Foundations of Our Faith: The Story of Genesis
11/09/2003 - The Story of Abraham & Isaac
This morning Valley View joins over 300,000 churches from 130 countries around the world to observe the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Today we remember our brothers and sisters all over the world who are suffering just because they believe "Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so."
The statistics are staggering. A 100 million people were killed for their faith in the 20thcentury alone, more than in all the previous 19 centuries combined. Right now, 200 million Christians face some kind of persecution, either physical abuse, family separation, imprisonment, or death. Nearly 400 million more face discrimination and restrictions of some kind just because they believe in Jesus. The numbers are staggering and the stories are shocking!
This week I read the story of one Chinese believer, a woman who writes, "I became a Christian back in 1991, and after an initial period of feeling very close to Jesus, it became very difficult for a while. I was highly educated, with a good government job, but when I refused to sign forms allowing officials to steal top quality clothing, I was removed."
"Then I went into a house church and began to study the Bible, but the leader was very threatened by me. I didn't mind at all. He was a simple man of peasant stock who said, 'We must never use our minds, for they just lead to trouble, just read the Word and obey it.' But when I began learning Greek over the Internet, that was the last straw."
"Shortly after that I was sent to a far province where there were few Christians. To be 'sent' means to be commissioned. We were not given any money and were supposed to live by faith. I was sent with another woman of 22. I was 28. The house that we built was not warm enough, and that winter was a harsh one. She died of exposure after six months. I was alone, the more so because it seemed like Jesus had abandoned me."
"Then one day in the town, I began sharing my faith with a Muslim man. Unknown to me, he was a leader of a local mosque and by nightfall I was in jail for 'illegal preaching.' I was put into a cell with twenty other women, most of them insane, and I was beaten many times. It was another case of 'where was Jesus' through all this?"
"But through it all I knew the most important thing was to just keep worshipping. And so I knelt and gave thanks to God in the cell every night for three months. Quite honestly, it didn't make me feel any better, but I would have felt horrible if I had not worshipped God."
"I was finally released. Still no converts. No one in the cell had even become a friend, let alone a Christian. I was skin and bones, my house had been broken down, and everything in it stolen by robbers. I remember just sitting in the house. The roof was off and as dusk fell I saw the stars. They were so bright and close I felt I could just reach out and touch them. My immediate instinct was to feel utterly insignificant, but at that moment I suddenly felt a great warmth flowing through me, and I heard a voice distinctly saying, 'The One who IS loves you far more than these stars.'"
"After that I had a new determination to keep going. Two days later, the leader of my house church movement appeared. He was clearly shocked and moved by my emaciated appearance. He heard me talk of my time in jail and I could see that I was now a 'safe' person in his eyes. I had been tested by affliction and come through."
"Four months later, no less than seven women arrived to help me. They said, 'We are to be your co-workers and you are to teach us the Scriptures and we will walk the streets doing evangelism.' Two years later, the church is now 30 strong and we are growing slowly."
"There was a long season in my life when knowing Jesus was not easy, and I had to worship through it all even though I did not feel like it. What really helped was just talking out my distress and disappointment with God. He can take it. It's better to be talking that out with God than not to be talking to Him at all. That, if you like, is great faith."
Did you hear what she said? There was a long season in my life when knowing Jesus was not easy. Can anyone here relate to that? I doubt any of us can relate to the beatings and the imprisonment of this woman, but most of us know something about those seasons in life when knowing Jesus is not easy. When we feel abandoned by him and all alone.
Today we continue our series through the book of Genesis called Foundations of our Faith with another look at the father of our faith, a man called Abraham, a man who knew what it was like to go through long seasons when knowing God was not easy and when he felt abandoned by him and all alone.
Last week we said that Abraham is called the father of our faith because he said "yes" to God in two ways. He said, "yes" to God's promise to give him a land. And he said, "yes" to God's promise to give him a son. Last Sunday we looked at Abraham and the land and today we want to look at Abraham and his son and learn lessons about how to handle those seasons of life when knowing Jesus is not easy.
If you have a Bible turn to Genesis 15. In Genesis 15 we find Abraham struggling with God's promise to give him a son. It's taking forever! God first promised a son to Abraham at the age of 60, when he was still living in the city of Ur. Then he spent 15 years in Haran childless and now he's in the Promised Land pushing 80 and still no kids. Twenty years and nothing!
Look at Genesis 15:1, After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." 2But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
Abraham and Sarah weren't getting anywhere in their attempts to have a child and some of you know that pain. It can be excruciating. So he suggests that God make Eliezer, his servant, the promised son. Eliezer stands for our willingness to settle for less than God's best. Can you blame Abraham? It looks like God isn't going to come through.
We do that sometimes too, don't we? When God doesn't answer our prayers right away or fulfill our dreams right away we can decide to settle for less. And we do that because we're afraid. We're afraid that we're going to miss out on something really good for us. And that fear can cause us to settle for less than God's best whether it's waiting for a son, or for a job, or for a mate, or for something else that we dream of.
So how do we avoid that? How do we hang in there? What did Abraham do? He talked to God about it. Like that woman in China who said, " What really helped was just talking out my distress and disappointment with God. He can take it." Abraham was honest to God about his struggles and his shaky faith. And God took that opportunity to affirm him.
Look at verses 4-6, 4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
God heard Abraham's struggle and just like that Chinese woman sitting in her roofless house, showed him the stars of the sky to reaffirm his love and his promise to make him a dad. And Abraham believed the Lord and God credited it to him as righteousness.
In Romans 4, the apostle Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 to show us that Abraham entered into a right relationship with God by faith, not by doing good works. And that's the same way that we enter into a relationship with God today, by simple faith in Christ.
Romans 4:2-3 says, If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."
If you're stuck in your walk with God, if you're tempted to settle for less than God's best, talk to God about it. Be honest with him. He can handle it. It happens to all of us. Ask him to reveal himself to you in a fresh new way. That may mean getting alone with God and taking a walk at night to look up at the stars. That may mean coming here to worship to get a fresh vision of God each week. It may mean being honest about your struggles with a few who can encourage you. Don't cave in and settle for an Eliezer when God wants to give you an Isaac. Wait on the Lord.
Sometimes we're tempted to settle for less than the best in our walk with God. And sometimes we're tempted to take matters into our own hands and Ishmael is an example of doing it ourselves. Another five or six years go bye and still no children. So Abraham and Sarah hatch a plan to solve their infertility.
Look at Genesis 16:1-4, Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
Sarah figures, "Hey, if I can't have kids, maybe God will give us children through my maidservant, Hagar." So she shares the idea with Abraham and what do you know, he doesn't argue. That sounds good to him! There's no record that he prays about it or seeks God on it, he just does it. And in a one night stand Hagar turns up pregnant. And what looked like a pretty good quick fix sets off a nuclear explosion whose effects are being felt right down to this day.
Look at verses 4-6, When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me." 6"Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
Immediately, the relationship between Sarah and Hagar gets ugly. And then Sarah and Abraham's marriage melts down to the point where Abraham just checks out and says, "Do whatever you want to Hagar." And she does. She gets abusive and Hagar is forced to run away.
Look at verse 7, The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered. 9Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." 10The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." 11The angel of the LORD also said to her:"You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael (God hears), for the LORD has heard of your misery. 12He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."
Right now, what are you waiting for? What is it that your really want that God hasn't given to you yet? Be careful with quick fixes that can cause nuclear explosions. In a one night stand we can make a mistake that causes years of pain and suffering. Ishmael would become the father of the Arab people and later Isaac would become the father of the Jewish people and they have been fighting ever since. The Arab - Israeli conflict going on today, 4,000 years later, has its roots in a quick fix solution that backfired.
Sometimes in our walk with God the hardest thing to do is wait. It is so easy to get impatient and lose heart when God doesn't seem to be doing anything about our problems or about our loneliness or about our marriages or about our life and in our impatience we can come up with quick fix that only makes things worse. Abraham and Sarah were trying to build a family, but instead they ended up tearing two families apart, Abraham's and Hagar's.
Yet even with their mistakes, God in his grace wasn't done with them yet. Isn't that good to know? God's never done with us. He wasn't done with Hagar either. She went on to give birth to Ishmael when Abraham was 86 years old. But then thirteen more years went by. Thirteen years of silence! Still no baby. Until one day Sarah takes a home pregnancy test and it comes up positive. She takes another and another just to be sure and then finally tells Abraham, "I think I'm going to have a baby!"
If Eliezer represents our choice to settle for less than the best and Ishmael represents our choice to do it ourselves. Then Isaac represents our choice to trust God.
Look at Genesis 21:1, Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age; at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac (he laughs) to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me." And she added, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."
Finally, it's a boy! And they put the blue balloons on the mailbox and stick signs in the front yard telling the world of the most exciting day in their lives. Abraham is 100, Sarah is 90 and finally after waiting almost 40 years the child of promise is born. And they knew God did it!
Hebrews 11:11-12 puts it this way, By faith Abraham, even though he was past age-and Sarah herself was barren-was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
Abraham's stumbling faith is rewarded by God. I love the way Augustine, one of the early church fathers, describes faith when he says, "Faith is to believe what we do not see and the reward of faith is to see what we do not believe." That's what happened to Abraham and Sarah. They believed what they didn't see - that God would give them a son. And then their reward was to see what they didn't believe, Isaac.
And at this point, we want to say that they all lived happily ever after. We want a Hollywood ending to the story. But that's not what we get. That's not real life and this is.
Look at verse 8, The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac."
They're not one big happy family. Instead, there's conflict! Little Isaac gets bullied by Ishmael, who is 13 years older, and it gets so bad that Sarah wants Hagar and Ishmael to get out. So Abraham reluctantly sends them away and it breaks his heart. This is his son! But God in his grace promises to take care of them.
Look at verse 11, The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring."
That's great. Now, finally, life can settle down and start to go smoothly. And it does for a few years until Isaac becomes a teenager and God hands Abraham his final exam in faith. You see God will test our faith. Not tempt us, but test us. And when he does it's not to grade us, but to grow us. God's tests are meant to take us to the next level of our faith. And the greatest tests are always the tests of sacrifice.
Look at Genesis 22:1, 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, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
After all that Abraham had been through to get his promised son, Isaac, God comes to him and says, "Kill him! Drive a knife into him and light him on fire!" What kind of a God would ask such a thing? It's horrific! And no one would dare blame Abraham if he said, "No way, God. I've had enough!"
But he doesn't. Look at verse 3, Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled 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.
Abraham obeys God immediately and starts walking. Look at verse 4, 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5He 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. As 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 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.
Abraham was about to go through with it. The altar was built. The wood was arranged. The boy was bound. The knife was raised ready to plunge through Isaac's heart. And at the last possible second God says, "Stop!"
Look at verse 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."
All along God had planned to provide a substitute, a ram to die in Isaac's place. He gave that ram an appetite and led it up the high mountain and when it was rummaging around for food in a thicket it got it's horn stuck. And just at the right time it was there as God's provision. Abraham passed the test with flying colors and God showed him a fresh new part of himself and Abraham called that place Jehovah Jireh, "the Lord Provides."
Abraham passed the toughest test of his life. And God honored him for it. Look at verses 15-19, The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17I 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, 18and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." 19Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.
Hebrews 11:17-19 tells us the secret to Abraham's obedience. By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." 19Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Abraham's faith included a resurrection, even though he'd never seen a resurrection. He believed that even if he had killed Isaac God could raise him from the dead. He believed that God could do anything. Do you? He can if you're willing to wait on him.
And so God blessed Abraham's faith even more and from his son, Isaac, he eventually made his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the beach. And now the Bible says you and I are his descendants if we believe in Abraham's God and what he did for us two thousand years later.
For you see, God himself took the same test that he gave to Abraham. On a hill, not far from Mount Moriah, just outside of Jerusalem, God took his son, his only son, the son whom he loves, Jesus Christ, and sacrificed him in our place, for our sin, on a Roman cross. Jesus became the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He became our substitute and took the punishment for our sin, so that if we believe in him we have eternal life. And three days later he rose from the dead. That's the gospel. That's the provision Jehovah Jireh has made for each one of us. He's provided forgiveness of sin through the death of his son on the cross. He's provided the Holy Spirit and the power for us to trust him and wait for his best.
In every one of our lives there are seasons when it's hard to trust God. In those seasons of struggle don't settle for less than God's best like Eliezer. Don't look for a quick fix like Ishmael. Instead, like Isaac keep waiting and trusting in God's promises.