Abraham & Issac: The test and the sacrifice of love (Glory Conference)

hey thanks how are you ah okay that sounds better uh sorry we brought y'all to the black neighborhood welcome we love it here it's given black um my name is Jackie and this is glory and so I'm glad uh to see you um to give some context to what glory is about uh basically I I go to a lot of women's conferences and they all kind of got the same spirit um I don't know if it's the Holy Spirit but it's a spirit and what can be common or predominant are a few things I think

one there can be what feels like this hi Jordan what feels like this um this lack of interest in developing women theologically and robustly in the scriptures as if we don't have the capacity or the desire to go deep um and if they do go deep it's like proverbs 31 it's like okay I feel like we've studied that one out and so I wanted glory to be a space where you have the freedom to use your brain and to fill it with something good another thing is that I think in in some spaces especially on

Tick Tock and social media we see this Resurgence I don't know if it's a Resurgence because it starts in Genesis 3 but we see this surge of Bible teaching that is not jesus-centric and so the Bible is opened a sermon is presented and you more or so leave learning a lot about yourself and nothing about the God that made you for himself and I can get the appeal of it because we all have a narcissistic bent right we all want to go to church and hear about ourselves but what we need and what forms us

and what renews us and what changes us and what fuels us and what gives us Grace and what gives us power and what changes the world is not us learning about ourselves but us learning about God and then we can discover ourselves in light of it and most likely what you'll learn is that you're called to be a servant and so man I just wanted glory to be that and some good worship cause I've also seen places where you know the worship leader is willing but not quite able I'm just put that right there because

some of y'all live here and it's like I know the pastor told you to do it because you played piano when you were six but if you if you flat probably ain't your call um turning your Bibles to Genesis 22. the theme of this glory is is Christ in the Old Testament um I went with that because when I first came to Faith the Old Testament scared me um it both scared me and didn't make sense because it was like okay like it's just really weird you know like you got stuff like Leviticus it's like

what am I supposed to do with that like I don't have animals to slaughter and blood to throw and so I don't know what to do with it and so I think when I started to see that the Bible is one book like the Old Testament in the New Testament hold hands that they aren't two different components that have no relationship to each other when I started to see what Jesus said about himself which was when he told the Pharisees hey uh you search the scriptures because in them you think that you'll find eternal life

but it is they that testify about me he wasn't talking about the gospels because they hadn't been written yet he's talking about Genesis he's talking about Exodus he's talking about Deuteronomy he's talking about numbers he's talking about Leviticus he's talking about Amos he's talking about Micah he's talking about Malachi first and second chronicles and kings and all like he's saying that this this book all of its narratives and its songs and its Proverbs point to me and so I wanted to take two familiar passages and for us to see Jesus in it today we're going

to deal with Abraham and Isaac and seeing Jesus in the text tomorrow we're going to deal with David and Goliath and seeing Jesus in the text and in the middle of that we're going to have a q a and y'all might not even ask me about Jesus but you can Genesis 22 starting at verse 1. after these things God tested Abraham and said to him Abraham and he said here I am he said 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 so Abraham Rose early in the morning saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and the rose and went to the place in which God had told on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar then Abraham said to his young men stay here with a donkey I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you

the Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son and he took in his hand the fire and the night so they went both of them together and Isaac said to his father Abraham my father and he said here I am my son he said behold the fire and the wood but where is the Lamb for a burnt offering Abraham said God will provide for himself the lamb for burn offering my son so they went both of them together when they came to the place in which God had told

him Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said Abraham Abraham and he said here I am he said 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 Abraham

lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him was Iran caught in a Thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the RAM and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh the Lord will provide as it is said to this day on the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided Lord we thank you for this Bible this this god-breathed word this this inspired text that is that is profitable that is that is useful that has the power to equip

that has the power to break things it has the power to renew our minds it has the grace to give us to love our neighbor and to to enjoy our lives and to submit our bodies as a Living Sacrifice holy and acceptable unto you this this book has power it's not just words it's your voice it's it's it's yourself written and explained and revealed through narratives and through songs and even through this passage and so we pray God for the humility to hear it the meekness needed to receive your word we pray even for the

softening of hearts that you would make our hearts fertile soil so that as the word is taught as the word is preached it lands somewhere deep we pray for watering even after this moment that you would send people you would send songs and you would send a community of folks to water the seed that will be planted we also pray against the enemy who has a tendency to pluck up seeds that have been planted we pray that we will resist him through our faith in Jesus name amen this this narrative here opens up with after

these things God tested Abraham I think before we even dive deep into Genesis 22. before we spend some time looking at the dynamic between Abraham and Isaac and the sacrifice that was about to be maybe be made I think we need to learn something about the one who is being tested we learned about Abram his original name in Genesis 12 went out of nowhere God calls him to leave his family to leave his home and to leave his country and to go where God tells him to go at the same time that we hear about

Abram we also hear about his wife Sarai who is barren the addition of hearing that she's bearing is only interesting because when God called Abraham he also gave him a promise he told Abram that he would make him a father of many nations and that all nations of the Earth would be blessed through him it's complicated though because if he's going to be a nation Abram needs a child in Genesis 15 God speaks to Abram again and this time he expands on his original promise and he tells Abram that he's going to not only give

him a child but a son and then God gets real Bill not the signs God gets real scientific on Abram and tells him to go outside look at the stars and number them if you can and if you can that that would be that would be the amount of offspring that Abram will have now this is a huge promise because remember Abram ain't got no kids Sarah Sarai is Baron Baron so God uh Abram rightfully says Okay God you're saying that you're going to make me a father of many nations you're saying that all nations

of the earth will be blessed through me but my wife doesn't have a child so how can I know that what you're promising is actually gonna happen that made you quick and already she has a willing heart hello um so God backs up his promise by entering into a covenant with April Covenant is a promise made between two parties to perform certain duties one party might promise their military their strength their resources their money while the other party promises their loyalty if it was uh 2022 and Abram were one of us and he wanted to

buy a house good luck he would have to get a realtor get on Zillow or Redfin whichever one is your Jewish and uh hopefully his credit score is in order I know some of us are still in the 520s but God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we ever actually think according to the power that worketh in us to pay our bills on time with this realtor he would find a home and uh when it's time to close on the home he would sit down with his realtor with a lawyer most likely

the person he's purchased in the home front and they would give him a big old stack of papers to sign these papers are contracts between him and the bank he's getting a loan for the house from and the contracts are but basically a bunch of unintelligible words saying hey we're gonna give you this money that's what we're promising you and you're going to give us this money back with six percent interest and if you don't give us this money back that means that you broke your promise and if you broke your promise that means we're

gonna have to break that house up out your hands so when you purchase a home then you are entering into a loose kind of Covenant both parties are making a promise to do a certain thing and if one person doesn't keep their side of the bargain there will be a consequence in Abraham's cultural context covenants were not ratified by signing contracts they were a bit more dramatic than that what would happen is uh some animals would be taken killed slaughtered and then sliced in half and they would be laid side by side creating a path

for both parties who are making the Covenant to walk through what was happening is that they were reenacting something they were saying if I make a promise to give you my strength if I make a promise to give you my loyalty if I make a promise to give you my my resources if I don't keep my promise to you let me be put to death just like these animals were walking through to establish this Covenant with Abram then God has Abram get a heifer a ram a goat two birds basically the whole meat section of

Trader Joe's he wasn't vegan clearly and he cuts them in half except the birds and he lays them side by side then shockingly if you read this narrative it's really interesting because God is making a covenant with April two parts God tells Abram to do all these things to to create the Covenant ceremony but after he's done cutting the animals the text says that Abram goes night night he goes to sleep I don't want you to think that what's happening is that Abram is like the disciples who fell asleep on Jesus when he was praying

it is more so that Abram is like Adam in Genesis 3. it is that that as God manifests himself that he is put to not put to death but he is made unconscious by God's manifest presence the Bible says that a great and Dreadful Darkness came over him and as that happened God manifests himself as a pot and as a torch and surprisingly God himself by himself walks alone in between their bodies walks through their blood and by doing so God is reenacting a thing God is saying if I don't keep my promise to you

to make you a nation if I don't keep my promise to you to give you a son if I don't keep my promise to you to make sure that all nations of the earth will be blessed through you the blood will be on my hand now if that didn't convince Abram to trust God I don't know what else could moving forward you might be thinking now okay God then showed up as a pot and the torch surely surrounds getting pregnant next week you would be wrong she just gets older and older and just wrinkles just

just getting up there and you think you know God then showed up as a pot in a flaming torch and walked through some heifer blood you just wouldn't expect him to put them in the position to wait so long but God does that to us in Genesis 18 God shows up again and tells Abram now named Abraham that next year this time God will give him a son Sarai now called Sarah was being a bit nosy and she heard what the Lord had said the text says that the way of women had ceased with Sarah

that's a Biblical way to say that she don't got no time of the month no more sis ain't shedding nothing but dust in her uterine liner she ain't had she had Kotex and always in her cabinets in decades and now all of a sudden God was saying that she's gonna have us because she kind of got to bleed for the things so she thinks God it's crazy he's clearly lost his Divine mind and so so she laughs and the Lord turns to Abraham and says hey why does Sarah laugh I'm not making this up this

is in the Bible why did Sarah laugh is anything too hard for the Lord Sarah says I didn't laugh God was like nah but you did foreign but jokes aside I do think that when you read the text like this I think application is necessary because I think we all need to remember that nothing is too hard to to wonderful for the Lord like I'm pretty sure if you're a human being that there is some place in your life where this truth needs to be applied it could be the salvation of a family member it

could be the resources to adopt it could be the opening of a Barren womb it could be deliverance from shame whatever it is God can do it because this is this is the thing that we need to inform our faith on tonight it is that God is not not like anyone you have or will ever know mainly because he has no limitations he is the one who made the heavens and the Earth he is the one who has no weaknesses he is the one who was always strong and never tired but even though I present

that truth and the Bible says it in 66 books what happens is is that when we have a circumstance or we have something that feels too big to believe we start to make up a God in our own image we start to imagine that God is more like us than he is himself and if that is the case we imagine then that God must have limitations or that God must not be consistently good so when God says something in his word that is absolutely true we start to believe oh God either has a limitation and

cannot do the impossible or God isn't consistently good so he won't do the impossible for me you liked it the thing is God ain't everybody he is himself now in informing your faith and in telling you that God is able to do the impossible it doesn't mean that he is obligated to do everything you have God is God then therefore he will move however he pleases but this is the challenge this is the challenge if God is God it means that he has the power to answer my impossible prayer but it also means that God

has the power to give me an impossible Faith to still trust him even when he doesn't is there anything too hard for the Lord in Genesis 21 verses 1-7 The Impossible Texas the Lord visited Sarah you ever thought about birth like that the Lord visited Sarah as he had said and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised and Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him whom Sarah bore him

Isaac which means laughter I love this verse the Lord visited Sarah as he had said the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised God is not a liar so we needed some context by establishing this I think we see a few things by walking through Genesis 12 through Genesis 21 and 10 minutes we are clear of a few things we are clear that God has promised to make a nation out of Abraham and that all families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham and that God will do this through his seed Isaac say

Amen if you got it now with that in mind when we get to Genesis 22 having that as a context the first two verses should be shocking says after these things God tested Abraham and said to him Abraham and he said here I am he said 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 if you're like me the first time I read this passage I was troubled because God

made these big elaborate promises that uh he would make a nation out of Abram and that he would do it through his seed Isaac he he made a covenant with him he he walked through blood he did what feels like the most and now he's telling him to sacrifice the son that he waited decades for but not only that God had made a promise that actually hinges on Isaac being alive it feels crazy but when you read this passage what's important is paying attention to the first few words and how it says that this is

a test the concept of testing is all throughout scripture usually it's explicit like in Exodus where it says that God LED Israel through the Wilderness to be tested or when look for when it says that uh Jesus was led by the spirit Into the Wilderness to be tested when God tests us is usually for two reasons God wants to reveal something and refine something when the test is used to reveal something what is exposed is whatever is in your heart testing exposes what you actually believe if you if you really have faith if if there

are a few Idols lurking in the shadow that's that's why we see such a uh what feels like such a horde of people turning from the faith it's that the Lord tested them to reveal that they were never in it tests reveal a thing which is really a kind thing of God to do because we tend to think really highly of ourselves the natural state of the center as described in Romans 1 is that we think we are wise when we are full so we can have a self-conception we can think or imagine things about

ourselves that actually have no basis in reality and most likely your friends know even though you don't so God has to take us through some things so that we can see ourselves but also you can take 50 Enneagram tests you can take all the Love Languages but it is not practical that you will be able to discern everything about your heart so in God's compassion and God's kindness he will allow your kids to act up so you can see how impatient you actually are he'll allow your money to get funny so you can discern your

greed or your unbelief in his provision God is Sovereign over your job being a really hard place tests revealed the tests also refine in First Peter 1 6 he says though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various tribes so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor man like imagine who you'd be if you didn't go through anything if your faith was never a child if life never got

hard if you never had any confusion any angst any difficulty without the Refiner's Fire what would the quality of your life look like I imagine that your life would be easier but it wouldn't be as fruitful and that is because tests [Music] purify your faith and increase your fruitfulness it is only fire that will refine gold it is only tests that will refine you and yes I know clearly that no discipline seems enjoyable at the top but it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it so when we get

back now to Genesis 22 since this narrative is framed as a test now we know we have insight into God's mind is that whatever God is about to do with Abraham it will reveal something to him and remove something out of him and what greater test is there for Abraham and for God to tell him to sacrifice his son the son he loves one thing that's really interesting about this test is that if you have read anything about Abraham's life up until this point Genesis 12 to Genesis 21 you'll recognize how familiar this test actually

is when God called Abram what did he tell him to do he said leave your idols leave your family leave your country leave your home and go where I want you to go in other words Abraham is very familiar with God telling him to give up what he loves Abraham is well acquainted with God telling him to sacrifice a thing since Abraham was called he was repeatedly tested this is not the first test that this man has had to endure so sacrificing Isaac might be an extreme and an intense test but it is not the

first one God did not start there he has been readying Abraham's Faith so that as the test got more intense Abraham had the stamina to endure it Charles Spurgeon said this he said the Lord knows how to educate you up to such a point that you can endure in years to come when you could not endure today just as today he may make you stand firm under a burden which 10 years ago would have crushed you into dust perhaps this is a reason you don't read anything about Abraham pushing back you know you don't see

any evidence of procrastination he just gets up and obeys and the question must be asked why it's because he's been practicing he's learned how to obey God when God calls him to do a hard thing verse three Abraham rolls early in the morning saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him Abraham obeyed immediately and it isn't because he had a super obedient personality like that was a

personality type it wasn't because he was a super practical or pragmatic the reason why Abraham obeyed is all throughout scripture it is because he was a man of faith the writer of Hebrew says that faith is the evidence of things unseen I don't think that's right it didn't feel right in my spirit yeah the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of Things Not Seen another way to say it is that faith is an inner certainty regarding things you cannot see that engages your will leading you to act in relation to what you believe I'll

say it again faith is an inner certainty regarding things you cannot see that engages your will leading you to act in relation to what you believe faith is at work in Abraham because remember God had made him a promise and Isaac is a pivotal piece of the promise if Isaac dies the promise does too but the irrationality doesn't seem to hinder Abraham in any way because if Abraham was me I would be like God can I give you my donkeys why do I have to give you my son but Abraham isn't like Jackie he doesn't

barter with God's wisdom or God's sovereignty he is certain about God and therefore he behaves accordingly it says he woke up early in the morning he ain't even wait till noon and cut the wood that he would sacrifice his son on and went to the place that God told him to go then in verse five and six you finally get an idea of what's actually happening in Abraham's mind and how faith is influencing him look at it it says on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar then Abraham

said to his young men stay here with the donkey I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you I read it again stay here with the donkey I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you that sounds like faith somewhere in between God telling him to sacrifice Isaac and him cutting the wood he has concluded that after he has killed his son that Isaac will raise from the dead how does he know that who or what has made him so certain it's simple it's

that he he believes God and not merely the promise of God because the promise is only trustworthy if the one who made it can't lie so so it is the very nature of God that Abraham has considered and in so doing he has reckoned that if God cannot lie if God has given me this son and made promises through him then surely God is going to raise him from the dead somehow the crazy thing is yeah the right of Hebrews said this by faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had

received the promises was an act of offering up his only son of whom it was said through Isaac shall your Offspring be named listen to this he considered thought about meditated over reckoned that God was able even to raise him from the dead now we are in Genesis 22 right right we are decades before Elijah raises a widow son from the dead we are decades more before Jesus raises Lazarus they're they're they're they're like there's no like Abraham has no idea that Easter is a thing he knows nothing about pastel colors and shiny white shoes

and itchy stockings and the big like flowers that they put in the little kerchief or hats like he he knows nothing about this and so how how is it then that Abraham knows that the concept of Resurrection is even a possibility I think that before Abraham Rose early in the morning and while he thought about what God was calling him to do and how admit he would have to put his son to death I think Abraham remembered his own body and how God had brought life from a dead thing before unless you think I'm making

it up I want to remind you of Romans 4 19 which says he Abraham did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb both the word dead and barrenness has the connotation of lifelessness so when God gave Abraham and Sarai a son he literally had to resurrect their bodies from the dead to give them the power to have life so Abraham hath the audacity to say that Isaac would worship and return

with his father because he simply remembered what God had done with his own body before y'all don't hear it in 1953 there was this guy named Henry Malaysia and he he went in for a brain surgery to treat his epilepsy during the procedure the doctor removed a piece of Henry's brain that affected his memory uh mainly his short-term memory and in one recording um a doctor doing the study wanted to ask Henry about his day and so he says hey Henry do you remember what you did yesterday and he said I don't know the doctor

said uh do you remember what you did this morning Henry said I don't I don't remember that either and then the doctors asked them um do you know what you're going to do tomorrow and Henry said I'll do whatever is beneficial you'd expect him to have a loose schedule of some sort that he would wake up and get coffee or wake up and talk to his mom or wake up and take the dog out but Henry couldn't tell you what he would do tomorrow because Henry couldn't remember what he did yesterday because Henry couldn't remember

the past Henry could never imagine his future without his memories Henry had no expectation when Abraham thought about the sacrifice that he had to make in the future he had the ability to remember the resurrection in the past therefore he had context for his imagination that if God could do a miracle then and surely God could do a miracle now that is the essence of faith almost all of us have a hard time trusting God to do what he said he would do and I think it's because we have a memory problem how quickly we

forget how faithful God has been how he's resurrected us from all kinds of mess how he set us free from all kinds of things how he's protected us from things we got our own selves into but then something happens that starts to make us feel away about God and we start to say I don't know if God is going to do this I don't know if God is going to do that hasn't God always shown up though hasn't it not always been faithful hasn't God always been good here we go making God into our own

image again just because you changed your mind every 2.5 seconds doesn't mean that God does he is the same God today as he was then when we go into the new year I know many of y'all are gonna start fasting because this New Year knew me but maybe you don't need to fast maybe you need to remember [Music] and isn't that hello black people [Applause] isn't what that what the Bible is for the Bible has given each of you 66 books of memories about who God is about what God has done that will inform your

faith so that when God calls you to do a thing now you have context for why you should obey on purpose because Abraham has faith in his God he is more than willing to sacrifice his son verse 6. and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son and he took in his hand the fire in the night so they both went or they went both of them together and Isaac said to his father Abraham my father and he said here I am my son he said behold the fire

in the world but where is the Lamb for a burnt offering I want to be clear about something a burnt offering was a total sacrifice there were Old Testament sacrifices like the one we observed in first Samuel with Hannah and her uh husband elkena where the offerer could sacrifice an animal but still take a portion of it home to celebrate God but when it came to a burnt offering the animal was totally consumed the process went like this as described in Leviticus 1 a male animal without blemish was taken the offerer would lay his hand

on the animal which was symbolic of the transferring of the offer of sins onto the animal then the animal would be killed then the blood of the animal would be collected and thrown on the altar and the animal would be cut into pieces and arranged on the wood and the animal would be burned and totally consumed and as the smoke of the animal Rose toward Heaven the Bible says that it was a pleasing Aroma to the Lord and God told Abraham to do that the son he loved if this weren't a test God's character would

be questionable at best seeing that God himself said that human sacrifice was detestable in Deuteronomy 12 and 18. since it is a test commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac resolves God of any guilt and Abraham's willingness to do it refines Abraham of any potential sin this test solidifies Abraham's loyalty to God over and above loyalty to his son it is clear it is clear that Abraham has a deep affection for Isaac God acknowledges himself by saying take your son your only son Isaac whom you love and this love is good this love is natural we should

love our children we should love these things they are good gifts from the Creator but how easy it is to take a good gift and make it God Isaac is special he was the promised child the seed through whom the whole world would be blessed Abraham had parted ways with his son Ishmael years earlier so this was the only son he had and maybe God knew Abraham's potential Abraham was an idol worshiper when he was called so it wouldn't have been out of character for him to make something other than God lord maybe God knew

that the son he loved might become the son he worshiped so to set him free from any inkling of idolatry he had to put him in a position to choose and he did he built the altar he laid the wood he took some rope and wrapped it around his son's body so that he couldn't move and I can only imagine the pain because sacrifice isn't sacrifice if it doesn't cost you something this body on this altar is his boy you get that right but the boy he he waited decades for and who he's seen every

day since ate dinner with every night on that altar he probably saw his own features in his face alongside fear and with all the faith in the world giving up what you love to the God who deserves it is devastating but even still God must be worthy of it all and Abraham's knows that so with inner certainty engaging his will leading him to act in relation to what he believes about God he takes the knife ready and willing to slaughter his son and then out of nowhere he hears his name verse 11. Abraham Abraham and

he said here I am he said 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 if there was any doubt who Abraham's God was this moment made it clear God had refined Abraham's heart removing any other allegiances and now he'd revealed it too for God to say I know that you fear God it's not to imply that God didn't know it before God knows everything it is that God is affirming that Abraham's

faith is real and isn't that what we all want I hope the affirmation from God not people not Ministry not tick tock not praise the affirmation from God that our faith is sincere that our faith is authentic because there are those who will one day present themselves before God with a bunch of evidence for why they deserve Glory they're not prophesying your name they're not cast out demons in your name did not do miracles in your name for some of us today it might be God did not preach and expose it the passage correctly did

not go to Seminary did not lead worship did not adopt did not vote the right way did not go on missions surely that's proof of my faith right in the deceitful thing is that all of it looks impressive all of it looks like power it looks like the fruit of Faith but Jesus turns to these people and calls them workers of iniquity because you can do all of those good things with a whole demon inside of your body surely surely we don't want to wait till judgment to find out who we really are this is

the whole point of everything this is the reason why you go through things this is why the reason why your life is complicated this is the reason why it feels like you keep having mountains to climb and things to move over it is that God is refining oh that when all the trust tests and the trials are over at the god of Glory the charge of the universe seated at the right hand of God will look you in your face and say I know that you fear God verse 13. and Abraham lifted up his eyes

and looked and behold behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the RAM and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so Abraham called the name of that place the Lord will provide as it is said to this day on the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided this moment right here is an act of what we call substitutionary atonement instead of Isaac being sacrificed the ram is killed in his place but substitution one person takes the place of another bearing the

penalty that was reserved for someone else it is because God provided the ram that Isaac was saved from death so the ram was not only sacrificed instead of Isaac but also for Isaac but there's a problem with all of this once you re once you move to Hebrews chapter 10 it says that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats AKA animals to take away sin Abraham and Isaac were born after Adam so they were born with sin so both of them legitimately actually deserve debt one way or another so the ram functioned

as a means of atonement as a means of dealing with sin as a means of making themselves right with God but if the blood of animals doesn't take away sins if the blood of animals doesn't deal with the fact that we've sinned against God if the blood of animals doesn't reconcile us with God if the blood of animals doesn't make sure that we're gonna get into heaven if the blood of animals doesn't fill us with the Holy Ghost is the blood of animals doesn't fix this problem that tells me that the blood of animals ain't

good enough which means that this Ram that was provided though a sacrifice was not a sufficient one if anything then this Ram was a shadow pointing forward to a better sacrifice one that would not be accomplished by Jehovah Jireh providing a ram in the bush but by Jehovah Jireh providing John 3 16 his son in the flesh and who is the sun well that's why we're here the Sun was born to a woman by virtue of a miracle too his mother wasn't Barren but she was a virgin named Mary who by all accounts should not

have been able to have a child but because nothing is too hard for the Lord she conceived by the power of the spirit go ahead this son grew up and just like Abraham he endured tests after test thing that set him apart though from everyone in history who had ever been tested is that he was the only one who passed every single one foreign then when he was baptized by John the Baptist when he came up the Lord publicly affirmed the faith of his son by saying that this is my son whom I am well

[Music] then there was a scenario for which the sun was sent that came to pass the night before the sun he was praying to his father because he wanted a cup to pass for them just like Abraham he was being put in a position to choose either his father's will or his own and he did so this son just like Isaac was made to carry his own on his own back as he walked toward a mountain not named Mariah but Calvary and while up there this son's body was nailed secured to the wood wisely people

said to him if you are the son of God come down from the cross what they didn't understand is that if he came down we would have had to go up not dying for him but dying for ourselves because again we got a memory problem it's easy to forget that we were born in sin and shaped in iniquity and that the wages of sin is death that if Jesus didn't pay for my sins I would have had to pay for my own so for these people to tell Jesus to come down off the cross clearly

they didn't realize that if he came down Institution that the reason he stayed is because he loved them to death maybe they didn't remember that day but maybe they didn't recall when Abraham was sleep and God himself will walk through a line of death when God himself walked through a line of blood making it known that he was going to keep his promise and he did what we did God's people have been unwilling to open God's people have been breaking his laws working his Covenant since they came out the womb but on the cross God

got your blood on his hands be killed just like those animals he walked through in Genesis 18. it wasn't rare [Music] there was no substitutions [Music] [Music] question it was a pleasing enrollment scenario for which Abraham was tested was a privy for what God would actually do God the Father sacrificed his only son he loves you know why so that you could become children why does substitution matter it matters because Jesus became sin so that you could be declared righteous Jesus [Music] now it is through the sun Jesus that all who have faith in his

name are called the Sons and the daughters of Abraham God gave Abraham Isaac through Isaac came Jacob so Jacob came 12 tribe through Judah came Jesus the you who have trusted in his name you have you have been made right with God and we have been blessed and you know that if you look at us you will see in this room the people from every tribe or from every nation of people from every family a church full of Abraham's children that's what it means that all nations of the earth will be blessed to me do

you remember when God told Abraham to go outside and to look at the stars and to number them if he could do you know what he saw police officer we are God we are the stars in the sky when God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12. has been realized the children of the promise and they all happen because God did not withhold his son [Laughter] [Music] I pray for you earlier and what was different about today is that I've sensed that God was saying to all of us in this space is that Abraham is not

unique by that I mean the same call to sacrifice what you love is the duty of everyone in this world and God Delights and the surrendered heart God wants our entire cells [Music] I think for some of us we've resisted surrender out of fear [Music] fear being that once you give God everything you won't have anything left and once your hands are empty I'm Gonna Leave You Out to dry and that is a demonic idea because it imagines God as a bad father that imagines God as a father who will abandon his children when he

promised to never leave [Music] I think others of us we haven't surrendered out of Pride out of rebellion you have supposed that you will get away with serving too much you have supposed that you can love God and the devil that you can serve sin and the spirit some of y'all learned and because you're used and you're useful it's numb your conscience to the reality that maybe you're not right I think there's other others of us who are pursuing God because [Music] and we walk with him for a long time but there's always more there's

always more and at the point when you become a mature Christian the sacrifice gets harder because it's more subtle there are subtle things that God is calling you to repent there are subtle things that God is calling you to give and it's because he deserves it the other day I was driving before I came here and it was such a weird thought that came to my mind it was like why do all this for Jesus and I don't even think that way why do all this for Jesus and I had to remind myself do you

know who he is he's the king of kings he's a king of kings he is the Lord of lords he's the creator of Heaven's and Earth he is the preeminent one he's the all-wise one he's the all good one he's the one that created you for himself he's the one that threw him apart from him you can't do nothing he's the one that who said that he is gentle and lowly that if you just take his yoke upon you if you are heaven and he'll give you rest he is the one who Converses he is

the one who rose from the dead he he is the one who actually sent comforter for your comfort so you can have some peace he is the one who gives you peace that surpasses your understanding [Laughter] [Music] I'm not here to impress ion I am a burdened by the Lord to create a space [Music] the Lord even I felt like he showed me that even this church is on purpose and I feel like the Lord wants to create an opportunity for worship that is unorthodox as in those who are willing I want you to get

out of your seat find somewhere find his face get there's something about how the the heart is influenced by the mind there's something about putting your body in the position of surrender that allows your heart to catch foreign there are some of us that might not be used to this we don't know what it means to be with God because we've been taught that being emotional and seeking an experience is unknown God created the whole body [Music] thank you thank you that he is here [Music] we thank you that he has come to set us

free where the spirit of the Lord is there is we pray for repentance we pray for repentance against all sin sexual scene in the room lust aversion pornography addiction adults God we pray against Pride feeling as if we don't need you feeling as if we got satisfied without you feeling as if just because we know the Bible we don't have to be thirsty we are thirsty people make us thirsty make us thirsty again help us to recognize that we need you to fill us that we need you to help us that we need to abide

in you God we pray against fear those who fear everything but you those who are slaves to everything but you God we pray for reverence that you would give us a heart of reference for you that we would see you as king that we that we need you as Lord that we would see was high in the field the king of glory who sits on the throne with a train of his robe filling the temple his angels sing Holy Holy Holy full of his glory I pray that we can recognize you Lord what we see

that we would love your glory in your son we pray that we would love is that satanic attack on the church well we want to believe everything that isn't true that all people aren't made in the image of God that all people don't deserve love we pray against the spirit of racism and there will be repentance in the room help us to enjoy help us to Delight in yourself help us to sing your songs help us to love your word help us to have a new mind and a new heart and a right sphere of

God give us a softened heart help us God [Music] I want to say stay in this moment stay in this posture invite the Lord to meet you because there is no one in heaven on Earth that you need more than God [Music]