The Sacrifice of Isaac

(soft music) - Genesis 22 starting in verse one. Sometime later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham, here I am," he replied. Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac." And go to the region of Mariah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain, I will show you. 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. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 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." 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, Isaac spoke up and said to his father, Abraham, "Father, yes, my son," Abraham replied. The fire and wood are here, as it said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. 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. And then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham. "Here I am," he replied, "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." Abraham looked up and there in the 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. 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. The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself," declares the Lord, "that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 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 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me." Then Abraham returned to his servants and they set off together for Bershiba and Abraham stayed in Bershiba. This is the word of the Lord. - Hey everybody. Hello. How are you? Good. How do you imagine I'm doing with the job that I have? Right now, which I did say yes to teaching on this passage in fact specifically, whether we are gonna regret that, let's find out. Shall we? One of the earliest memories that I have as a little boy was growing up not far from here, just on lower, half the river in Boulevard and one of these really old, really old, old reportland houses, 100 years old. And it had an unfinished basement, you know like many old Portland houses do, which meant you know you can maybe have one room that's finished out but usually it's these like really almost like crumbly foundation walls with like short windows and there's lots of spiders and webs, anybody have one of these? Yeah, there you go, they're great, really creepy places that hang out. My dad chose an unfinished part of our basement to make his like hobby room, hobby shop and he was a passionate like model car maker, hot rods and model trucks and so on. And so I wanted to be like my dad and hang out with him and so I would go down there. And he had this bookshelf that when I was little was really tall to me and up on the top of it was the object of my desire. And the object of my desire was a vintage Daisy number 25 pump action, bevy rifle made in 1933 that his dad gave to him. There's a little newspaper advertisement there that you can see for it. The happy Daisy boy made happier, this is what it says. So apparently this was the 1900s which was when I was born, you know and giving kids things that looked like real shotguns was acceptable back then, I guess apparently. But I'd saw it up there and my dad also love cowboy movies and I grew up watching all the little Clint Eastwood westerns. And so my mind I would see the Daisy number 25 and I had this golden future of like setting up pyramids of soda cans in our backyard and drawing like bank robber targets and putting them on our back fence of our tiny little backyard. And at some point when I was like 10 or 11 my dad got it down and he taught me bebegun safety. I mean responsible dad, right? And nurse blasters were not invented yet at this point by the way. So he got it down, he taught me bebegun safety and we went and he set out targets and he taught me how to use the thing and he gave it to me. And I have such vivid memories of shooting targets in soda cans and so on. And I have a really clear memory of one day when I was like shooting at soda cans and a bird came and landed on this like bush in our yard and you guys, I didn't even hesitate. I just like shifted right to aim at this bird and the rifle was really old and not that accurate but I hit the bird like it fell right to the ground. And so I went up to this bird and it was dead. Like it was dead. I killed the bird and the reason why the image is in my mind is because the feeling of dread horror came over me and I felt like I just like broke the universe or something because I had just killed a creature like took its life for my own entertainment. It was a terrible feeling actually and I never told my dad about that. I'll probably find out about it now. I also had one pretty irresponsible moment when I was shooting targets in the backyard and the back fence, you know a year or two in was just like riddled with embedded like BB pellets so it just stuck into the wood and then when it would rain they began to rust and have these weird rust spots so I just I ruined the back fence. And it started rain and when I was shooting at targets and so I just did when he left in your old pool to us which is like drop it and leave it in the grass and go inside and probably forget about it for a really long time like a week may be more probably. My dad found it just in the backyard. However long later like mowing the grass and it already was not in great condition but it had started to rust like inside. And you know my dad looked at his ruined back fence and he sat me down and he said son the day's the number 25 is no longer available to you. You might be able to get it back one day if you could earn my trust the year would be like responsible with it but for the time being like I need to take it back. And I eventually did get it back like I was many years later as my late teens or something and he gave it to me and it really didn't work at all anymore. And my obsession with it had faded. And so I still have it today. It's in my basement kind of like wrapped up this like family memento and like his dad gave it to him. He gave it to me maybe I'll give it to my boys maybe. Not if they can get it to work again but. I tell you that story because it's a moment where I remember learning a lesson that I have had to keep relearning at many seasons of my life. And that's this. As we go through life this is a very complicated place here our world and there are so many beautiful good things that come our way. A true surprises. And I'm talking about like the ultimate goods in life like you find a best friend for a lifetime. You find a community of people that you feel safe with where you're known and you belong and like that's your crew. You find a spouse may start a family if you're able to. For some of us some of life's gifts come our way because we have the privilege of discovering who we are and what we're good at and what we're passionate about. And so you end up like in a vocation or a job that you just like love and brings you a lot of fulfillment for others of us it might be like discovering like the hobby or the sport whatever it is. thing in your life that actually makes your life good, that's the thing I'm talking about. And we, you know, we're not born with all these things in our life. They happen to us as we go through our days. And then life just gets way better. It's more fun, it's more rich, and it's more delightful. And there is a strange funky thing that happens in human psychology because the goodness of these gifts is so good. And it happens lots of different ways. We can't over time get over familiar with the good gifts of our lives and being able to undervalue them, right? And so we just like we get used to them, we take it for granted, it's kind of always been there, right? And the thrill is gone. Or it could be the opposite of overvaluing the gift. And the goodness that life's gifts bring into our lives, it's so good that it's like, I really start to believe I need the gift to be like a whole complete person. I'm not sure I can live without that gift. And you kind of know you're like that attached to the gift when it's threatened or when it's taken away and you just are filled with anxiety or fall apart. And so this is one of the great paradoxes of the human condition about the good things in our lives is that they are also potentially corrosive to our soul. Are you with me? I guess it's so complicated here, but this is life as we know it. And when my dad sat me down to take away the Daisy number 25, it was because I stopped treating it as a gift. Gifts are given in generosity. Gifts are an expression of love from someone. And when I start to view it as mine, to do with it what I please, and I need it. I've got to have it like something's gone wrong in the system. And my dad could see that. And so he decided to take, he made the hard call to take away the gift that I've become so attached to. A few minutes ago we just heard read aloud one of the most challenging difficult stories for us to process in the first half of our Bible, first three quarters, the Old Testament. And for many of us, we hear a story where God asks the dad to sacrifice his son. This is actually the only one like it in the whole Bible. But we read a story like this and we're like, you know, this is like part of, like I don't really want to read the Bible in the first place anyway. At least not in the first three quarters. Because God keeps doing stuff like this, right? And are we ready to kind of like move on from all this ancient religion, child sacrifice stuff and angry God and, you know, go the way of the God of love and so on? Whether anything like that happened in your mind as you were reading it, maybe it was just the feeling of discomfort that you have. And so here's what I would just invite you to do. I would invite you to have an open mind. And to consider that perhaps the story actually has immense wisdom to offer us. And perhaps what God is doing with Abraham is something like what my dad had to do with me. This story in Genesis 22 is a culminating moment in the life of Abraham and his wife, Sarah, and it all revolves around a gift that God has been wanting to give to this couple which is a son. And you could see in God's command here and you could see in my dad's confrontation with me the act of a cruel father, you know, depriving his child of what is good. Or you could see it as the act of a wise and loving father who knows that if my child keeps treating that gift the way they have been, they're going to damage it, which I did, to the Beebe gun. They're going to hurt other people like I did to the bird and I'm going to hurt myself. You know, I actually did, this is true. I began to wonder like, you know, so do cans of metal. And I wonder if I got my like Tonka toe truck and that's also metal and like how much metal can a Beebe punch through really. And so turns out it can't punch through the side of like a toy truck. And so the Beebe ricocheted and it landed like right here, it hit me right here, which was the proverbial, you know, with the Beebe gun. Yeah, you're going to shoot your eye out. I almost did, you know, kind of with the ricochet. Is it possible that what God is doing with Abraham is something like what my dad was doing with me? Would you look back at the first sentence of the story with me in Genesis chapter 22? Depending on your translation, you may or may not notice something. Some of your translations have sometime later God tested Abraham. Others of you are going to have a translation something like it came about after these things. That's how it actually reads in the original language. It came about after these things, God tested Abraham. That's a super important little introduction because what the author is doing is explicitly connecting. God is doing with Abraham right here to all of these things. That is everything that's happened in the story so far. And what are those things then? And why would God be testing Abraham specifically regarding his son? I am so glad you asked those astute questions. My students and here's your Hebrew lesson for the day, even though you didn't ask for it. You're going to get one. Our word test is really important word that begins the story. God is testing Abraham. So I don't know what comes into your mind when you hear the word test. You probably think of school and a lot of anxiety or stress. The word test in Hebrew is Nisah. And what it essentially means is providing an opportunity for the truth to be revealed. There's a story about one of the Bible's most famous kings, God named Solomon, in one kings chapter 10. And he's really wealthy and really, really smart and wise. He's known as the wisest guy around. And so the queen of Shiva, like from Central Africa, comes and on this long trip with an entourage and spends all day asking Solomon the hardest questions that she can think of, too, the story says, Nisah. You can see if what everybody says about this guy is actually the case. She wants to demonstrate the truthfulness of what seems to be. So you Nisah something when integrity is in question. When it's not clear whether something is in fact what it is, that's when you Nisah something. And that just again brings us back to our question of why would God need to reveal the truth about something inside of Abraham as it relates to his son specifically. Let's go with that question for a minute here. First we should bring up one possible reason just to clear it off the table immediately. And that's this. The God of the Bible does not and just never has desired the sacrifice of children from his people. Just never. Many times over when God is instructing his Israelites about how to live and not to live to represent him when they go into the land of Canaan. They are told explicitly to watch out for this practice. God says it in Leviticus 18, which is one example. Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech. Molech was a Canaanite deity of the underworld like of the grave. And God calls that act profaning the name of your God because I am Yahweh. I have nothing to do with Canaanite gods who want that kind of thing from you. God is even more passionate about this when he speaks to Jeremiah. This is in Jeremiah 32 where God says the people of Israel and Judah have provoked me by the evil that they've done. They build these sacrificial pillars in the valley of Ben-Henom to sacrifice their kids to Molech. I never commanded this, God says. It's not even a thing that would ever enter my mind that my people should do such a thing. God's super clear. Yahweh is not like the God of Israel's neighbors who would occasionally ask for the ultimate sacrifice of someone's child, usually to win a victory in battle. There's a story about that in two kings chapter 1 where for rain for your crops. So if God rejects child sacrifice, just totally, in all these other parts of the Bible that just brings us back to the puzzle, the riddle of this story, which is what is God doing, asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. So I'll just give you the punchline, at least this is my current take. I've been staring at the story for 30 years, bothered by it, and I've given it my best thought and asked me in 10 more years and I'll probably want to nuance it a little bit more. But here's where I'm currently at in the most contemporary lingo that I can manage. God is revealing the truth about Abraham and Sarah's so to speak, unhealthy, in measurement or overattachment to their son Isaac. Because like my 10-year-old self with the day's eat number 25, the gift has actually become corrosive to their character, harmful to them, and harmful to the people around them. And God has to put a stop to it. Here's how we get there. Do you remember the first thing that we were told about Abraham and Sarah when they first got married? If you've been following these teachings through Genesis, this is like many, many Sundays ago. This is in Genesis chapter 11. It's actually when you're first introduced to the character of Sarah. Do you remember what you were told about her? Here it is on screen. Just in case you don't remember. Genesis 11, verse 30, Sarah, I was childless because she was not able to conceive. So the first thing we're told about Sarah is that something very painful, like a deep wound, and a patriarchal society in which she found herself where women's value, at least as a wife, was about your ability to produce children. This is a deeply painful, shameful wound that she would be carrying. Also remember that the first thing like sentence is later that God says to Abraham is, "Hey, Abraham, I'm gonna do something for you and Sarah that you'll never believe. I'm gonna bless you and I'm gonna give you promise number one, a huge family, like lots of kids, which of course has to begin with having one kid. And then all of those kids are gonna live in this land than I wanna give to you and your descendants. Children and land are the two main promises and you're just like, okay, I don't know how that's ever gonna work, but here we go. And that's Abraham's journey of faith. Wow, which he mostly like does everything in his power just threaten and put into jeopardy God's promises in the page of the follow, right? And if you've been following the series, we've been trying to highlight this. Remember the first story of what Abraham did after he got into the land and my setup camped there. He promptly left the land because of the food shortage. Do you remember this? And then he had this really great idea on their way down to Egypt to get food. He was like, oh man, probably people are gonna see you, Sarah, and you're really, really beautiful. And some people are gonna kill me when they say like, that guy is her husband. So here's an idea, let's lie to everybody and say that I'm not even your husband. And then when somebody tries to marry you, I'll take the bride, tries, they'll do good to me on account of you and then we'll make back for Canaan with all the loot. You guys with me? This is a great idea, right? Just exposing Sarah to all this risk, the pattern with him that we're gonna see replay later. And the king of Egypt is the one who notices Sarah and so God has to intervene and defend Sarah when Abraham would have. And he gets rich off the ski and so he ends up coming back into the land. Decades go by, still don't have any children. And so Abraham brings us up with God and so God, takes Abraham out on the night sky, he says, hey listen, all of these stars, this is how many children you and Sarah are gonna have. And Abraham for a second, like a hot second, trust in God's promise. Until the next challenge comes along and you might remember this, Sarah has her own great idea now which is like okay, I'm not having kids, but how about this? You know all that loot we got from Egypt, one of the things that we obtained was an Egyptian slave, like a woman. And her name's Heigar, how about this? She becomes like your slave wife and you get her pregnant and then her kid will belong to me 'cause I am her master. This is a good plan, right? And so that's what happens and Sarah is so wounded and insecure, she instantly becomes like jealous and she becomes so abusive to Heigar who's pregnant. She can't take it and she flees out into the wilderness. You guys remember this story? And so God intervenes and he saves Heigar, he provides food and water for her in the wilderness and he says go back to Abraham and Sarah for a time. Years go by, finally, Sarah becomes pregnant. Genesis 21 verse 1. The Lord was gracious to Sarah, as he said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he promised. Sarah became pregnant. She bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the time, God promised him and Abraham gave the name laughter, what Isaac means in Hebrew, gave the name Isaac to the son, Sarah bore to him. Thanks be to God, friends. Abraham and Sarah finally have the thing that they have longed for all of these years. And I'm just sure that now that they have what they've wanted, all their bad habits are just gonna evaporate, right? (laughs) And they're just gonna automatically become like content, generous, peace-loving, non-anxious people, right? Genesis 21 verse 8. So Isaac grew up and he stopped nursing. And Abraham made a great feast on the day Isaac stopped nursing. And Sarah saw the son of Heigar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne for Abraham playing. And she said to Abraham, cast out that slave woman with her son, because that son of a slave woman he will never be an heir along with my son, Isaac. Those are the wounds of someone who is very afraid, who is deeply wounded and insecure. He's my son, Isaac, right? That Egyptian son will never. You know, when a 10-year-old is inappropriately attached to a B.V. rifle, you know, you get a dead bird and a ruined fence. When adults are inappropriately attached to like other human beings, like their kids, it seems like the stakes get a lot higher. And the consequences get way more serious and that is exactly what we're watching here. And so God intervenes, this is very complicated situation. He tells Abraham, like, you got to separate like these mothers and their sons. And we're told Abraham is actually really sad about this. But then the plan that Abraham and Sarah come up with is to send Heigar and Ishmael just like packing out into the wilderness and what they give them is a loaf of bread and a water bottle. And it's not very long before the provisions run out. And Heigar, she's got this like little toddler with her and he's just like he's dying of thirst. And it's this horrible scene. This is right before the story that we're focusing on. And so you have this mom with a dying little toddler and so she like sets him under a bush and then she has to like retreat because she says like, I can't watch my own son die before my eyes. And God hears her cry and he intervenes. And he opens her eyes and she knows this is a spring of water and she's able to get like water for her and her son. And then God meets them. He promises to bless them, give them a big family, a place to live and they actually survive. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him in my paraphrase, Abraham, you know that son that you and Sarah were willing to manipulate and abuse other people so that you could get. And to protect that son, you endangered and nearly killed your immigrant slave and her son. You have that son. I need that son back. You clearly are not able to handle this gift responsibly. It's ruining you and through you, it's ruining the people around you. I need you to give it back to me. And this is even more intense than that you guys. Not only is God asking for the gift back, God is doing it in a way that brings Abraham and Sarah's abusive Hagar and Ishmael back on their own heads. It's as if God is saying, okay, Abraham, you were willing to sacrifice Hagar and her son to get what you want. And your actions forced her to surrender her son in anguish over to death. Do you know what that feels like, Abraham? I need you to feel that. It's really severe. It's really severe. But is it unjust? Really? God's giving Abraham like a measure for measure response so that he can feel what he just forced his slave to feel. And I understand that God's severity in the Old Testament can be really off-putting to us. It often is for me too. But I was forced in this story to consider the alternative. Do I really want a God who's apathetic about this kind of treatment of other human beings? Do I want a God who's ignores this? God takes the abuse of slaves and. of children very seriously in scripture. He doesn't let it go unaccounted for. God is just, and that's what we're watching, being expressed in God's test of Abraham. But God is also merciful, like more merciful than any of us could possibly imagine. Remember at the last moment with Heygar, God intervened, and he saved her inish mail by providing like that spring of water as the sun lay under a bush. Took that away. I wonder if God has any other merciful interventions up his sleeve. How you guys done? Verse three. Early the next morning, Abraham got up, loaded his donkey. He took with him two servants in his son Isaac, and when he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God told him. And on the third day, Abraham looked up and he saw the place in the distance, and he said to his servants, pay attention. Stay here, you guys, with the donkey. While I and the boy, we're gonna go over there. We're gonna worship, and we will come back to you. The great mystery of the story is what on earth is Abe feeling and thinking for those three days. That's not a short amount of time when you're in this kind of situation. And we are just not told. We are shown his actions and these very few words, but there's few words, there's the universe in his words. Notice the "we," the boy and I, we are going to go, then we are going to worship, and then we, the boy and I will come back. So that "we" reveals, I think, something really important about Abraham tuning in to what is happening here. It would have been very easy for Abraham to conclude from God's command that he and Sarah just crossed the line, like they just went too far, too far, and God's done with them. But apparently Abe doesn't think that, because he says, "The boy and I, we are going to come back." And that is a sign to me of somebody who trusts. Somebody who trusts that, yes, God is holding me account. Yes, God is just, but God has to also be true to who I know God to be, which is also merciful. Look at what follows. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, and he put it on Isaac's son. He carried, he abandoned the fire, and the knife, just the drama of the scene, and the two of them just going on together. And Isaac spoke up, he just makes everything worse here unintentionally. He says, "Father, Abraham, father, yes, my son," Abraham replied, "It's kind of weird, Dad, because like there's the fire, and there's the wood, and we're going to make an offering to God up there, but like where's the lamb?" And Abraham answered, "God will personally provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son, and the two of them went on together. God will provide the lamb." That's the NIV translations, probably most of your translations that you have that would provide there, and that's great. That's a great English kind of interpretation. There is something really interesting, this is your second Hebrew lesson for the day. There is something really interesting about the word used here. The word, "Ahh, you'll see it up here on the screen." It means to see. It's the most basic Hebrew word to look at or to see. And it's being used here in a way that's like a figure of speech that we also have in English. I don't think we use it very often. If a friend called you and they're like, "Hey, could you do this favor for me?" You might respond, "Yeah, I'll see to it." Anybody? Does anybody use this phrase anymore? To see to it? You probably would never say that. You would just say, "Yeah, I'll do that." But if you wanted to be creative and sound artsy, you would say, "I'll see to it." Or something. So, regardless of whether you use it, do you know what it means? Do you like to see to it? Yeah, it's a figure of speech. You'll see it. That's exactly the figure of speech Abraham's using here. But why? It's a weird way to say it. God will see the Lamb, my son. This is a glowing red hyperlink as a word. This word to see, "Ah, appears." Can you just guess how many times in this story? Seven times. Hmm, seven times. And that's a really common little device that biblical authors use. Along with a whole bunch of other like key words and hyperlinks that are all being borrowed from. It's the story of creation in seven days and the story of the Garden of Eden. Yes, my friends, it all leads back to the Garden of Eden. And you remember in that story, the word "see" was super important in the story of Adam and Eve. God wanted to give a good gift to Adam and Eve. All of these trees that are called good for seeing and good for eating, but there was one tree that would kill them, right? The tree's knowing good and bad, which is kind of like a weird puzzle because it seems like Adam and Eve. Yes, Abraham, but also Adam and Eve are going to need to know good and bad if they're going to rule the world as God's partners, right? As images of God. And so this tree represents the choice of whether Adam and Eve are going to trust God to give us the wisdom about good and bad in God's own wisdom and time. Or we have this opportunity to take based on what I see. And based on my limited knowledge of what I see and maybe some plan I can come up with, I could actually help God give that gift to me by taking it in my own plan and by my own wisdom. That's essentially the plot conflict that's stirring in the Garden of Eden story. And you know how the story goes, right? The people see, they desire, and then they take for themselves. And that's the foundational pattern of human folly and failure throughout the rest of the book of Genesis. And like everybody does it, Adam and Eve do it, their son Cain does it, the generation of Noah does it, then Noah himself does it, then his kids do the same pattern, then the people of Babylon. And now Abraham and Sarah, like time and time and time and time again. God keeps wanting to give the gifts of Eden to his people. And they keep being either not ready for it or impatient. And then when they finally do scheme and plot a way to get the good gift for themselves, it just destroys them and it ruins everything and they hurt themselves and they hurt other people. Anybody? Abraham as it were sees all of this. All of this is packed into that little phrase, "God will see." When human see and do what's good in their eyes, well we know the kind of world that creates, God will see to it my son. I'm done trying to see for myself. It's not working. But God will see. They reached the place that God told him about, this verse 9. Abraham built an altar and he arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and he laid him on the altar on top of the woods. And he reached out his hand and he took the knife to slay his son. I mean, it's just like building, building the intensity. But then the angel of the Lord called out, "Abraham." Abraham, just like at the beginning of this story, "Here I am," he replied, "Don't touch the boy. Don't lay a hand on him. Don't do anything." Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld for me your son, your only son. There's so many little riddles in this paragraph, I just want to point out one. The moment that Abraham releases the gift of his son fully back over to God is the moment that he receives his son back. They're the same moment. Do you see that? It's as if in the act of losing Isaac, that's how he saves Isaac. I feel like Jesus said something like that once. Like the one who wants to save their life has to lose it. And whoever loses their life, if you've got me in the equation, you find it. It's like the moment that Abraham abandoned himself completely over to God. His son, his own life, all of his hopes for the future of his family. He abandoned himself to God's justice and to God's mercy. And what he finds is that God has not abandoned him or Isaac. And it gets better. Verse 13, "Abraham looked up. He looked and there in a thicket." That is, he looks at the tree. And there's this ram caught by its horns. So wild. And so he went over and he took the ram and he sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. Abraham called that place, "The Lord will see to it." In Hebrew, Yahweh Yira, that word, "rah" in older kind of transliterations into English. It's Jehovah Jairah, maybe you've sung that song. Maybe your grandparents did as a kid. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided." This is so wild, you guys. On the same exact mountain, God shows justice on the sins of Abraham and Sarah against Hagar. And on the very same mountain, God shows mercy, which is something Abraham and Sarah never showed to Hagar in the Shmale. And what's wild is God had to have planned all along. Like that ram didn't like poof into existence there in the bush. You know what I mean? Like that thing wandered up on the hilltop like looking for thistles or something. And it's like how long ago did that happen? Right? We're meditating on the mysterious providence and provision of God to orchestrate our lives and our stories towards redemption and healing. And so God, the picture of God is so nuanced. And it's maybe not what any of us want because there's an intensity and a severity to God's response to everything Abraham and Sarah did to Hagar and Shmale. But at the same time, there is an enormous creative generosity and mercy here. And look at verse 14, this is so important. We're told Abraham called that place, "Yahweh yehah." The Lord will provide. And then maybe some of you notice, somebody else just starts talking. Hey, dear reader, do you know to this day that's why we say on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided? Like who's that? Who's talking to that verse right now? If they were like a movie, you know, this would be like you would pause the movie and there'd be like the weird little line like when you pause the VHS movies long time ago. Remember that? So it would be like a line through it. And then all of a sudden like a little head pops into the corner and it's just like, "Hey everybody, okay." So this story that I'm telling you about this thing that God you did for Abraham and Isaac way back when? Yep, so God's gonna do that again. On the mountain of the Lord, you know, like sometime in the future. The mountain of the Lord is the standard phrase in the Old Testament to talk about the hilltop in Jerusalem where the temple was built and where Israel offered their sacrifices. It's also the city where somebody that you and I happen to follow as a rabbi was crucified and offered his life, but I get ahead of myself. Whatever is happening in verse 14, somebody is trying to whisper on our ear, you know, this thing that God did to act as both judge and generous mercy giver. It wasn't just something God did one time for one person back then. It's something God is going to do again. And he's going to do it right here in the midst of where everything in the biblical story goes down around the temple in Jerusalem. And what God did wasn't just for Abraham and Isaac. Look at how the story finishes. The angel called to Abraham a second time saying, "I swear an oath." Like, "By myself," declares the Lord. Like God's, he's already pretty serious. Now he's getting really serious. I promise on oath because you did this. You haven't withheld your son, your only son. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies. And through your descendants, all of the nations on the earth will be blessed because you obeyed me. This is like it's cosmic. Abraham's moment of utter self-abandonment to surrender the good gift back to God is the moment that he receives the gift back. And not only that, the giving is the receiving. And that trust, that radical trust, is what unleashes the blessings of Eden to flow out to all of the nations, which I'm pretty sure includes you and me, like sitting in this room. Are you with me? Like what happened on that day? Had cosmic significance, at least, as how the biblical stories goes. And it shows us something about God that with this God losing is finding. And giving up what we think is good is actually how we receive what is best. And dying is the way to live. And surrendering is victory. And this isn't just a one-time thing. This is like the way the universe works. This is like where history's gone. How you guys doing? So Tim, are you saying, that the story is saying, that God's people, when they suffer, and when they lose the good things in their lives, they're hopeful that they love that God is testing them or visiting some past sin upon them. Is that what the story is trying to share with us? I don't think so. I think that is what God was doing with Abraham at this moment in his life story. Abraham did some pretty severely horrible things to other people. And so this is giving us a perspective on how God might deal with some people in some situations. But the Bible offers many, many counter stories about suffering and loss. Think of the stories of Job, or the story of the man born blind, the Jesus heals in the gospel of John. And those stories are super clear that these people's loss and suffering has nothing to do with any past failures. It's not like a consequence of sin. And this is either frustrating or beautiful about Scripture that it doesn't offer like a cookie cutter, one size fits all explanation. For why we face the hardships that we do. And Jesus was very clear in this world, y'all are just going to have trouble and lots of it. The most basic explanation that the Bible gives about suffering is that we are outside of Eden. And things are not okay out here. We are afraid, we're insecure, we are sick, we're decaying, we're dying. And all of our insecurities and disordered desires and like weird overattachments, you know, you multiply those by a few billion human beings. Over many, many, many thousands of years and you get a world like ours. You know, we're just, we're born into the sticky web that we all keep adding to by the things that we do or by the good things that we don't do that we ought to have done. Are you with me? I'm like, none of us can escape it. And then we die. [Laughter] And that's the Bible's realistic depiction of like the situation that we find ourselves in, but that's only one perspective. It's also the case that every one of those hardships that we face, every one of those losses of good things that we love, regardless of why it's happening and Scripture has so many perspectives on the why. But those losses provide us with moments to surrender and to break our inappropriate attachments to the good gifts that God has given us. And here's the paradox is that in giving over fully these gifts back to God who gave them in the first place, that actually is the way to truly enjoy them as gifts that they are. And it also begins to train our souls, mature us so that when we finally do have to say goodbye to all of those guests and we are all going to have to say goodbye, we can trust that God will not abandon his promise to resurrect and recreate every good thing in his creation, every good thing. And on Abraham's best day, he knew that and he acted on that trust and we just read the story. That was one day in the life of not so honest Abe, you know, one day. In a life filled with lots of days where he did not do that. And man, I really, really resonate with that. I might have a good day every now and then like Abe, not nearly as dramatic. But mostly my life like yours is full of fears and insecurities and over attachments. And I contribute to the sad mess, you know, the we're in outside of Eden just like you do. This year is 2026 and this marks my 50th trip around the sun on the flying space rock that we're all on. And such a weird, weird being a human is just weird in general. But I'm really young in one sense, but like there's a number of you that are my elders, but I feel it. It used to be the case that I would wake up from a night's sleep and like I would feel better. And like now I wake up and it's like everything hurts. And you're like, what? I thought it didn't use to work like this. And in the last few months I have this eye problem that's like kind of serious. There's some solutions to it, but it's pretty serious. And I have these knee issues now, you know, I'm just like I can see the train coming into the station. I have Lord willing decades, but I can see it. I can see it coming. And those of you who are years ahead of me, like you know this already, living outside of Eden, but especially if you're able to live into later years, is just one long school in surrender, one long school of surrendering God's good gifts back to God. In verse 14, the story is saying, "Dear reader, there is nothing you can ever surrender to God, that God will not give back to you in recreated resurrected form, more than you could ever ask or imagine, because of what God did for Abraham and Isaac, and because of the thing that he said he would do again on the mountain of the Lord." What's that thing? Do you remember that? Verse 14. Here's a question you've probably never asked, but I'm going to force you to ask it. Have you ever wondered why the first page of the New Testament opens with the genealogy that you don't like to read? It's a genealogy about Jesus. And it opens this way. It's really interesting. It's Matthew chapter one. This is the genealogy of Jesus, Messiah, the Son of Abraham. It's giving you the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Now who is the Son of Abraham? Like you're told immediately here. Who is it? His Isaac. But who's also the Son of Abraham? Jesus. So wait, the Son of Abraham is Isaac or Jesus? Exactly right? Exactly right? It says if we're being set up to expect that Jesus is going to have an Isaac-like thing happen to him. Just a few pages later in Matthew's gospel when Jesus goes into the Jordan River to be baptized, God the Father said something about Jesus, the Son of God. And what he says is you'll see it up here on the screen. It's in verse 17. What God says is, "This is my Son, the Son whom I love." That is exactly what God said about the Son of Abraham in the opening of Genesis 22. Take your Son, your only Son, the one whom you love. God, the Father is calling, Jesus, the Son of God, what Isaac was called in Genesis 22. You know what's also interesting is that if you fast forward in Matthew's gospel to the night before Jesus dies right before he gets arrested and he's kneeling in the Garden of Cassemony and three times he prays this prayer, Father, if there's some other way to redeem the human family, like let's go that plan. But if this is your desire, not what I desire, but you desire, three times, he prays that prayer. And then he goes back to his disciples who are sleeping and he says, "You guys, this is the night, "he calls it of the great test." He called it the test, like exactly, what Abraham and Isaac's experience was called in Genesis 22. So if Jesus is like this Son of Abraham, this Isaac figure, he is also going to surrender his life and become like the blameless representative, are you with me? So he's also like the ram. And then who is like the Abraham, Father's figure, it's God. I mean, this is just astounding. What the gospel, according to Matthew, who's trying to tell us is saying, like, listen, y'all are going into this world here outside of Eden and it's not okay. And we're doing terrible things to each other out here and we're all dying and it's really painful for us. And we have good days every once in a while, but it's just not really working for us. What if there was a Son of Abraham and a ram and a Father who would pass the ultimate test, who would reveal the truth about who God is as he looks out on this sad, like dying train wreck called human history. And what the test of Jesus reveals is that the Father and the Son are cooperating together to surrender the Son over to death only to recover and regain him in resurrection again on your behalf to cover for your failures and for mine. This is good news, amen? This is good news. This is also why the apostles were so taken with the story of Abraham and Isaac. It's why the Apostle Paul will sometimes use the language of our story to summarize everything that God did for us in and through Jesus. He puts it this way in Romans chapter eight. He says, listen, you guys, if God is for us, who could possibly be against us? If the one who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him over for us all, won't he also together with the Son give you everything good you could have ever longed or desired? Do you see what he's saying? What Abraham and Sarah forced Hagar and Ishmael to experience is what God forces Abraham to experience is what God himself experiences in handing over the Son and raising the Son from the dead on our behalf. Are you guys with me? This is so powerful. And I realize I've been talking for a long time and it's a really important story and how the logic of the Bible works. We should read Genesis 22 and see a mirror and see our reflection in the stories of Abraham and Sarah and the abuse of the good gifts that God's been trying to give them. And what we should see is the portrait of God is just holding us to account for our actions and that is good. And what we should see is that God is more generous and more merciful that he doesn't even do any of this at a distance. God has undergone loss within God's own self precisely to recover his lost and wandering children. Amen. This is the good news. So I don't know, here's what I would invite you to do. I would invite you to call to your mind, maybe it might help to close your eyes, adjust your posture in some way. I would invite you to just call up in your mind's eye. One of these good like gifts in your life. Like who is somebody or what's something in your life that actually makes your life good? It's really precious. And what I wonder is, if while we've been pondering the story, if the Holy Spirit has been trying to like probe and poke a little bit and help reveal to you that there is some pretty unhealthy attachment and need connected to this really, really good gift that God has put into your life. You might be able to recognize that over attachment because when you think about that good gift leaving your life, you don't know how you would handle it. Lot of anxiety and fear rises up. Maybe to protect that gift, you have found yourself acting, forming habits that do not lead you to life. And maybe the Holy Spirit just wants, just wants to show you that. That could be a huge, a huge thing. I wonder if there are some of us who, the person or the thing that came to our mind is something that you are losing or something that you have lost is very painful. What do you imagine God's response to you is in that place of loss? Do you imagine God is cruel, taking it away? Or can you see God kneeling in the garden of Gesemini with you, suffering, grieving, surrendering, everything over to the Father in trust that God is more good, He is more creative and He can bring resurrection out of this loss and death. Holy Spirit, would you please come and be our comforter and our healer and our guide? Thanks for joining the Bridgetown family as we engage in this teaching series. To learn more about the life of our church and how you can get involved, visit Bridgetown.Church/Welcome. If you're interested in contributing financially to Bridgetown Church and to our ministry, you can do that at Bridgetown.Church/giving. Wherever you're joining us from, we hope this resource blesses you and encourages you to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.