God Provides! – Sermon – 2 July, 2017
God Provides!
Genesis 22:1-19
What happens when God asks for “All In” faith?
What happens when He asks you to trust Him with the most precious priority in your life.
- Are you willing to walk up the mountain?
God loves us and has a to shape us, conform us into the image of His only son.
Where does that shaping take place?
Where does faith shine like polished silver?
When it’s tested… When it’s required to prove itself.
It’s when we are asked to walk up the mountain carrying the wood for sacrifice and the fire, and when it’s God asking us for what we love the most.
How often does God ask us to be “All In?” Not very often.
Abraham had learned to trust God’s provision over a lifetime of tests. Some he passed, some he failed. He left the Ur of the Chaldeans to go where God would lead him. He left his homeland and relatives. All in? Pretty Close. Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife to protect himself and his stuff. He failed miserably. Abraham and Sarah were promised a child, but because it took too long they tried through Hagar, Sarah’s maid.
Abraham was an old man, maybe 115-120, when God said to him: “Take your son, your only son Isaac to the region of Moriah and sacrifice him there”.
God has always been faithful. God has always honoured His promises. God has never lied, He has never broken the covenant.
It took him 3 days to get to the place of sacrificed, I wonder what the conversation was like, did Abraham sleep? I don’t know but when they arrived at the mountain, he told the servants to stay put while “I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you”.
Romans 4:21-22 says: “Abraham was fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promises. This is why it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Fully is another way of saying “All In.”
Thankfully there are very few times we’re asked to walk up the mountain, to step into the furnace or to enter the lion’s den.
God will allow us to be tested.
Sometimes, we’ll pass, sometimes we’ll fail. Hopefully we will learn to trust God enough to grow into fully persuaded believers. All In.
Isaac’s sacrifice was supposed to be a burnt offering. Totally consumed by the flames. Nothing but ashes left. So Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. All In. Fully persuaded.
And on top of this Mountain we see the shadow of Calvary. The image of God.
- The place where God Provides the lamb
Just as Abraham is about to bring the knife down into the breast of His son. Heaven intervenes.
Abraham names this place “Jehovah Jirah – The Lord Will Provide.”
Isaac asked, “I see the wood and fire, but where’s the Lamb” And even before everything occurs Abraham said:
“God Himself will provide the Lamb”
God surely did. A substitute sacrifice in place of Isaac; an atoning Lamb.
The Old covenant is just the shadow of the person Jesus. In this sacrifice on Mt. Moriah where God intervenes. A place where Abraham becomes the Father of the Faithful. The Lamb God provides point to the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.
Calvary should have been our cross. Golgotha should have been our punishment. It should have been our death.
Isaiah prophesied 800 years before Jesus. Chapter 53 is called, “The Suffering Servant” (Isaiah 53:5-10)
We all like sheep have gone astray. Therefore He became the Lamb led to our slaughter. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. His punishment brought us peace. By His wounds we are healed.
Abraham would have never experienced the amazing grace of God if He had not obeyed God by walking up that Mt.
Jehovah Jirah. God has provided the perfect, sinless, atoning sacrifice. He wasn’t caught by His horns in a thicket. He was nailed to a cross.
Let us look to the cross up on Calvary and see the blood of the Lamb, poured out for the sin of the world. The cross is where we find our way back to God. It’s where we find our way home.