-five miles away and the train didn t go that far. Bill learned quickly how to ask questions and come up with alternatives. When he was fifteen, his dad gave him a stack of airline tickets and a travel itinerary that led him on a solitary eight-week journey through Africa and Europe. In Nigeria Bill ran out of cash and slept on the dirt floor of a one-room hut with a Nigerian family of six until his father wired him money. (Rediscovering Church, Lynne Hybels, pg. 25) Why did Bill s dad send him alone on those trips? To grow Bill up, that s why. It wasn t to see IF Bill was grown up enough to manage the trip. It was designed by his Dad to help his son TO grow up and manage the trip. His Dad wanted to expand his son s perspective, stretch his comfort level, and develop his character. He did so by putting his son in a difficult and challenging circumstance that He believed his son could handle. God, our Father, does the same kind of thing with us. He has done this all down through human history. In the earliest pages of the Bible, God does this very thing with a man in the Bible named Abraham, whose life we have been tracking the last couple of weeks. On one hand, it is a story I d rather avoid. On the other hand, I can t avoid it, because it teaches us something about God and His work that we desperately need to understand. The story is found in the Bible in Genesis, chapter 22: Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham! Here I am, he replied. (The Bible, Genesis 22:1, NIV) Three key words: God tested Abraham. Abraham did not know this, but the narrator of the story wants to make sure we know it. As we read further, we ll see that God is preparing to put Abraham into an unbelievably difficulty predicament. God isn t testing him to see if He will trust God; Instead, God intends to forge a deep trust in God. God isn t trying to see IF Abraham is a certain kind of man; he is trying to shape Abraham INTO a certain kind of man. So how is God going to stretch and shape Abraham? I ll read on.
Then God said, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about. (Genesis 22:2, NIV) Before we consider God s disturbing request, I need to give you a bit of back story to the story of Abraham and his son, Isaac. We have been tracking Abraham s story for the last two Sundays, but some of you are brand new to this story. Let me go back many decades earlier. Abraham grows up with his Dad and Mom and two brothers in Ur of the Chaldeas. He marries a beautiful gal named Sarai, but they soon discover that she is infertile and thus cannot have children. God speaks to Abraham and asks him to pack up and move from his homeland to a strange, new land He would show him. God promises Abraham that he will be great, that he will found a great nation, and that he will bless many people. Trusting the wisdom and promise of God, Abraham and his family move out, ultimately directed by God to the land of Canaan. When God first speaks to Abraham in Ur, he is in his 60 s or 70 s. Shortly after Abraham settles into Canaan, God promises that he will have a son, a son who will give birth to a great nation. Abraham is ecstatic. Abraham waits for the son to be born the next year, but no child comes. He waits two years and then five and then ten and then twenty years. When Abraham is about 100 years of age, God promises him that his 90-year old wife will deliver a baby boy. Abraham can t hold back his laughter, but a year later, that miracle baby is born, and they name him Isaac, which means laughter. The boy that no one thought was possible, the boy that Abraham waited on for more than 30 years, is born. Could anything in all the world have meant as much to Abraham as his son, Isaac? This brings us back to this moment and God s unthinkable request: Take your son, Isaac, the son I promised you, the son you deeply love to the mountains of Moriah. Take him to a particular mountain I will show you, and offer him up as a burnt offering. What in the world was going on? A burnt offering involved taking the life of a lamb as payment for the sins of the one offering the sacrifice. God asks Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. The Bible is clear that God is dead set against the practice of child sacrifice, and there is no other place in the Bible where God even suggests such a thing, so it is reasonable to ask why Abraham would believe this was truly the voice and instruction of God. Tim Keller, whose book, Counterfeit Gods, has significantly shaped today s teaching. In order to provide some context for this story, Keller summarizes the thoughts of a Jewish scholar, Jon Levenson, who teaches at Harvard. Keller writes: In an individualistic culture like ours, an adult s identity and sense of worth is often bound up in abilities and achievements, but in ancient times, all the hopes and dreams of a man and his family rested in the firstborn son. The call to give up the firstborn son would be analogous to a surgeon giving up the use of his hands, or of a visual artist losing the use of her eyes. He adds: Levenson argues that we can only understand God s command to Abraham against this cultural background. The
Bible repeatedly states that, because of the Israelites sinfulness, the lives of their firstborn are automatically forfeit, though they might be redeemed through regular sacrifice (Ex. 22:29, 34:20) or through service at the tabernacle When God brought judgment on Egypt for enslaving the Israelites, his ultimate punishment was taking the lives of their firstborn. Their firstborns lives were forfeit, because of the sins of the families and the nations. Why? The firstborn son was the family. If God asked Abraham to kill Sarah, he likely would not have, assuming he was hallucinating. But when God stated that his only son s life was forfeit, that was not an irrational, contradictory statement to him.he asked him to make him a burnt offering. He was calling in Abraham s debt. His son was going to die for the sins of the family. (Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller) In one sense, God is highlighting that the ultimate penalty for sin is death. I understand that this cultural background does not quench all the questions around this disturbing request by God. It remains a disturbing request. I cannot ease that for you. In reality, I don t want to, because that tension is critical to understanding what God asks from each of us. You and I need to wrestle with that tension as we move through the rest of this story. So, how does Abraham deal with the tension? How does he respond to God s disturbing request? Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled 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. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 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. 6 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, 7 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? 8 Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And the two of them went on together. (Genesis 22:3-8, NIV) Abraham leaves the next morning. He takes the steps toward the unthinkable. This is an extraordinary act of trust in God. We have talked about how God asked Abraham to trust his wisdom; He asks Abraham--in his 70 s--to move from the only home he s ever known to a brand new land miles and miles away. After Abraham settles into this new land of Canaan, God then ask Abraham to trust His power. He promises Abraham that Sarah, his 90-year old infertile wife, will give birth to a son. Abraham trusts God s power, and Sarah miraculously gives birth to Isaac. Abraham has learned to trust God s wisdom and God s power. There is, however, a vital third layer of trust. God now asks Abraham to trust his goodness. God gave Abraham the son He promised. Now, he asks Abraham to give him back. In an act of remarkable trust in God s wisdom, power, and goodness, Abraham packs his bags for a 50-mile trip to Mount Moriah. I doubt that any parent in this room could envision yourself taking that 50-mile trip. Some of you right now are quite certain you could not. That is understandable. So
why does Abraham? Remember this. Abraham is probably 115 years old, and he has been talking to God for almost 50 years now. God is not a stranger to him, but a dear friend. That is precisely the term God uses of Abraham; He is uniquely called the friend of God. This is the God who called him to move 50 years earlier and has met every need Abraham has had. This is the God who promised him the boy He never dreamed possible, a boy through his beloved, but infertile, wife, Sarah. The wait was excruciating, but God miraculously came through. God had promised that this boy would father a great nation. Decades of friendship have led him to believe that he can trust God--God s wisdom and power and--yes--even his goodness. The one phrase echoing through his mind on that long trip was this: God will provide. God will provide. So, when the discerning Isaac asks his father about why they don t have a lamb for the burnt offering, Abraham replies: God will provide. He does not know exactly what God is going to do, but He is certain it will be good. I expect that his mind entertained dozens of scenarios, but it is obvious that he had settled in on one in particular. If his son, Isaac, was going to die, God was going to raise him from the dead. Abraham was confident of this. When he leaves his two servants to go up on the mountain with Isaac, he tells the servants: The boy and I will return. The God Who enabled a 90-year old woman to give birth could certainly bring that son back from the dead. 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. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, Abraham! Abraham! Here I am, he replied. 12 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. 13 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. 14 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. (Genesis 22:9-14, NIV) The writer s slow pace in this account helps us to feel the weight of Abraham s anguished decision. It is hard to escape another significant piece of this story. Isaac is not a small boy; it appears instead that he is a strapping teen. It was he who carried the wood up the mountain, while his aged father carried the fire and the knife. It seems apparent that Isaac could easily have overpowered his dad or run away. The stunning reality is that Isaac surrenders himself and allows Abraham to do what God has asked. He displays a remarkable trust in both God and his father. Isaac is laid on the altar as a lamb might be. Abraham has fully surrendered the son he loves dearly to the God he trusts deeply. It is at that moment then that God speaks. Don t harm the boy. You have fully trusted My wisdom, power, and goodness. You have entrusted the life of your son fully to me. You have made the sacrifice that was essential to make. Don t misunderstand the words God uses here. This was not a test to see if Abraham
would trust Him; God already knew that He would. God is testing him to do a good thing in Him. God is not toying with Abraham or trying to prop up his own ego. When Bill Hybels dad sent his 15-year old son off on an eight-week international trip alone, he was not toying with his boy. He was shaping his character and maturity, and He knew the experience would reshape his son s life. God asks Abraham to fully surrender his son, something God knew would reshape Abraham s whole life. God was up to good for Abraham precisely because God IS good. Abraham fundamentally trusted that God was up to good, even when He could not see it. So, what possible good could God have been up to? Tim Keller suggests at least one possibility: Abraham s affection had become adoration The center of Abraham s life was shifting. God was not saying that you cannot love your son, but that you must not turn a loved one into a counterfeit god. If anyone puts a child in the place of the true God, it created an idolatrous love that will smother the child and strangle the relationship. Keller continues this line of thinking: If God had not intervened, Abraham would have certainly come to love his son more than anything in the world, if he did not already do so. That would have been idolatry, and all idolatry is destructive. From this perspective, we see that God s extremely rough treatment of Abraham was actually merciful.if Isaac had become the main hope and joy of Abraham s life, his father would have either overdisciplined him (because he needed his son to be perfect ) or underdisciplined him (because he couldn t bear his son s displeasure) or both. He would have overindulged him but also become overly angry and cruel, perhaps even violent, when his son disappointed him. Why? Idols enslave. Whenever we love a person or thing more than we love God, we are in serious danger. It creates a shift in us that can lead to controlling, to anxiety, to anger, to addiction, to depression, to perfectionism, to arrogance, and even worse. God, in His grace, will always try to shift our hearts away from idolatry and toward Him, because when we love God first, it brings health to the other people and things we love. There is another thing God is doing here that goes far beyond Abraham s life and story. In asking Abraham to sacrifice his own son, God is picturing a future event that will forever alter human history. God has promised Abraham that He will build a great nation through Isaac and that the whole world will be blessed through that nation. God is picturing here the heart of that blessing. God spares Isaac s life, and God provides a ram, which Abraham then offers as the sacrifice. What does Abraham then say? He names that place: The Lord will provide. From that day on, people began to say: On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. Abraham could not begin to realize the significance of this moment and his words. We now do: Tim Keller writes: Many years later, in those same mountains, another firstborn son was stretched out on the wood to die. But there on Mt. Calvary, when the beloved son of God cried, My God, my God--why has thou forsaken me? there was no voice from heaven announcing deliverance. Instead,
God the Father paid the price in silence. Why? The true substitute for Abraham s son was God s only son, Jesus, who died to bear our punishment. Abraham and Isaac s moment on the mountain pointed to a day when a father would sacrifice his dearly loved son, the Son of promise, and the Son would willingly lay down on the wood and sacrifice his life to save the world. And so the Bible says in Romans 8: What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (The Bible, Romans 8:31-32, NIV) When God asked Abraham to sacrifice the life of his son, He had no idea the good God was up to. He couldn t see behind the curtain. Not seeing what God saw, He simply had to trust that God was up to good, and he did. He followed God, trusting He was good. Every single person in this room has faced or will face Abraham s dilemma. No, God will not ask you to sacrifice the life of your child. He made that request only once since human history began. At some point, however, you will face the dilemma: In this situation, will I obey and follow God, trusting that He is good? You see, you will face moments when it looks like He isn t. - You may ask God to heal someone you love (perhaps your child), and He may not heal. - You may lose your job or house or your car or your savings. - Someone you dearly love may die, something you know God could have prevented. - You see on the news that an earthquake or mudslide or flood devastates a corner of our world, snuffing out the lives of hundreds of people. - You ask God to give you something helpful and good, and He appears to ignore your request entirely. - A Christian does something to you that is harsh or unfair. You will face Abraham s dilemma: Will I continue to love and follow God even when it looks like He is not good? Like him, you will face a moment when you cannot peek behind the curtain and see what God is up to. You will simply have to trust He is up to good. God asks you to do what you ask your children to do. You say: trust me. Every child faces multiple moments where he/she must trust that Mom and Dad are good. When Seth asks for something fun or tasty and Dad says no. When Katie, in pain, begs Dad to stop probing for the splinter and Dad doesn t stop. When Mom and Dad move to another state, and Jimmie and Beth have to say goodbye to their friends.
We have to trust the goodness of God just like our kids trust us. It s hard to be compared to little kids, though, isn t it? They are just kids and there are so many things they don t know. As adults, it s hard to accept that--just like kids--there are things God knows and sees, about which we have no clue. We have to trust that God, our Father, is up to good even when we can t see it. Here is the other critical parallel to a child trusting the goodness of his/her parent. In most homes, the trust has been earned. The kids have seen the goodness and care of their parents repeatedly, so in those instances where it looks like Dad or Mom are not good, they have a reason to trust. This was Abraham s experience. This is the heart of my own trust in God. I have been walking with him for 45 years or so, where I have found Him repeatedly to be good. There is the lengthy record of God s goodness and grace found in the Bible. I have, in the Bible, encountered a handful of places where God s action seems wrong or unjust. In those moments, I trust the stunning goodness of God the Bible is saturated with. I trust the God whose brilliant work in creating our universe and our bodies is reinforced anew with each new scientific discoveries. I trust that I care about justice and good because I am made in the image of a just and good God. I am convinced my sense of justice is not greater than His. I trust a God Who so deeply loved the people He created, that when they hopelessly screwed up, He became one of us and took on our sin and our death, so that we could be forgiven and enjoy Him forever. I trust the God Who is the source of beautiful things like family and love and sunsets and hope. I trust the God Who has worked good in someone as desperately broken as I am. I am not casually brushing by the dilemma of a God who asks Abraham to sacrifice the life of his son or the questions that surface with the news of another deadly flood or tornado. I am saying that in those moments where it looks like God is not good, I trust the stunning and pervasive goodness of God I have seen and read and encountered throughout my life. God has a track record. That is what I trust. That is what Abraham trusted. That, I am convinced, is what God wants you to trust as well.