Stolen Blessing

Stolen Blessing

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. That sounds like a daylight savings time. Welcome right there. Oh, there we go. Encore. My name is Spencer.

I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City. We've been walking through Genesis, through the story of the patriarchs. We're in Genesis 27 today, which is on page 12 in your blue Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, please take that home. That's our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible that you can read.

There won't be a ton of text on the screen this morning, so I'd encourage you to follow along as we walk through this story. We've been walking through Abraham into Isaac, and the next patriarch is Jacob. We're kind of shifting from Isaac into the story of Jacob with this story today. One of the best television series, I would argue, of all time is Breaking Bad. It is, I mean, you can probably put some other ones up there good, but I think Breaking Bad, by and large, is one of the best. It's one of the best written shows.

It's one of the best directed shows. The acting in it is phenomenal. The story line, it's a phenomenal story about a character named Walter White. And Walter White is a high school chemistry teacher. And he gets cancer, and he doesn't have the money to pay his bills. So if you're in New Mexico and you're looking to make some money, him being a chemistry teacher, he decides to start making meth.

And you feel a little bit sorry for him, a little bit sympathetic at first, because he's dying and he needs help. But he quickly kind of morphs into an antihero. It becomes less about him making money to survive and more about power. And he becomes more and more corrupt as the story goes. By the end of it, he's killed people, he's done terrible things, and by the end of it, you're not pulling for anymore. You want what is coming to him.

You want justice to be done. He's a frustrating character and a pretty great story. And I feel like Jacob is similar, minus the meth and some of the drama that comes with that. He's just a frustrating character. He comes in, born as a twin of Esau. He comes in grabbing the heel of Esau.

And his name is Jacob. It's a play on words that he, on the phrase deceiver, that he's going to be deceptive. It's prophetic. Looking forward to his story. A couple weeks ago, we got to see what that looked like when he cheated, when he stole his brother's birthright of Rabola Stew. We start to see that he's schemey, that he's a deceiver.

And the more we get to know him, the more frustrating he is. I would say he's probably one of the most unlikable people in the Bible. And that he really is a deceiver, like his name. And there are moments in the coming weeks, as we walk through his story, we're going to see moments of faith where he's trusting the promise. But there's a lot of mess in the middle of it.

Especially here at the beginning of his story. So as we look at this story today, it's going to be frustrating. As we look at this family today, it's going to be frustrating. But if we take a step back from this story, we'll see that actually our frustrations can be turned into worship. This story is actually good news for us. We're going to see why that is and how God uses people like Jacob.

And ultimately, we'll see how we are blessed because of this. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to jump in. God, thank you so much for the good news of the gospel that we get to celebrate every time we open your word. I pray this morning that you would meet us here, that you would teach us more of your character and your goodness and your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we're going to look at the last part of 26 that sets up Genesis 27.

Genesis 26, 34 says, Alright, so that's an important transition into Genesis 27. Esau, as we've established a couple weeks ago, he's foolish. He Acts foolishly. He doesn't follow in the same footsteps as his father and go and marry someone from his clan, someone from his family, and wait for that wife. No, he marries someone of the land. The Hittites did not value God like his family did.

And it makes life bitter for this family. And that's what Esau does. He's foolish. He jumps into things. And he didn't just jump into one. He jumps into two.

He marries wives seemingly back to back here. Bringing bitterness into this family. Because he wasn't patient. Because he was foolish. And then it sets up into verse 1. We're going to see that in spite of all of this, in spite of the bitterness that he brings into this family, Isaac is prepared to bless him.

So verse 1. When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau, his older son, and said to him, My son. And he answered, Here I am. He said, Behold, I am old. I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver, and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, and prepare for me delicious food such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.

So Isaac is old. He's nearing death. He's blind. So he knows it's time to give this blessing. And he summons, he gets Esau, and he gets him to do one of the things that he loves about him. Y'all, one of the reasons that he favors him over his other son.

He says, Grab your bow, grab your quiver, go and bring to me the delicious game that you make for me. It's one of the reasons that he loves one son over the other. And we also see some similarities there, that Isaac has a weakness for food, and so did Esau, that he sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. That both of them have this weakness for food, and this situation starts to get even more broken. But he says, Bring this to me, that I may bless you.

Now we are a little bit far removed from the weight of what a blessing is, and what it's supposed to be. In our culture, at its most base form, the blessing or the word bless, you might have heard this when you were younger, or maybe last week. Your grandma, or maybe an aunt, said, You know, bless your heart. Bless you. And you reply, Oh, thanks grandma. That's nice of you.

And what you did not realize is, that was a backhanded insult. That wasn't actually meant. She was saying, You're an idiot. That's the base form of blessing that we have. The most common form of blessing that we have, is probably a blessing that you have before a meal. Alright?

That you would sit down, you would figure out if it's going to be before the salad, or after the salad, or before the entree gets there, or whatever. You would decide to have a blessing on the food, and then you'd eat. And that's good. That elevates kind of what blessing is. But it's even more so than that.

In the church for centuries, and even today as we practice this a little bit, Christians bless one another with words. We do this every Sunday. At the end of our gathering, someone stands up here, and they give what we call a benediction. Some of you may have heard me say that before, and you've laughed. I may have even said a blessing for the road, because that's what it is. We give a blessing, and we're practicing what the New Testament does.

At the end of the New Testament letters, there are benedictions that are blessings for those churches. That you would give a good word, that's a deeply spiritual way of asking God's blessing on another. And that's even a closer form to what we see here, but that doesn't even capture all of what's happening in this blessing. Because this blessing is not just deeply spiritual, it's prophetic. He's pronouncing something that what he is saying is, he is blessing a blessing that's going to change the future for these two sons. That one of them is going to carry this promise.

That one of them is going to carry this blessing, and everything that comes with it, the other is not. One of them is going to find favor with the Lord, and the other is not. So this is a deeply spiritual and prophetic blessing. And we as Christians, we just need to grow in our understanding of what a blessing is, and what it means. Even what the weight of words are supposed to be, for those of us who are filled with the Holy Spirit. James 3 talks about this.

It talks about the importance of words. It talks about the tongue, and the words that we say. It says the tongue is a small member. It can be like a tiny rudder of a ship. It's a tiny rudder that guides a whole ship through waters. It's a constructive picture of how words can build up.

And he says it's also going to be like a spark that sets a forest on fire. That it can burn everything around you. It can cause destruction. That words matter. And when he gets to blessings and curses, in James 3 and verse 9, he says, With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

So Christians, we need to grow in this. We need to grow in understanding that words matter. They have weight. That they can build up, and they also can tear down. That our words, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can be deeply spiritual. But also, as we see in this passage, it is prophetic.

And he gets ready to pronounce this blessing. And Rebekah catches wind of it. Picks up in verse 5. It says, Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau.

Bring me game, and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord, before I die. She says, Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. Go to the flock, and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare for them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies. So Rebekah, she catches wind of what's happening here, and she jumps into action.

So I want to take a step back and look at this, because this situation is even more broken. Rebekah, while she was pregnant with Jacob and Esau, she was given a prophecy by God. In Genesis 25, this is what he says. God says, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger.

So she was given this prophecy, so she knows that God has spoken, that Jacob is the one that's going to carry the promise. So all she has to do is trust God's word. She simply can just trust God, because he's going to make this happen. Jacob is the one that's going to carry the promise. She doesn't have to force this promise, like her mother-in-law Sarah, who did it with Ishmael. No, she simply can trust God that he's going to do this, but she doesn't.

She starts to jump into a scheme. And when you look at this from another angle, you see this is even more of a broken situation. It is very reasonable, and commentators agree on this, it's very reasonable to assume that when Rebekah received this prophecy, that she went and told Isaac. Isaac's the patriarch. He's the leader of their clan. They love each other.

This is something she would have brought to him. And if he knew this, that means that for decades, he has favored Esau. He hasn't believed this promise. In fact, there are times he's actively opposing it. So you have one who's trying to force the promise.

You have the other one who's opposing it. This is a broken situation, and we see the division that devised this family because of this favoritism. This is a broken family. And y'all, this is the broken family that God chose to bring about his plan of redemption. So Rebekah hears this.

She goes and gets Jacob, and she starts giving orders. Go and get two young goats, which is oddly specific in the text that Isaac loves two young goats. But I did learn that younger meat actually does taste better. Over a year ago, I accidentally shot what I thought was a doe and ended up being a young buck. And I felt bad because in hunting, you don't do that. You don't shoot young bucks.

That's wrong. But the meat was tasty. I did learn a thing. I'm not into young, like veal. I'm not into some of the other things. But apparently, younger meat does taste better.

And Isaac knows this. He wants two young goats. He likes that. She's like, all right, go and get the two young goats. And she makes the meal, which means she's taking matters into her own hands. She's giving orders.

And she knows that food is the way to get to her husband. So it picks up in verse 11. It says, But Jacob said to Rebekah, his mother, Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing. His mother said to him, Let your curse be on me, my son. Only obey my voice and go and bring them to me.

So Jacob states the obvious. Dad may be blind, but he's not stupid. If he feels me, he'll know it's not, that I'm not Esau. Esau is hairy like Chewbacca. So he's going to feel like Chewbacca.

And if he catches wind of this, he knows the importance of words and curses. That if a curse comes down on him, this has effects for generations. It has eternal ramifications. And she says something profound. She says, Let the curse be on me. I'll take it.

Go and do what I'm telling you to do. So it picks up. Verse 14 says, So he went and took them, talking about the young goats, and brought them to his mother. And his mother prepared delicious food, such as his father loved. Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau, her son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob, her younger son.

And the skins of the young goats she put on his hands, and on the smooth part of his neck. And she put the delicious food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. So she makes this food. She goes and gets Esau's clothes, because those are going to carry his scent. He's a man of the field, so he smells differently than Jacob. Then she takes the skin of the young goats.

The goats that she just slaughtered. Alright, so this is nasty. And she puts it on his hands, and on the smooth part of his neck, which again, how hairy is Esau, that his neck and his hands are like goat skin. I don't know if you've ever peted a goat, it's like a dog. He doesn't have hair, he has a layer of fur. And they put this deception suit on, with his clothes, and with his goats in.

He gets the deception suit on, he takes the food. And then we get to see how, even further broken this story gets. Verse 18, So he went in to his father and said, My father. And he said, Here I am. Who are you, my son? Jacob said to his father, I am Esau, your firstborn.

I have done as you told me. Now sit up and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me. So he lies to his father. And that is a very big deal in this culture. This is a shame and honor culture. There's two very important aspects of this culture.

And one of the most important things that you would do in this culture, is that you would honor your parents. It was a great shame to show dishonor to your parents, and to think that you would take advantage of your father's blindness, by lying to him. That's outrageous. That's gross in this culture. You would never do that. That's dishonoring.

And this lie gets even more wicked. Verse 20, But Isaac said to his son, How is it that you found it so quickly, my son? So again, he's not stupid. And this hunt would have taken some time. All of a sudden he shows up. Jacob says, He answered, Because the Lord your God granted me success.

And this is no longer just a lie. This is just morphed into blasphemy. He has blasphemed the name of the Lord. We kind of have a little bit of a low view of blasphemy. Our kind of categories for it is you would use God or Jesus' name in a curse word. But blasphemy is so much bigger than that.

It's dishonoring the name of the Lord. It's taking it in vain. It's dishonoring and robbing God's name of its glory. And he uses that to deceive his father. To lie to his father. He uses the integrity of God's name for dishonor and evil.

Similar to, I don't know if you've ever seen businesses that have a Jesus fish on their sign. And some of those businesses are known for dishonorable practices and ripping people off. That's blasphemy. Using the name of God for evil purposes. And that is what he does here. He didn't just lie to his father.

He blasphemes the name of the Lord. God has stricken down people in the Bible for much less. And he is justified in doing so. So he blasphemes the name of the Lord. And he lies to him. And this story continues to come off the tracks.

21 Says, He's starting to get outmaneuvered here. Because he did not anticipate that his son might stoop to this level. To put on this deception suit of goat skin. And he feels them. And he starts to become convinced. But in verse 24 he says, Just one more time.

He said, Are you really my son Esau? He answered, I am. Just one more time. Are you really Esau? Is it you son? Yeah, that's me then.

Then he said, Bring it near to me. That I may eat of my son's game. And bless you. So he brought it near to him. And he ate. And he brought him wine.

And he drank. So he brings the food. A weakness for him. He brings in some wine. That's going to further loosen him up. Lower his inhibitions.

And then the blessing comes. Verse 26. Then his father Isaac said to him, Come near and kiss me, my son. So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments. And blessed him and said, See the smell of my son as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.

May God give you of the dew of heaven. And of the fatness of the earth. And plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you. And nations bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers.

May your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you. And blessed be everyone who blesses you. So he kisses him. He's further convincing. But he smells Esau's clothes.

And he is convinced. And he gives this blessing. And remember, this blessing is prophetic. This is God speaking through Isaac. What he means for Esau, God ultimately uses the brokenness of this situation to mean for Jacob. His prophecy is coming true.

And he says, May God give you the dew. Which to us, it's like, oh, that's how you start this grand blessing. Cool. Dew is actually a sign of prosperity. It's a little bit far removed from us. And in an arid culture, they didn't have a lot of rain.

So dew is how the fields were watered. He's saying, May you be prosperous. And he continues that by saying, May you abound in grain and wine. That's more language of prosperity. Then he says, May nations bow down to you.

And that is a continuation of the promise. That he's the one who's going to have the great nation. He says, May you Lord over your brothers. Meaning he's going to be the leader. And Esau is going to submit under his leadership. He says, Blessings for those who bless you.

And curses for those who curse you. And the deception is complete. Jacob gets the promise. And when you look at how much deceit. How much sin is all over this. How broken is the situation.

How messed up is this family. How frustrating is it that Jacob, the deceiver. He's the one that gets the promise. Through all of this sin. And the moment that this happens. Jacob sets out.

And then Esau steps in. It says, As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob. When Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father. Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting. He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, Let my father arise and eat of his son's game.

That you may bless me. His father Isaac said to him, Who are you? He answered, I'm your son. Your firstborn, Esau. Then Isaac trembled very violently.

And said, Who was it then that hunted game? And brought it to me? And I ate it all before you came. And I have blessed him. Yes. And he shall be blessed.

We've established that Esau is a fool. But man, part of me just really, I feel sorry for him. He listens to his dad. He goes out. He hunts. He brings in the food.

And then they realize that someone is coming in and robbed this blessing. We're going to see in a moment. It doesn't take long to connect the dots. They know exactly who did this. His father starts to connect the dots. And it says he shakes violently.

He trembles as he figures out what just happened. Now, some have looked at this and thought, Why couldn't he just revoke the blessing? Why couldn't he just say, All right, bring Jacob back in here. You're cursed. You're blessed. Game over.

There's two possible reasons for that. First, on the one hand, it doesn't really seem like blessings like this could be revoked. That once this was said, it was finished. And that makes sense because he says, he pronounces and says, Anyone who curses you, let them be cursed. So you can't exactly go back at this point and correct this and pronounce a curse on Jacob.

The second reason is that it is very reasonable that Isaac knew about this prophecy. That Rebecca told him years ago that he knew about this. And for decades, he has been fighting this. For decades, he's been showing favor to the son who he loves. The son that he favors. The son who brings some game.

The boy that he most favors. And in this moment, finally, he concedes. He reasons it out and he says, Yes, he shall be blessed. Jacob gets the blessing. And through years of deception and years of division and years of favoritism and years of brokenness in this family, it's complete. God's promise comes true.

And Esau is broken. Verse 34, it says, As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, Bless me, even me also, oh, my father. In the depths of his grief, he's begging. Can I just get a blessing? Can I get something? It says in verse 35, But he said, Your brother came deceitfully and he has taken away your blessing.

Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright and behold, now he's taken away my blessing. Then he said, Have you not reserved a blessing for me? I mean, he just wants something. This cheat of your son has taken everything from me.

Can you just give me something? Just a tiny blessing. Anything. And Isaac answered him and said to Esau, Behold, I've made him Lord over you and all the brothers I've given to him for servants and with grain and wine sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son? Esau said to his father, Have you but one blessing, my father?

Bless me, even me also, oh, my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. When Isaac makes the point, I've given him the blessing. I've given him all that. What possibly could I do for you? And Esau is broken and he weeps at what he has just lost.

And he just begs, Can I get something? And in his grief, Isaac answers. He says, Then Isaac, his father, answered him and said to him, Behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be. And away from the dew of the heaven on high. By the sword you shall live and you shall serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck.

So he does get a tiny blessing. He doesn't get the promise of the blessing of prosperity, of carrying the line and having this great nation. He doesn't get any of that. But there is a proclamation that one day this yoke will be broken. And yoke is a, if you've ever seen a classic picture of an oxen with a wooden yoke on its neck, its tail in the field. Yoke is a sign of serving under someone.

And this is a prophecy that one day the descendants of Esau, this is the Edomites in the Old Testament. One day they will break free. They will be their own nation away from the Israelites. So Esau gets this tiny blessing. And next week we're going to see what comes out of this, the reaction to all of this. But when you look at this story, what a mess.

It is covered with sin and brokenness. This family is broken. This story is broken. And y'all, this is the family that God has chosen to bring about the Savior of the world, Jesus. They're not likable. There's no heroes here.

It's a bunch of Walter Whites gunning for power. It's absolutely broken. And at the end of this, you may be thinking, man, didn't you say this was going to be hope-filled? Didn't you say that this was going to be worshipful, that we could find joy in this? Because the reason why this is a hope-filled story for us as Christians is because this shows that God uses the worst of us to bring about His plan of redemption. That God uses our brokenness and uses it for His redemption.

Because there's part of me that reads this story and goes, man, what a messed up family. I can't believe that Jacob gets this. I can't believe he's the one that carries the promise. He's the one that the line of Jesus is going to come through. And I look in the mirror, and it's like, man, of course God does this. I'm Jacob.

At my worst fully exposed, I'm Jacob. And so are some of you. And some of you are Esau. And some of you are Rebecca. And some of you are Isaac. We are just like this family.

The difference for those of us who have trusted in the finished work of Jesus for us is that we have Christ. That Jacob chose to clothe himself in this deception suit. That in Christ we don't have to do that. We don't have to fake it. We come to Jesus just as we are. And we don't clothe ourselves in deception.

We clothe ourselves in the righteousness of Christ. That when we trust in him, all our sin is nailed to the cross. And Jesus' goodness, his perfection, his holiness, all of that, we're clothed in it. We don't have to fake it. We don't have to deceive God as if we possibly could. That Jacob, he chose to enter his father's tent in the presence of his father through deception and blasphemy.

And we get to enter the tent, the presence of God, boldly because of the finished work. In spite of our sin, in spite of our brokenness, because we trusted in Jesus, we have access to the Father. In part in this life through prayer and worship and seeking him. And fully in the next life. That Jacob, he receives this irrevocable blessing through deception. And y'all, as Christians, we come to Jesus in spite of our sin.

When we trust in him, not putting on a facade, but fully give ourselves to him. We have an irrevocable blessing that we have trusted in. Romans 11.29 says, For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. And all over the rest of the New Testament, it says over and over again, No one can snatch you out of the hand of God. That he will carry us home. That we share in an irrevocable blessing because of what Jesus has done for us.

This story is good news for us because God will use us in spite of our sin and shortcomings. Some of us have paths of brokenness. Some of us are wrestling with some pretty difficult battles with sin. And in the midst of all of this, you can begin to wonder, How could God possibly use me? How could he possibly use me? We talked about this multiply series.

We spent five weeks in the very beginning of the year talking about how we're going to make disciples. We're going to multiply disciples. We're going to change this city. We're going to do this. And we got excited. And some of you may have been thinking, Yeah, that's great.

I would just like right now to stop looking at porn. I would just like right now to stop hurting myself. To stop hating myself. I'd like to just stop struggling with this sin. How could I possibly be used by God to change this city? Christians, that's because this is exactly what God does.

We see it all over this story. We see it all over the rest of the Bible that God uses the broken to accomplish his purposes. And I feel this as a pastor. There are moments in the midst of temptation where I'm feeling it, where I'm fighting it. And the enemy comes in. Satan comes in and whispers, Oh, you're going to get exposed.

You're going to fail. It's all going to fall apart. Your story is going to come off the tracks. You're going to take this. Your family is going to be embarrassed. This church is going to be embarrassed.

You're going to defame the name of God. And this lie comes in and whispers over and over again. And I get to fire back with the gospel. We get to fire back with the gospel. No. No, no, no.

I know how this story ends. I know that your story ends in the flames. And my story ends secure in Jesus. That one day I will stand before him. That my identity is so wrapped up in Christ. That I get to beat my chest.

The Galatians 2.20 which says, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God that loves me and gave himself up for me. That is my identity. I rest in that.

Satan doesn't get to win. That my identity is so firmly in the gospel. When anything comes in and says, You don't have redemptive qualities. You can't be used. I get to fire back and say, That's the point of the gospel. That God uses those who are broken to bring about his purposes.

That God uses the broken to change lives. That he takes the brokenness and redeems us by his blood. That he makes beauty out of the ashes of our sin. That's the hope of the gospel. That's what we see in this story. Yes, this family is the worst.

But so is that. So are we.

Generation Faith, Generational Sin

Generational Faith, Generational Sin

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in Genesis 26. We are continuing our journey through Genesis following this storyline of this family. We are following Isaac still.

And we're in Genesis 26, which will be on page 12 in a blue Bible near you. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. We want you to have a Bible that you can read at home. I would encourage you. There's not going to be a lot of Scripture on the screen. We are going to be walking through this story.

So please do grab a Bible. We'll walk through this together. Growing up, my stepdad had some quirks. They were quite humorous. My brother and I used to watch movies in our living room. And we wanted to be kind of like a theater.

So we would turn off the lights, watch the movie. And my stepdad would get home and he would see that we're watching a movie in the dark. And the first thing that would come out of his mouth was losers sit in the dark. That's just what, every time he'd come through the door, losers sit in the dark. And he'd come on and he'd turn on one light. That was one of his quirks.

Because in our family, you just didn't watch movies in the dark. It was just a thing. Like you had to have at least one light on. And it drove me crazy that this is one of his quirks. Fast forward. Anna and I, we got married.

We got an apartment. She gets a movie. We're watching it. Getting ready to watch it. She starts turning out the lights. I started getting fidgety.

I'm like, baby, let's put one light on. And she's like, no, this is a completely normal thing. Like, turn off the lights. We're going to watch the movie. I said, no, just, I mean, I get it. Like all the lights, we can turn off at one.

We'll just keep one light on. And she was like, why? And it came out. Because losers sit in the dark. She looked at me. What did you just say?

And I had to explain the history. That in my family, we all have one light on when we watch movies. It's just a thing. And to this day, we do not watch movies in the dark. We always have one light on. It's just this quirk that I picked up from my stepdad.

This happens. Like we pick up things from our parents. We pick up behaviors. We inherit things from our parents. We inherit both things that like are the kind of inheritance of traits. Like there are things about our parents that we inherit that are in us.

And then we also inherit behaviors. Just being around, absorbing some of the behaviors, some of the patterns from our parents. And they just kind of become ours. And we're going to see that a little bit in this story today. That Isaac follows in the same footsteps of his father Abraham. Doing almost the exact same thing.

Because he, like us, inherits patterns that have been passed down to him. And we see this show up in three distinct ways. We see that Isaac inherits obedience. And we're going to see as we walk through this that he inherits sin. And then ultimately we're going to see that he inherits grace. And as we walk through the story and we see these three things that he inherits, I want us to do this a little bit reflectively.

Thinking about the things that we inherit from our parents. Some of the behaviors that show up in us. But also for those of us that have kids, what we pass down. Because it matters. So I'm going to pray.

And then we're going to jump in. And Father, thank you so much for your word. That it is accurate. That it is good. That it instructs us in righteousness. And shows us your gospel.

God, I pray this morning that you would open our hearts. That we would hear it and receive it. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright, so it starts off in verse 1. Now there was a famine in the land.

Besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. Alright, so that phrase, now there was a famine in the land. And it's supposed to take you back to Genesis 12. This is supposed to help you clue in to the story of Abraham. Because Moses uses the exact same phrase in Genesis 12. So it's cluing you in.

This story is a little bit like Abraham. And then as we continue to read this, we're going to see even more so how this shows up. How this is a repeating of history from Isaac and Abraham. It says, And Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.

Sojourn in this land. So now this is starting to sound even more like Abraham. It's starting to sound like Genesis 20. If you think back in the fall when we went through this story, Abraham took his family to the land of Gerar. God doesn't want them in Egypt. That's coming down the line at the end of Genesis.

But for now he wants them to settle in Gerar amongst the Philistines. And guess who the king is? Abimelech. Now, this could be the exact same Abimelech. There's a long gap between when Abraham was living amongst Abimelech in Genesis 20 and this time period. It's a huge gap.

So it's possible that Abimelech was very young at the time being a king. And now he's very, very old. It's also possible that this is the son of Abimelech who bears the same name. But regardless, they would have been very familiar with this family. This family has history in this land. And they would have remembered it when they came to settle amongst them.

So he says, verse 3, Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands. And I will establish the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. And then God continues. He says, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven. And will give to your offspring all these lands.

And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. So Isaac settled in Gerar. So he tells Isaac, trust me. Obey me like your father Abraham did. Like he trusted me in settling where I told him to.

Trust me. Obey my commands. Obey my statutes like your father Abraham. And you'll get this promise. This promised land. This blessing of a great nation.

That is for you. Just trust me. And what's important here is it says, So Isaac settled in Gerar. That Isaac, he trusts God. He listens to his word. He trusts him.

And he settles in the land. And that is huge. Isaac inherits obedience from his father Abraham. And this happens with us. We pick up patterns of behavior. We pick up patterns of good patterns.

Obedience from our parents that shows up in our lives. I think to my parents, one of the values they instilled in me was generosity. It's just something that they taught me at a young age. I have vivid memories of my mom. And we would be at church on Sunday. And she would be writing a check.

And she's explaining to me, this is what we do. We give to the church. And I remember the moments, not just giving with the church, but also there were situations growing up where there's someone that either worked for my stepdad or was a family member or someone we knew that they would cut checks, they would cover bills, they would help pay for things. That generosity was a rhythm. It was a natural thing for our household. And it's something that's shown up in my own life that I've been able to practice in our own family.

And sometimes that stuff is taught. Like I remember specifically my mom teaching me some of this stuff. But oftentimes a lot of this is caught. You absorb it over time. It becomes some of your behavior. And we see this as an intense example with Abraham and Isaac.

Because if you go back to Genesis 22, you look at the story of Abraham taking Isaac to the Mount of Moriah to sacrifice his son. Isaac was front and center for that. He got to see how Abraham was obedient to what God had called him to, so much so that he was in the center of it. But that Abraham ultimately trusted that the blessing was going to come through Isaac, that God was going to make this blessing happen. He just had to trust God. And he got to see this, that he trusted God, and there was blessing that came out of it.

And he got to inherit this obedience, and it was passed down from Abraham. And ultimately this is passed down to the nation of Israel. This love for God, that the heart of the Old Testament law is love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, that you would be wholly devoted in love to God, and in your devotion and love to God, that might show up in your kids. That you might teach that to your children, that they also might love God wholeheartedly, with their whole self. Proverbs 22, 6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

And that's the hope, is that you would train up a child, which sometimes is intentional teaching. Sometimes it's opening up the Bible, it's showing how to pray, it's intentional moments of training, but a lot of times, it's just stuff that is caught. It's them seeing your love for God, so much so, that it shows up in their own lives, that they might never depart from it. And this is something, that we have been trying to focus on as a church. That we've realized, we have a lot of families here, and as a gospel-centered family, we want to help families do this, and we've made some shifts. Like Kid City, I don't know if you have seen this, have gotten to see this, they've been crushing it lately.

We've made some shifts over the past year, and it's been awesome. My daughter came home a month ago, and she was learning about Romans 6, 23, and she was learning about, for the wages of sin is death, and she's explaining to me, the connections of sin and death, and I was blown away. I was so thankful. And we want to continue to press into that, but we also want to see this happen, outside of Kid City, because you, parents, have the most opportunity for impact, with your kids. You do. You have the most opportunity for influence.

My mentor, for over a decade now, he's a pastor in Houston. He used to be a youth pastor, and I interned under him. When he first showed up at the church, that I was interning at, this kid got busted, this high school kid got busted at a party. And his parents came to the church, and said, where were you? Well, my kid got busted at a party. You guys are failing.

And he said, okay. He realized, this is kind of the culture of this church. It's really the culture of down south. You take your kids to school, that's where they get their education. You take your kids to sports team, that's where they get their athletics. You take your kids to the church, that's where they get their spiritual growth.

That was kind of the mindset. So he got all the parents together, in one room. And he had one small jar, and one giant jar. And he had a bucket of ping pong balls. And he said, he took out a ball, and he said, this ball represents one hour of influence, that I get with your kids every week. Sometimes it's one, he put it in the small jar.

Sometimes it's two, he put another one. Sometimes it's three. For some of your kids, I might even get four hours, with your kids a week. And he took the bucket to the big jar, and he dumped it in. He said, this is the amount of time, that you get with your kids. 30, 40, 50, 60 plus hours a week.

And he said, tell me, who has the most opportunity for impact? Who has the most opportunity, for influence with your kids? It's you. And that is how God has designed this. That we might influence our kids, we might train them to love the Lord, with their whole self, that they might never depart from it. And some of that is intentional, it's going to be, in the future, we're going to be making shifts, to make sure that we're encouraging, time in the word at home, and time in prayer.

And we want to encourage, some of those intentional moments, but a lot of times, it's just going to be caught. It's going to be caught, and it's going to show up in your lives. We were talking about this, in our teaching team this week. And Bianca, who serves in music, and she also serves on our teaching team, and helping write sermons. And she said that she remembers, that her mom, not necessarily her teaching her, how to read the Bible, how to study the Bible. But what she does remember, is she would come home, or she would come downstairs, every morning, and she'd see her mom, with her Bible, reading.

And that has had a lasting impact, on her, to where she values, the word of God, like her mother does. I think of a friend, one of my friends from seminary, he had a daughter, and we didn't have kids yet, so I was just learning, and observing. And they had this culture, of forgiveness, and repentance, in their household. That when him and his wife, would mess up, and they would sin against their daughter, they would go to her, and say, will you forgive me? I'm so sorry. And they had this, this rhythm of repentance, and forgiveness, and love, that I hadn't seen before.

I was like, man, that is awesome, that one day, that's all she's going to know, is a culture, of repentance, and forgiveness, and love, and not one of pride. that she might never depart from that. This shows up, in the everyday moments, of crisis, and chaos. Your kids will remember, our children will remember, how we respond. Will we go to the things, of this world? Or will we go, to the Lord in prayer, seeking his wisdom, and his care, and his provision? Now some of you, may be thinking, that's great, for those of people, that grew up, in a Christian household.

That was not mine. We picked up, all kinds of different patterns, but not that. So how in the world, am I supposed to, if God gives me children, or if I have children, how in the world, am I supposed to, to teach them this kind of stuff? That sounds great. How? Well, you have a, gospel centered family, that you're surrounded with.

We are figuring this out together. Ask. Learn. Ask how some, we have older parents here. Ask how, they have done it. Because we are figuring this out together.

And you might be thinking, some of you are like, wow, this is really good. You've spent quite a bit of time, in the first six verses, talking about, how to raise kids. I don't have kids, and I don't think I'm ever going to have kids. How does this apply to me? You are a part, of a gospel centered family. We get to do this together.

We need you. You get to join in with us. You get to help raise our kids, that they might love the Lord, and never depart from it. That's a beautiful thing, that you get to be invited into, in community groups, not just in Kid City. That you get to help raise our kids. So ask, how you can help.

And parents, receive it. Ask how they can, how you can pitch in. How you can help. Maybe it's babysitting, where parents can go on a date night, at least once a month. Maybe it's, intentional, moments of conversation, that you get to share the gospel, with kids in your group. Be a third wheel parent.

We are asking you to join in, that we might partner together, that we might be a village, that raises gospel centered families, that kids might depart from, might not never depart, from the love of God. This is what we are moving towards, this is what we want to embody, as we obey the scriptures, and as we love our families. And we all have opportunities, to pass on this obedience, this love of Jesus. But at times, this gets difficult. And one of the reasons, this gets difficult, is because we, inherit sin. We inherit a sinful nature, and this shows up front and center, starting off in verse 6.

He says, So Isaac settled in Gerar. Alright, so they're settled. Verse 7. When the men of this place, asked him about his wife, he said, She is my sister. For he feared to say, my wife, thinking, lest the men of this place, should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window, and saw Isaac laughing, with Rebekah, his wife.

So Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, she is my sister? Isaac said to him, Because I thought lest I die, because of her. Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us? One of the people, might have easily lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us. So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man, or his wife, shall surely be put to death.

Now, doesn't that sound familiar? This is Abraham Abimelech, the remix. I mean, this is happening in almost the exact same fashion. And Isaac doesn't have the weird kind of half-truth, this is my half-sister kind of thing. This is a straight-up lie. He fears man.

After God just gave him this promise again, he said, This is the promise. You are going to have this blessing. You are going to have these lands. You are going to have all these things. And he goes, Well, my wife is a stunner. She is good-looking.

They might kill me. He fears man. And out of that fear, he lies. And it wasn't a small lie. This thing carried on for a while. It says in verse 8, that a long time had passed before Abimelech started to figure this out.

So Abimelech, he sees them, and they are laughing. Now, this isn't just laughter. This is flirtatious laughter. That's what the Hebrew is getting at in this text. They're flirting. So he sees them, and they're all starry-eyed, and laughing, and cutting up, and they maybe got a little bit physical.

And Abimelech's like, Wait a second. Y'all, this is not brother-sister love. You guys are married, and I like to think that everything just clicked. That he just, that this is OG Abimelech from back in the day, or this is his son. Regardless, it just clicks. This is what this family does.

They show up. They pass their wives off as their sister. What have you done? Which, by the way, is such a weird thing to be known for. It's like, What? You could have gotten us all killed again.

He operates out of fear. He doesn't trust God. He fears man, and eventually this scheme gets exposed. And it's because we inherit sinful patterns. Not just by absorbing them through observing bad behavior. We inherit this.

There's a philosopher named John Locke. He's one of the most influential philosophers on America. He's a British philosopher from the 17th century, but he influenced much of the founding fathers in our Constitution. Stuff like property rights, taxation without representation. That's all him. And one of the things he also, one of his philosophies was something called blank slate theory.

Blank slate theory was the idea that every child is born morally neutral. So they come into this world with a blank slate. And it's up to us, as families or as society, to shape virtue in children. They come in morally neutral, and if you could raise them in a moral vacuum, they would never have any type of evil. We could educate them to be good citizens, to be good, virtuous people. And that's one of the reasons why academics put such a high value on education to fix morality.

You may have picked up on this, that the way you solve racism is education. The way that you solve systematic injustice is education, which has not worked in any society ever, because education is not the problem. Children do not come in with a blank slate. There is one fatal flaw in this theory. It's children. Have you ever seen a two-year-old?

Have you ever? My daughter is so sweet. She's also a little schemer. She's schemey. And she, like, at a very young age, would scheme and would lie. And I didn't teach her that.

I don't spend most of the time with her during the day. That's my wife. But my wife isn't schemey. It took everything she could to throw me a surprise birthday party last year. She's just, she's not. And I didn't teach her.

No one else has taught her. It's natural. It's something that she inherited from me, because when I was a kid, I was very schemey. She inherits this naturally from me. Isaac, he certainly probably picked up some fear of man patterns from Abraham. But he wasn't even alive when Abraham and Abimelech were doing this dance in Genesis 20.

He never got to see this front and center. We inherit generational sin. Romans 5 teaches, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned. That's the formation for the basis of original sin. That from Adam, sin spreads to all of humanity. That we inherit this sinful nature, it is passed down all the way back to Adam.

In 1 Peter 1.18 it says, Knowing that you are ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. That we naturally inherit sinful patterns from our forefathers. Sinful, futile ways. The Old Testament law teaches that we inherit sin from the second, third, and fourth generation. It's passed down. Now psychologists look at this, formation of behavior, and they kind of fall in between two camps.

On the one side you've got nature, and the far end of nature versus nurture, you have, basically when conception happens, genetics are formed, and therefore it's all decided from there. That's the far end of the nature side of the bait. Once your genetics form, that's who you are. On the other end of the extreme, is nurture. The idea that education, that how you are raised, is what forms you and shapes behavior. This is where clean slate theory has some of its merits in this argument.

That it would be education that would form you. That you would, through experiences, through upbringing, this is kind of what forms you. Most people fall between the two of these and see that both of them have value. That what you, there's something about you, inherit to you, that helps form your behavior. Also, there are things that shape you, and mold you. And as Christians, we look at this and go, yep, that makes sense.

You inherit a sinful nature, that matters. You also inherit, patterns of obedience and disobedience, that form and shape you. Let me give you a few examples. Take alcoholism or addiction. People look and they say, how is it that a father, or a son, and his father, and his grandfather, and his great grandfather, that all of them, are alcoholics? That all of them struggle, with addiction.

How is that? On the nature side, there are people who will say, well, it's genetics. That has to be what shapes you. And they've done a ton of studies. They haven't isolated the one gene, that causes this. They may have found some factors, into this.

But we as Christians, can look at this and go, yeah, that makes sense, that you would inherit, the sinful nature, that sin causes physical changes. The reason we know that, is because sin causes death. That yes, on this level, down to your very traits, you would be corrupt. It also makes sense, that the only way, you ever saw your father, deal with stress, or with burdens, is with a bottle. If the only time, you watched your parents celebrate, was them, stumbling through the door, killed over a toilet. If you saw, if this is who, you come from, and this is what you see, it makes sense, that's generational sin.

This happens in, in anger. People look at families, and go, there tends to be, a pattern between, all the people in this family, that are angry, especially some of the men, cousins, dads, brothers, they're all angry, and violent. It's like they have, an extra Y chromosome. There's something going on here, that they're just, angry, and violent. Every time, they face, opposition, they use their fists. Yes, you inherit a sinful nature.

Also, if the only time, you ever see your family, deal with opposition, is with their fists, are getting violent, or getting verbally abusive, those are the only patterns, you would ever know. This happens with any, I'll give you one more, this happens with anxiety. People look at families, and go, how is it, that anxiety, plagues this family so bad, that mothers, and sisters, that even brothers, uncles, there's just, it's so stressful, in this house. And it was the same, for their parents. There's all these, burdens and stress, and it was just so tense. Well, there's something going on there.

There's a fallenness, that is inherited, that shows up. Also, if you never actually, get to see, families that go to the Lord, in prayer, that fight, that trust, fight to trust the promises of God, to make through. Both of those matter. When you have inherited sin, and you have observable, bad patterns, of response, of behavior, and you put them together, that is generational sin. This is what we inherit. We inherit, we inherit generational sin.

And when you think about that, when you think about all of the fallenness, all of the brokenness, that you have inherited, is all the way down, to the core of who you are, that feels a little bit depressing. But when you also think, that you, this is what you are passing on, to your kids, that feels even more depressing. But the good news of the gospel, is that's not the only thing, that we get to inherit. That we also get to inherit, grace. And that shows up, in the rest of the story. Verse 12.

And Isaac sowed in the land, and reaped in the same year, a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, and the man became rich, and gained more and more, until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks, and herds, and many servants. So the Philistines envied him. So just off the heels, of him running this lie, running this scheme, God blesses Isaac.

He gives him a harvest, that's a hundredfold, which in an arid culture, is an absurd amount of crops. He gives him animals, he builds this family, they get blessing, upon blessing, upon blessing, and the Philistines, start to get envious. And it continues. Now the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth, all the wells, that his father's servants, had dug in the days of Abraham, his father. And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than we. So the hospitality starts to end.

They're like, you guys have gotten way too big, y'all need to get out of Gerard, go to the valley, and then from this point forward, the rest of the story, which we don't have time to watch, walk through, they just start filling up wells with dirt. Which you might think, oh that's petty. That's like you kicking down your neighbor's mailbox. I guess, it's more than petty. That's almost an act of war. Because in an arid culture, where water is life, it's how you feed your animals, it's how you feed your family, water sustains you, you start filling up wells, you start ending opportunities to live, to prosper, to grow.

And they go, the rest of the story, from place, to place, to place, to place, digging wells, taking care of the wells that Abraham dug. And they get filled up, and filled up, and filled up. And Isaac is starting to feel this, as they have to go from place to place, not ever having peace. And there had to be some part of them that wondered, oh, is this blessing going to end? What's happening here? And then God comes to him in verse 23, and makes it clear.

From there he went to Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham, your father, fear not. For I am with you, and will bless you, and multiply your offspring, for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there, and there Isaac's servants dug a well. That in the midst of this uncertainty, God makes it abundantly clear. This blessing is yours. This blessing is yours.

You are going to be taken care of. You are still inheriting the promise. You still are going to have a nation that is as numerous as the stars in the sky. I am going to take care of you. It doesn't matter how he acted before Bimelech. It doesn't matter the schemes and the lives that he lived in.

He gets grace. Continued grace. And the story ends with, we don't have time to look at this, but in your community group this week, you can look at it. The story ends with Bimelech and his posse showing up, and it's like, is this going to be a war? Are they going to fight? And they end up striking a deal.

In the most politically schemey fashion, you can look at Bimelech and laugh at how he just lashed through his teeth. They strike a deal. And peace is made. And Isaac's family is sustained. They are sustained. They are preserved with this promise.

And because Isaac was preserved, the bloodline eventually gets to Jesus. And therefore, we get grace. Grace is unmerited favor, unearned favor, which I like. That lacks a little spice and flavor. It seems a little bit overly technical. They say it like that.

Someone came up with an acronym, I don't know who, for grace. It's God's riches at Christ's expense, which I love. That in Christ, not by any good works of our own, we get the riches of God. That in Christ, we get brought into the same blessing that Isaac had. We get brought into the same fellowship that he had with God. That, y'all, we get access to the God who created everything.

We can come to him in prayer. We get fellowship in part in this life, more fully realized in the next. We get fellowship with God. We get the perfect love of Christ. That's one of the most amazing God's riches of God, that we get the eternal love of Jesus. That no matter what, for those of us who are in Christ, God's love captures us, it seals us, it never lets us go.

We get to experience his goodness, and his joy, and his hope, and his love. That one day, one of the riches we get, is we get to dwell with God, in the city of God, which Psalm 50 calls, the perfection of beauty. The perfection of beauty. We get to dwell in a land like that with God. We get excited about shiplap, and some farm tables. We don't even know beauty.

That we get to dwell with God, in the new Jerusalem. That he will be in the center. That we get to gaze upon his goodness, and his glory fully. We get riches upon riches. We get the perfect record of Christ, that stands for us. We don't have our own sin, it's replaced by the righteousness of Jesus.

You could go on, and on, and on, and fill your days, with writing out, the blessings of God. We wouldn't even come close, to scratching the surface, because those are just the ones, that we have written down in the scriptures. And they're not the ones, that through faith in Jesus, that we will get to fully realize, one day, we get God's riches, at Christ's expense. That the God of the universe, stepped into our timeline, humbling himself. He went to the cross, having his blood poured out, suffering for our sin, and having the full cup of wrath, poured out on him, so that he can make a way, for us to have life, and experience those riches.

That is the kind of grace, that we inherit, through faith in Jesus. We are just like Isaac, in one minute, scheming and lying, and the next minute, experiencing the goodness, and the glory of God, not by our own merit, but by God's. So for those of us, who are in Christ, for those of you, that grew up, in a Christian family, that got to hear this, I want you to think, through this for a moment. That you got to observe, the gospel. You got to be in a house, that filled the house, with the word of God, with prayer. You got to see this, over and over again.

And you know what, that didn't turn into? That didn't turn into legalism. That didn't turn into, false belief. By grace, you believed. You inherited grace. For those of you, that didn't grow up, in a Christian household, you inherited grace.

Because somebody, shared the gospel with you, and you believed. And someone shared the gospel, with that person, and before that person, before that person, you inherited grace. We all, through Christ, believing in Him, get to inherit this blessing, get to inherit grace. So parents, as we parent, may your homes, may our homes, be so infused, with the grace of our God, that in our obedience, that we hope to pass down, we can ultimately point that back, to the goodness of our God, working through us. That it's not, anything of ourselves, it is the goodness of the God, goodness of our God, and the gospel, working through us, that they might see, the Lord of grace.

That in your sin, and in our sin, and our fallenness, our kids may see repentance, they may see forgiveness, they may see us point back, to the gospel. May we be so, saturated with grace, that we would display this, the next generation of this church, might never depart from it.

The Sacrifice of Isaac

The Sacrifice of Isaac

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. All right, so we just got done walking through a series on multiplier. We spent five weeks walking through the calling to make and to multiply disciples. And then we, before that, were our gift series. And we spent December walking through our gift series. But before that, we were doing Genesis.

We made it halfway through. And we are jumping back in. We're going to finish Genesis, this half of Genesis, over the rest of winter into spring. So we're going to be in Genesis 22 today. You can go ahead and open there. It's on page 10 of your blue Bibles.

It'll also be on the screen as we follow along. But before we jump in, I want to catch us up to where we have been in Genesis and follow a storyline that we've been following. So in Genesis 1 and 2, God creates the earth. It is cosmic. It is big. It reflects his glory as he intentionally crafts different parts of creation.

And then in Genesis 2, we focused in on the creation of Adam and Eve. The guy creates Adam and Eve. He creates humanity different than any other aspect of creation, that we bear his image and his likeness. And that we have the unique ability to have a relationship with God. So Adam and Eve have a perfect relationship with God.

It is beautiful and it is good. And then in Genesis 3, they are in the Garden of Eden. And Satan, in the form of a serpent, comes into the garden. Causes them to question God and his goodness and his word. And they listen to Satan. They don't listen to God.

And they eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And in that moment, they sin. They rebel against God. And they bring sin and rebellion into this world. And it brings in death. And it affects every aspect of creation.

And when this happens, God comes down into the garden. And he makes a couple declarations. But one of the things that he says is that one day, Eve, you will have an offspring. And this offspring will come and she will come, or he will come and crush the head of the serpent. He will crush the head of Satan. And that is the declaration that Jesus one day is going to come.

That's the first declaring of the gospel that we have in the Bible. So we've been following this line that through Adam and Eve, the offspring is coming. And we see they populate the earth. Eventually, the earth gets so corrupted with sin, with violence, with hate, that God wants to start new. We followed the story of Noah, that God calls Noah. Noah builds an ark.

And his family is saved. And the line is preserved. And then we followed from Noah all the way to the character we've been following going into our gift series, which is Abraham. Abraham has a unique relationship with God. God comes to Abraham in his old age. Him and his wife Sarah do not have kids.

And he comes to Abraham and he says, I'm going to give you a son. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make a great nation through you. And from that point forward, Abraham and Sarah are waiting for God to give him this blessing, to give him this son. And there are times where it's going really well, where he's trusting God. When there's this beautiful covenant ceremony that he does, he puts Abraham in a dream.

And in the dream, the animals, they split an animal in two. And God walks through the center of it. And what is being declared in that ceremony is that this promise is going to happen. And if it doesn't happen, may God be like this animal who's been broken apart. Meaning this is going to happen. This promise is going to come true.

And then there are times where Abraham and Sarah, they try to force the promise. They don't trust God. They end up finding a surrogate, Hagar, to have a son who is Ishmael. We followed that story that Ishmael is a son. He loves Ishmael. But God says, this is not the promised son.

No, I'm coming to you, Abraham and Sarah. Y'all are going to have a son. His name is going to be Isaac. And then 25 years between God's promise to them and the birth of Isaac, Isaac finally shows up. Abraham's 100. Sarah's in her 90s.

And that is where we are today. Isaac's a little bit older. He's a young boy. And in this story today, which is one of the more, one of the biggest stories that we have in the Old Testament, we're going to walk through this story and we're going to see how God tests Abraham. We're going to see how God tests Abraham. Then we're going to see how Abraham responds.

He responds in faith and obedience, trusting God. Then we're going to see how God ultimately provides. And then as we back up, we're going to see what this story points forward to. So let me pray and then we'll walk through this story together. God, thank you so much that you love us, that we have a story that reminds us of your good news. God, I pray today that you would help us be present, that you would speak to us powerfully.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, speaking of verse 1 and 2. So this story just took a very serious turn. It starts out by telling us that he tells Abraham, he reminds us that Abraham is going to be tested here. And what is the test going to be? You are going to sacrifice your son.

This story starts out like a tragedy. It starts out like a tragedy and understand really what's going on here as we walk through it. There's two things that we need to understand. Firstly, we need to have a basis for what sacrifices are, as it shows up here in Genesis. Sacrifices were made with animals early on in Genesis to show the heinous nature of sin. That sin is rebellion against God and it's costly.

It costs blood. You don't sin against the God of the universe and commit cosmic treason and there's no punishment. So early on in Genesis, we see this practice of sacrificing animals to show this. And then later on throughout the rest of the Old Testament law and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, we see this system, this formalized system of sacrificing animals to show this. To show the grievous nature of what sin is and what it does to the people and how serious it is. And in this system later on, you see burnt offerings.

Burnt offerings are to show the total destructive nature of sin. That animal would be slaughtered and they would be burned up completely. That is what a burnt offering is. And God just called Abraham to do this to his son. And we look at this and there's a part of you that should say, What? Like this doesn't make sense.

I mean, this is explicitly forbidden in the rest of the Old Testament law because this is what the pagans would do. They're the ones that would sacrifice their kids. This doesn't make sense and it should catch us off guard. Because I feel like there's something inside of us that says, No, that's not right. There's a part of us, when we watch movies and films and we hear stories and there's certain thrillers and horror films where you know characters are going to start dying off. And then there's a sweet little seven-year-old girl.

There's a part of us, when we watch these films, we have this kind of social compact with Hollywood that says, You can take some of the characters out, but the girl lives. The innocent one lives. There's something inside of us that says, No, this isn't right. And this story begins with a setup that he is calling Abraham to sacrifice his only son, the promised son. So we get frustrated.

We start to think this isn't fair. But we're going to walk through this more and see what's happening here. The second thing that we need to understand is that God has always tested his people. From Old Testament to New Testament, God has always tested his people. Now, sometimes that word tested gets conflated with the word tempt. And they are two different things.

This is not tempting. James 1.13 says, Let no one say when he is being tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. God does not tempt. This is different. Tempting is luring you into sin and rebelling against God.

Testing is actually something that brings you closer to God. The Hebrew word for testing here means testing what someone is really like. Seeing what they are really made of through hardship and difficulty. And we see this all over the Bible. We see it in this story here. We see it in the book of Job.

The book of Job is another really challenging book where there's a man named Job, and he's prosperous, and he has a big family, he has lots of money, he has lots of land, he has great health. And then Satan comes along and says to God, you know, the only reason that job loves you and worships you is because of the things that you give. If you took it away, he would curse you. So God allows Satan to take away his health, his prosperity, and even some of his family. And ultimately, Job shows at the end of the book that he worships the Lord, he does not curse him. We see testing in the book of Job.

We see testing in how the nation of Israel comes out of Egypt. After the nation of Israel is brought out of Egypt by Moses, they sin against God in the wilderness, and they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. And this is what Deuteronomy says about this in chapter 8, verse 2. It says, And you shall remember the whole way the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, hear this, testing you to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. God tests our hearts to see what is in, to see if we will follow him. We see this in the New Testament when the early church is being persecuted, and Peter is writing to a church that is being persecuted, that's going through trials, and he says this, he says, In this you rejoice, though now for a little while.

If necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the Revelation of Jesus Christ. And the picture that is being played out here is that testing is like the purification of gold. When you purify gold, when you heat it up, impurities will rise to the surface. It shows what the gold is really made of. And it's an opportunity for you to clean the gold even further. And that's the picture of what testing gets to be, that when we are tested by God, it allows us to be closer to him, because it shows us our hidden faults.

It shows us where we don't believe the gospel, and it shows us where we need to repent and follow Jesus. Oftentimes what happens here is the thing that really gets us frustrated about testing, is we want to know specifically why. Why does this happen? Why does suffering happen? Why did this kind of period of testing happen for me? And a lot of times we don't get that answer.

We don't get the full picture. We get the theology here that we have to trust in the process, which is testing. But we don't always get the reasons, the specific reasons of why we're ultimately called to trust God, trust in the process, and trust that God is good, that he has good for us in the midst of testing. But every once in a while, I've seen this in my own life, every once in a while you might get a picture of why this happened, why periods of testing, periods of suffering happen. And in this story, we actually get the purposes of why this is going to become clear, why this is happening later.

So once you know, have a basis for what sacrifices are, once you have a basis for what testing is, we can walk through this story. He says, After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here I am. He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall tell you. He says, he calls out to Abraham. Abraham says, Here I am. And then he says, Take your son, your only son, and offer him as a burnt offering.

That word son is going to show up repeatedly here. Son, your only son. Now, both Abraham and God know this is not his only biological son. They both know this. This just comes off the heels of the story of Ishmael. What is being implied here is this is the promised son.

This is him. This is the one. And it's repeated 14 times in this passage. Son, son, son, only son. Your only son whom you love. It's meant to show us this is the promised son.

It's meant to remind us of everything that it took to get here. Think about this. It took them 25 years after years of being childless. 25 years for this promise to come to fruition. They have this promised son whom they love, and God has just called him to reduce the promise to ashes. This is a weighty calling that he is calling Abraham to, and this is how Abraham responds in verse 3.

He says, It says, Oftentimes when we read the Bible, we have an American way of reading passages, of reading the text. I don't think it's necessarily bad. It allows us, I think, to be empathetic. We read it. We're a feelings-based culture. You talk to any other cultures that look at us, they say, Well, Americans, we care a lot about our feelings.

And that can go crazy. That can go awry. I went through 90s self-help seminars and schooling. That can go a little bit crazy with emotions. But I think it allows us, since we're an empathetic culture, to put ourselves in other people's shoes, to be able to understand some of these stories and how they play out.

I think that's helpful. But what can happen is, is that we can start to make definitive statements about what they were thinking and what they were feeling when the text doesn't give us some of those pictures. Ultimately, we have to look at the text and what it is telling us. But sometimes, in the Bible, we get the behind-the-scenes picture. Sometimes we get to understand a little bit of what they were thinking. And we get that in this story, but it's not in this chapter.

You've got to flip to the New Testament. If you go to Hebrews 11, it says, By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his son, of whom it was said, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named. Hear this. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. So in the mind of Abraham, as he's received this calling, in his mind he knows God is able to even raise Isaac back from the dead.

So he has plans to go through with this. He's going to trust the Lord. But in the back of his mind, he knows God is even able to raise this son from the dead because this son is the promised son. This is the one that he is going to bring this great nation through. It is him. So he is trusting the promises of God as he's being tested.

And we see this in how he responds. He says, Abraham gets up, that he packs his donkey, that he grabs some supplies, that he gets some help from two young men, then he gets his son, and they hit the road. And if you read that, right off the heels of what he was just called to, man, it just seems robotic. He just got told to sacrifice his son, and he packs up everything, and they hit the road. It's a little confusing. Two things.

Again, we don't get a window into his emotions. It is reasonable to think this is very difficult for him. He loves his sons. You can see in his relationship with Ishmael in the previous chapters, he loves his sons. This is a difficult and weighty calling. But ultimately, we look at what he is trusting in.

He believes the promise that Isaac is the promised son. He has faith that God will come through him this promise, even if it takes resurrection. So he's trusting God. Verse 4. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. And Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey.

I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. So after a three-day journey of coming to Moriah, they finally see the place from afar. He sees it. They're getting closer. He tells the two young men, he says, you guys stay behind. It's just going to be Isaac and I.

Now, y'all, it's been three days. Three days. Every day. Every night. One step closer to this happening. One step closer to where he's being called to bring the knife down on his son.

Now, while Abraham is clinging to the promise and he's trusting that God can even raise him for the dead, the weightiness of this obedience is growing closer. But he's still trusting the promise of God and he ends this conversation. It's telling how he says it. He says, I and the boy will go over there and worship and come back again to you. He's saying, we're coming back. Isaac and I were going to the mount, but we're coming back again.

Verse 6. It says, And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went, both of them together, and Isaac said to his father Abraham, My father. And he said, Here am I, my son. He said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went, both of them, together. So Abraham, he gets the wood, he hands it to Isaac to carry, and Isaac starts to carry the wood, which tells us a little bit that Isaac, he's a young boy, but he's old enough and he's big enough to at least carry this wood. So he puts the wood on his back. They start to go towards the hill. And that shows us a little bit of what Isaac is doing here.

Isaac's being obedient. He's being obedient to his father as his father is trusting the Lord. And then Isaac, in the midst of this, he asks the obvious question. Dad, I see, I see the fire. I see the wood. You've brought a knife.

Where's the lamb? They didn't bring one with them. They didn't stop and buy one along the way. They haven't taken one. See, Isaac realizes that something's up. This isn't normal.

That something is out here. But he's going to trust his father as his father trusts God. Abraham looks at him. He says, God will provide. Abraham knows that God is going to provide. That he's even capable of raising the dead.

He just has to be prepared to go through with this. He has to be prepared to bring the knife down on his beloved boy. And the intensity is building even further. Abraham and Isaac, both being obedient to what they are called to. Abraham now has the knife and he now has the flame. And these are both visual representations of what is about to be called of him.

But he believes Isaac is ultimately going to be okay. But that still doesn't take away from the horror of this situation of what he's being called to. That in the midst of testing, Abraham is still trusting the promises of God. And then the scene finally arrives. Verse 9. When they came to the place of which God had told them, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

So they finally get to this place, this place of sacrifice. And I want you to picture this scene with me. Abraham at this point, he's well over 100. He starts to build the altar. And this is going to take some time. He's older.

He's building the altar. And piece by piece, as he's building this altar, there's a question that's still lingering in the back. Where is the lamb? And then he gets the wood. He takes the wood from Isaac. Isaac is watching this.

He grabs the wood. He starts to stack the wood. And the question still remains, where is the lamb? And he takes his son. Y'all, his son that he loves. And he starts to bind him.

He starts to tie him up. And Isaac doesn't struggle. Doesn't say that he ran off. He could have. He starts to tie him up. And he takes his son, this son he waited so long for, and he places him on the altar.

Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. So he reaches out the knife. He has the knife. He's getting ready to bring the knife down on his son. And it's at this point in this story that something screams within us, where is the lamb? Like, what is happening here?

How? Is this gone far enough? You see that he trusts you. What is happening? This does not seem fair. He has the knife, and he's ready to bring it down on his son.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. He said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and he looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

So Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide. As it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. So in the midst of him holding the knife, an angel intervenes and intercedes and says, Abraham, stop. Don't touch him. You've proven yourself. It's clear that you fear the Lord.

Step away. It's over. And Abraham can take his son. He can unbind him. He can do what every father would want to do in that moment. He can hold him.

He can hug him. He can tell him everything is going to be okay, that he was always the promised son. He can tell them what this was. It was never in doubt. You were always going to be the promised son. And then he picks up his head, and he sees the ram.

He sees the ram in the thicket. God provides the lamb, and then he takes it, and this is the sacrifice that was going to be there all along. He takes this ram, and he slaughters it as a substitute in Isaac's place. And Abraham can say, I knew it. I knew that God was going to come through with his promises. And they call this place, The Lord Will Provide.

That this place, Moriah, will forever be remembered as the place that God intervened, that God made a substitute, that God kept his promise, and the line of Abraham was preserved. And the rest of this chapter is that working of this blessing, declaring this blessing that is going to be, and you get to the end of it, and it's over. The story's done. And there's this lingering question, I think, that we still have when we read this. What was the point? What was the point of this story?

I mean, I get it. I'll concede. God tests his people. But calling a father to sacrifice his son, that seems a little too far. Calling him to take his innocent son. I mean, Abraham's old.

Couldn't God see his heart? Couldn't he see the faith that was in it? Why put an old man through that kind of grief? Why put Isaac through that kind of terror? Why? What is the point?

Because ultimately, this story is pointing to something else. The location of this place, Moriah, is significant. Later on in 2 Chronicles 3, we learn that Moriah is the place where Solomon built the temple. This is Jerusalem. This is not an accident. God could have chosen any place.

He could have chosen any mountain, but he chooses this hill. Why? Because this story was going to play out centuries later. That years down the line, there was going to be a son. There is going to be a son whom the Father loved deeply. The kind of love that is eternal.

The kind of love that stretches back into eternity past that is unbroken and perfect and pure and good. And out of this love, he's going to send his son. And out of this love, the son is going to obey the will of the Father. And he's going to travel on the same path that Isaac and Abraham took. The son is going to obey and he's going to put wood on his back. He's going to carry the wood up the hill.

The same path that Abraham and Isaac took. And this wood is going to be a wooden cross. And he's going to carry the wooden cross to a place that they called Moriah, a place that we as Christians now look at and call Calvary. And after being beaten and mocked and spit upon and abandoned and tortured, he's going to take that cross as far as he can go. He's going to need help just to get it up the hill. And when he gets to the top, there's going to be no need to ask the question, where is the lamb?

Because Jesus knew all along, he was the lamb. He was the ram and the thicket. He is the substitute. And he gets to the top and they bind him to the cross on the altar. They raise him up. And as, what's different from Abraham and Isaac now is as the knife is coming down and the angel stops, that doesn't happen here.

The spear pierces his side. The blood and the water pour out like an offering. And unlike Abraham and Isaac where Isaac is unbound, he can tell him everything's going to be okay. God the Father who's perfectly been in relationship and in love with his son is going to turn his back on him. This story in Genesis 22 is ultimately looking forward to the cross. That God spared Isaac.

He does not spare Christ. Jesus is the better Isaac. The one who carried the wood up the hill. And Abraham was right. The lamb would be provided. Jesus is our ram whose blood was spilled to take away our sins.

And the feeling that you have when you read this that says this isn't right that an innocent one should die, that is correct. We deserve wrath. Jesus dies in our place. Why? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. That's the hope of the gospel.

Why? Because you and me we need a sacrifice. We need someone to stand in our place because we have sinned and rebelled against the creator of God. We have trampled on his commands. We pursued flesh. We pursued the world.

We need a sacrifice. We are like hopeless sheep without a shepherd and Jesus comes from heaven and he seeks us and he claims us because the father loves you so much that he did not leave you here in sin but he sent Jesus to die for you so that he might carry you home. You are correct. It is not fair. We deserve wrath but Jesus obeyed the will of the father that he might become the ram that thicketh for us. He is the fulfillment of Genesis 22 and as Christians y'all we get to look at this story look at this picture of the gospel and respond in worship.

We get to respond in repentance.