Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Genesis 22:1-18
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  February 18, 2018

Which commandment is the hardest one to keep? Maybe kids think it’s the fourth commandment, honoring their father and mother. Maybe for some it’s the sixth commandment, with lustful thoughts ever present, with pornography just a click away, with our societies embrace of all forms of sexual sins. For others, perhaps it’s the eighth commandment because you just can’t seem to see the best in people’s actions. You’re always assuming the worst and you seem to just have to gossip about it to others. But as much as we might struggle with any one of those commandments, the hardest commandment to keep is the first one; putting God first. In fact, if we were able to keep God first, we’d be able to keep all of the other commandments. Ultimately, when we have no other gods, when we fear, love, and trust in God above all things, everything else falls into place. But it’s a struggle. And it was a struggle for Abraham too! Though it doesn’t seem like it in our lesson for today, Abraham struggled with keeping God first. It’s worth our time to review Abraham’s story up to this point so we can understand how Abraham is able to do what God asks of him—how he’s able to keep God first.

You’ll recall that Abraham, Abram as he was called then, lived in Haran with his wife, Sarai, his  nephew Lot, and his father Terah. After Terah died, Abram received a call from the Lord to move his family to the land that God would give them, the land of Canaan. But even more than that, God promised that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abram, through his descendants, through the promise of the Savior. And so Abram moved his family. He believed God even though he had no children at the time. But then Abram had a moment of weakness. He had to go to Egypt because of famine in Canaan. And while he was there he told Sarai to lie about the fact that she was his wife. He didn’t trust in God’s protection and as a result Sarai ends up being taken as one of Pharaoh’s concubines! But God wouldn’t allow her to be defiled, she was to be the mother of the promised one after all. In spite of Abram’s lack of faith and trust, God was faithful and returned them to Canaan unharmed.

It was then that Abram and Lot separated because their flocks were growing so large that there wasn’t room for them. You know that Lot ended up by Sodom and Gomorrah and how Abram, with God’s help, recused Lot when Sodom and Gomorrah were attacked by neighboring kings.  Again, Abram is blessed and promised that his descendants will inhabit the land and that all nations will be blessed through him—that promise of the Savior repeated. God even made it more vivid for him by making a covenant with him, a one-sided covenant when God made all the promises and Abram simply received them.! You’d think that with all the evidence of God’s blessing, Abram would trust in God completely. But not so. Abram has another moment of weakness. Not willing to trust in God’s timeframe to provide a son, he decides, with Sarai’s encouragement, to fix the “problem” himself. He takes a second wife, Sarai’s servant Hagar, and through her has a child, Ishmael. But Ishmael is not the child of the promise. And though Abram loves him, he will end up causing nothing but problems.

Then, when Abram is 99 years old, God appears to him and repeats his promise of a son, a true heir, the child of the promise. He changes Abram’s name to Abraham, which means the father of many nations. He institutes another covenant, the covenant of circumcision that marked his descendants as God’s chosen people. Surely now, Abraham would trust in God. But no. Abraham again has a moment of weakness and again tells Sarah to lie about the fact that she is his wife. Again, Sarah ends up in the house of a local king, this time Abimelech. But again, God protects Sarah. And a year later, Abraham and Sarah have their son, Isaac. God had done the impossible. Sarah and Abraham had a son well past the years of childbearing. But it wasn’t all happiness, for Hagar became jealous of Isaac. She caused problems in the household and Abraham was forced to send her and Ishmael away. But once he did, things seemed to finally be as they should be. Not only was there peace in the house, but after a treaty with Abimelech, there was peace in the land too. Abraham was comfortable in the land. He was enjoying his son, the son he truly loved. Everything was just as it should be. And then God appears to Abraham and says: “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains there, the one to which I direct you.”

That command of God must have shook Abraham to the core. Just when everything was finally as it should be, after all the years of waiting and wondering and wandering, after all the years of promises, after the major moments of weakness, not God asks this? And notice how God describes Isaac—your son, your only son, whom you love. This was the son of the promise. It wasn’t just the fact that this was a miracle baby, a miracle child—this was the child that God had said would be the first of Abraham’s descendants, the one through whom the Savior would come! If Isaac burns up as a sacrifice, so does the promise! What God was asking Abraham to do seemed to be the exact opposite of what God had promised.

Yet we hear: “Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, along with Isaac his son. Abraham split the wood for the burnt offering. Then he set out to go to the place that God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.” There in the distance was a grouping of hills, the region of Moriah.

You have to believe that the only way that Abraham could go through with this is if he truly believed God would keep his covenant he made earlier, that God would keep his promise about Isaac. And it’s in Abraham’s words that we really see he trusted that God was going to keep his promise. As they came to the place, Abraham says to his servants: “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go on over there. We will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Notice who he says will return? We. We will return. Then it’s Isaac’s turn to ask a question. “Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and loaded it on Isaac his son. He took the firepot and the knife in his hand. The two of them went on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father?” He said, “I am here, my son.”He said, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them went on together.”  Again, what does Abraham say? God will provide. Abraham completely trusted that God loved him, that God would do what was best for him eternally, that God would keep his promise.

“They came to the place that God had told him about. Abraham built the altar there. He arranged the wood, tied up Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. The Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham! Abraham said, “I am here.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”Abraham looked around and saw that behind him there was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. Abraham called the name of that place “The Lord Will Provide.” So it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.””

God provided a sacrifice. As Abraham trusted, as Abraham believed with all his heart, God kept his promise about Isaac. And throughout the tumultuous history of Abraham’s descendants, God continued to keep that promise about Abraham’s descendants, that all nations would be blessed through him. And then in the ultimate fulfillment of that promise, on this very same mountain, God provided the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world. He offered up his Son, his only Son, the Son he loved, the Lamb of God. The lamb in Abraham’s story foreshadows what God did for us in Jesus. The fact that Isaac was spared foreshadowed the truth that you and I would be spared. God provided just as he promised to Abraham. God provided just as he promised to us!

Why is keeping God first such a struggle? It’s not because we don’t believe in God. It’s not because we don’t have faith. Ultimately, it’s because we don’t trust God completely. Despite the evidence in the Scriptures, despite the evidence in our own lives, we struggle trusting God completely. And sometimes, it’s because it seems like what’s happening in our lives is exactly the opposite of what God promised. And like Abraham, we have moments of weakness. Like Abraham, we put our trust in our own solutions to the problems we face. We put the things of this world, the people of this world ahead of God. And just like with Abraham, it never works out well!

Yet, just like with Abraham, God continues to be faithful to his promises. God continues to call us back to himself. That’s why this season of Lent is so precious to us as sinners. Because it’s in Lent that we are reminded of our sins, our unwillingness to trust in God. But it’s also in Lent that God shows us why we can trust in him completely. Because it’s in Lent that he points us to this mountain, to his Son, his only Son, the Son he loves and reminds us that Jesus did for us what we don’t—he trusted God completely. Jesus trusted completely in our place and he offered himself as the sacrifice to pay for all the times we don’t. And now he’s given us that perfect life, that innocent sacrifice. He assures us that we have every reason to trust in God because he always keeps his promises.

But it will continue to be a struggle. We live in a sinful world with sinful nature that only wants to look to ourselves, to trust no one. So how can we combat the struggle? Remember what God’s done for you. We’ve been blessed at Eastside to have now three weeks in a row with a new name on that baptism banner. And there will be another new name next week! Four baptisms in four weeks! That’s what God has done for each of you. He’s made you his own dear child. He’s brought you out of the kingdom of Satan into his own kingdom. He’s pronounced on you, “You are my son, my daughter, whom I love.” Through baptism God assures you of his love for you, his protection for you, his care for you. So when it seems like the opposite is true, when you’re tempted to doubt God’s promises, don’t let your eyes deceive you. When it seems like God doesn’t care, know that your feelings are misguided, it just isn’t true. That’s why Lent is here for us as sinners. While we struggle to keep God first, we know that Jesus already did! God has never broken a promise, and he’s not going to start with you! Amen.