DI:

Hi, my name is Di. I’m a newly elected deacon for this the next three years.

Betty:

Hi, I’m Betty. I’m returning as an elder for this year. And now a reading from Genesis 22.

Genesis 22:1–18 (NIV)

¹ Some time later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham.”

“Here I am,” he replied.

² Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

³ Early the next morning, Abraham got up and loaded 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; and 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 the 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.

⁹ 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.”

¹⁵ The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time ¹⁶ and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Betty:

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.

Tommy Branagh:

Amen. Well, good morning and welcome to WCPC. My name is Tommy Branagh. I’m a pastor here. And I’m delighted to be with you this morning in looking at this story. And today, as we continue in our walk through the story of scripture, we’re picking up the story of this one particular family that the Bible has zoomed in on, the family of Abraham and Sarah. And if you were with us last week, there is so much about Abraham and Sarah’s story that’s worth knowing. But for today’s purposes, the main thing we need to know is this. Abraham and Sarah had been unable to have children, and this went on so long that eventually they gave up hope. And it’s at that point that God spoke into Abraham’s life with a promise. And I just want to read that for us.

Genesis 15:5 (NIV)

The Lord took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

You know, what we saw last week is that after a lot of twists and turns, God’s faithfulness was demonstrated in the birth of a son named Isaac, Abraham and Sarah’s only child who would make the fulfillment of this promise possible. So with all of that as our backdrop today, it would be very hard to imagine a stranger next step in the story than what we just had read for us in our passage today. The very same God who promised Isaac to Abraham is now asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. I mean, what are we supposed to do with that? As a part of this ONE series, we’ve invited you to read through the whole Bible. And I could imagine Genesis 22 as one of those places where many people considered giving up on that task, because this is a hard story. What are we supposed to make of a God who asks a man to sacrifice his own son? Well, my hope for our time this morning is to try and sort some of that out. And my prayer is that we will discover that this story, as difficult as it is, is actually about God’s kindness and God’s provision. So as we walk through this passage this morning, I want to do so under kind of three larger themes: sacrifice, faith, and blessing. So let’s begin with sacrifice, because sacrifice is really at the core of this story. And just to be honest, this is one of the parts of the ancient world that can seem pretty foreign to us. It can feel strange and barbaric, but sacrifice was a ubiquitous practice in the ancient world, which means that it was practiced by more or less all people everywhere. And this is painting with a broad brush. But the basic mechanics of sacrifice worked like this. A family would bring an offering to a temple or to some place of religious significance. And the offering could be many things. It could be grain or produce. Often it was an animal. And a portion of what was brought was offered to the deity by burning it. A portion was often set aside for the priests. It was a way of providing for the priests. And then a portion was often eaten by the family that brought the offering. It was a kind of feast of thanks or celebration or repentance, depending on the type of offering. And obviously, if the offering that was brought was an animal, then the first step in that whole process was sacrificing the animal. And again, I know this can feel very other, but just to sort of orient us in this, let me read one text. This comes from outside the Bible that gives some sacrifice instructions.

In the 11th month, on the third time you pass the fourth day, the people shall rest from their labors, and each household shall sacrifice a bird as a thank offering. They shall remove the entrails of the bird and roast the meat. They shall prepare the feast while a procession of music, dance, and inflatable animals float through New York. And they shall enjoy the feast while watching football.

So obviously, that last part’s a bit of a giveaway. That is not an ancient sacrificial text. That’s just a description of Thanksgiving, a day for which 46 million turkeys are sacrificed every year as a sort of thank offering. And I share that as a little bit of a joke, but also with some seriousness, because the reality is we’re not as far removed as we feel from sacrificial practices. Every time we celebrate a graduation with a steak dinner or make Fourth of July ribs or have a Christmas ham, we’re doing something akin to this ancient practice. But unlike our ancestors, who would have been deeply acquainted with their animals and were generally present when their lives were taken, we in modern society have outsourced most of that. We don’t raise our own animals, and we’re not present when they are killed. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. All of the celebratory meals we eat, at least the ones that involve meat, come at the cost of an animal’s life. So in a sense, the sacrifice of animals for feasting is something that we still participate in. But where we as Christians really differ from this practice that we see in the Bible is the offering component. It’s in the religious ritual component of it. On Thanksgiving, you don’t set aside a portion of your turkey for me and Bart. And at a graduation party, you don’t burn one of the steaks on an altar to God. And there are biblically informed reasons that after Jesus, animal sacrifice and offering no longer play a role in Christian worship. But we’re going to save that for a future sermon in this series. But at the time of our passage today in Genesis chapter 22, we’re stepping into a moment in which sacrifice and offerings are woven into the fabric of everyday life. They just were regular rhythms. And at this point, we’re not yet talking about the specific religious practices of those who followed the God of the Bible. We’re just talking about the regular religious practices of all of the people who would have lived alongside Abraham and who believed in an almost endless array of deities. So the religious world that Abraham lived in was one in which people believed in a God of the fields and another one over the river. They would have believed in a God over the crops and another one over the livestock and on and on. It was sort of a pantheon of gods. And sacrifices to these gods fell into two broad categories. And this is painting with a broad brush, but basically you would have sacrifice for and sacrifice because. Sacrifice for is a sacrifice that would be offered in order to get something from a God. This is sacrifice that acts as a petition. So if you had a person who was offering sacrifice for, that might mean sacrificing a bull for victory in an upcoming battle, or sacrificing a dove for rain on next year’s crops. And ancient religions were full of that. The other kind of sacrifice would be sacrifice because. And this is something that’s really more respectful, responsive. So that would look like someone sacrificing a sheep because God blessed the harvest last year, or sacrificing a goat because they have sinned and need forgiveness. Now, crucially, and this is jumping ahead a little bit in the story of the Bible, but in a little bit, a few chapters, we’re going to see God give instructions around sacrifice and offering the kind that he wants. And what we’re going to see is that God instructs his people to give sacrifices because, not sacrifices for. So God does not instruct his people to earn his favor or approval with sacrifice. Instead, he instructs his people to bring sacrifices because of the things that God has done, like bless them, or because of the things that they have done, like sin. But none of that is instruction that Abraham would have had. Yet Abraham lived in a time before God had given really anything, any indication about what kind of sacrifices or worship or offerings he wanted. And Abraham would have been surrounded by people offering sacrifices in order to gain the attention and favor of whatever deity they wanted favor from. Abraham lived in a world that was full of sacrifice for. And one of the problems with sacrifices for is that they can escalate quite quickly. Because if you have to earn a God’s favor, then your offering needs to be better than all the other offerings that are also asking for that God’s favor. And what we see in history is that this sacrificial arms race leads to a really horrible place. Because if the life of a dove is valuable, then the life of a goat is even more valuable. But the life of a bull is even more valuable than that. And guess what seems even more valuable than a bull? A human. And the archaeological and historic record shows that in the ancient world, human sacrifice was practiced on every continent. And the Bible bears witness to it. Among the people of the ancient near east, it was practiced in large part because people believed it was one of the most potent ways you could earn the attention and favor of the gods, because it’s the most costly sacrifice you can make. And I don’t know for sure. So consider this a little pastoral speculation, but I suspect that when God came to Abraham and asked him to sacrifice Isaac, he was asking Abraham to do something incredibly hard. But he wasn’t asking him to do something unimaginable. He was asking Abraham for something difficult. But it wasn’t novel in that time and place. So it’s my informed guess that Abraham knew about human sacrifice and he knew of other gods that demanded it. But the fact that God is now asking for it raises huge questions. Questions for Abraham and questions for us. Questions like, is the God who called Abraham just like all the other gods that people were worshiping? Questions like, is God’s favor contingent on our willingness to do something so horrific? Questions like, is the God of the Bible a God who demands human sacrifice? That’s really the divine drama hanging on this story. What kind of a God is this? But as we read this story, we find that God’s true nature and character are not revealed in his instruction to sacrifice Isaac, but they actually are revealed in his intervention to prevent it from happening. So let me reread that dramatic moment for us.

Genesis 22:11–12 (NIV)

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.”

So as Abraham prepares to go through with this, God speaks and stops him. He intervenes and spares Isaac’s life. So is God like the other gods? Did God demand something horrific? Well, in the end, we see that the answer is no. And actually, as we will come to see in future chapters of the Bible, God not only rejects human sacrifice, he actually detests it. In the book of Deuteronomy, which is the fifth book of the Bible, we see God say this to Abraham’s descendants when they had grown into a nation. This is his instruction to them.

Deuteronomy 18:10–12 (NIV)

¹⁰ Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, ¹¹ or casts spells, who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. ¹² Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you.

So what we’re seeing is that this God is not like other gods. Human sacrifice does not win his favor. It actually merits his wrath. And that is just a vitally important point to make clear: Genesis 22 is not about God demanding human sacrifice. It’s actually a story where he is differentiating himself from this practice. And the second thing we learn about God and sacrifice in this is also really fascinating. So let me read just a little bit more from Genesis 22.

Genesis 22:13–14 (NIV)

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.”

So not only does God intervene, but we actually see that he provides a substitute. And if you’re thinking in the logic of sacrifice, this just makes no sense, because a sacrifice is meant to be a gift to the God. It’s meant to honor the God. But what we see here in Genesis 22 is that the God of the Bible is actually himself willing to be the one who provides the sacrifice. And that too makes him different from every other deity. And this is such an important development in our understanding of the God of the Bible—so important that we’re actually going to return to it again a little bit later in this sermon. But first, I want to take a moment to talk about Abraham’s faith, which is the second major theme of this passage. This whole episode is a test of faith. In fact, that’s how this passage begins, by acknowledging that God is testing Abraham. And the test is not so much, are you willing to do something difficult for me? And the test is not, can I make you do something awful? The test at its core is really a test of what Abraham believes about God. There’s a book in the New Testament called Hebrews that explains this well. So let me read that for us.

Hebrews 11:17–19 (NIV)

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, ¹⁸ even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” ¹⁹ Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

And that lays it out pretty well. At this point in Genesis 22, God had made a covenant promise to Abraham that he would build a great nation through his descendant Isaac. You know, remember that language about more descendants than stars in the sky? But now, before Isaac has had any children of his own, God appears to be demanding Isaac’s life. So Abraham is stuck with these two truths that are seemingly irreconcilable. How can he receive God’s promise if he sacrifices God’s blessing? And it’s just amazing to watch how Abraham walks through this. I think the clearest picture we have in Abraham’s faith in this moment comes from when he’s on the journey early in the story. So let’s read that.

Genesis 22:7–8 (NIV)

⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and the 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.

So Abraham is choosing, as Hebrews says, to walk forward in faith. And he knew that from his own vantage point, sacrificing Isaac meant losing his promise. And yet he somehow believed that he could be obedient to God and that God could be faithful to him. And this is just one of the best pictures we have of what faith looks like in scripture. And it actually stands in stark contrast to what we’ve recently seen back in Genesis chapter three with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve, when presented with a sort of test, could not see how their own blessing lived in harmony with God’s instruction. They saw two things that appeared to be in conflict and they lost faith, they disobeyed in an attempt to gain the outcome that they desired. But here Abraham does what they were unable to do. And that does not mean that Abraham is perfect. In fact, on many, many occasions we see that Abraham fails to be faithful. But on this occasion he does walk forward in faith. He trusts in God’s character and goodness, even when it’s hard to understand from his own vantage point. And we can be quite confident that God will not put us through this same test. What God asks Abraham is not a normative practice. This was a one-off. But we do find in the rest of the Bible and in the life and the teaching of Jesus that all faith requires an ability to trust in God in times and in circumstances in which we cannot see how God’s goodness will be made known. We will all face times when God’s instruction seems at odds with God’s own promises. In the Gospels, which are the New Testament account of Jesus’ life, we see Jesus put these kinds of tests to people all the time. So one time he’s talking to a rich young man and he says, if you want true wealth, then give away all your money and follow me. And there’s another time where he’s teaching to a hungry crowd and he says if they want their hunger to be truly satisfied, they will not feast on bread, but on the word of God. And Jesus even told a group of people who were seeking safety and security this: he says, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me will find it. These instructions carry some of that same impossible logic that Abraham faced. How can I gain true wealth by giving everything away? How can my hunger be satisfied with anything but bread? How can I save my life by losing it? That is the paradox of faith. It is a path everyone who answers God’s call must walk. And it often looks to us like the wrong path. It often seems impossible. But what scripture shows us time and time again is that when we wrest control away from God, when we try to bring about the outcome that we desire, it leads inevitably and without fail to guilt, shame, deception and destruction. We’ve seen this in Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Flood, and even in some of Abraham and Sarah’s story. But what we see in this story, in Abraham, and as we will see in countless other stories in the Bible, is that the path of faith is actually the path of blessing. And that brings us to our final topic for today, which is blessing. At the end of this passage, we see Abraham’s faith rewarded with blessing. So let me reread that for us.

Genesis 22:15–18 (NIV)

¹⁵ The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time ¹⁶ and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Interestingly, this is the only time in the Bible where we find God confirming a promise by swearing on himself. And I don’t even really fully know what to make of that, but what it surely means is that this promise is as ironclad as it comes. Abraham’s blessing is secure. And we keep saying that as a part of this series, we’re following the one story of the Bible. But as we read the Bible, we can see that it’s actually full of many stories. So what is the one story of the Bible? Well, it’s the story of Jesus, the Savior of the world, the one who will pay our debt and set right all that has been broken. And this promise, this blessing to Abraham, that all nations will be blessed through his family—this is a major plot point in that story. Here we begin to see that God has a plan to bless all people. And we see that God is going to unfold this plan through Abraham’s family. And for the rest of the Bible we will be tracking this promise. How will God fulfill this promise? How will the nations be blessed? And what will that blessing be? And all throughout, intertwined with those questions will also be the question of faith. Will the followers of God in each successive generation trust in the God of this promise? Will they follow him where he leads? Will they be patient for God to act? Or will they take things into their own hands? As people living many thousands of years later, we have the benefit of knowing what they did not. We know that God remained faithful generation after generation. And we know that what happened in Genesis chapter 22 was just a shadow of what was to come. Because the same God who offered a ram as a substitute for Isaac had all along intended to offer himself as a substitute for us. We know that the ram and the thornbush would become a king wearing a crown of thorns. And we know that he did not just take the place of Isaac, but he came to take the place of you and me. He came as a blessing for all nations, paying the debt that humanity first incurred in Eden. And just as Abraham received his covenant promise by faith, so we too are invited to receive the gift of Jesus by faith. I want to conclude today by reading this passage from the book of Ephesians which paints this so beautifully.

Ephesians 2:4–8 (NIV)

⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.

The God who offers himself as a substitute for us. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.