Sermon: A Son Given

As you take a copy of God's word this morning, we're going to turn to the book of Hebrews at URC. For those of you joining us this morning, we tend to walk through books of the Bible and we are in the book of Hebrews and we're just gonna continue it this morning. This morning we're gonna look at Hebrews chapter 11 verses 17 through 19 as we're at. If you're using a Pew Bible, you can turn there to one pa page 1008 in the Pew Bible.

This morning we're looking at Hebrews chapter 11 verses 17 through 19. We've been looking at the life of Abraham is where we're at in this great chapter, this Hall of Fame of Faith as is often called.

We'll continue that this morning,

our verses this morning, our Hebrews 11, 17 through 19. I'm also though going to turn, uh, to Genesis 22 and read that passage that is being referenced and we'll turn there this morning as well. But let's pray before we open God's word together.

Father, we are thankful that you are a God who is active in this world. We're thankful that you have gifted us this word of testimony, that we have this gospel before us, that we get to hear it. We're thankful that you have you and the Son sent your spirit into this world to take the truth of this word and to implant it in our hearts and our minds and our souls. We pray this morning that you would indeed do that, that you would not leave us in darkness,

that you would not leave us ignorant, that you would not leave us foolish, that you would speak to us with the truth of your word and by the power of your spirit this morning as you've promised to do. We pray all of this in the strong name of Christ Jesus, our Lord and our savior. Amen. Hebrews chapter 11 verses 17 through 19, and then I'll flip to Genesis 22 in read verses one through 14. This is the holy aner, sufficient word

of God 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 only son of whom it was said through Isaac shall your offspring be named. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. And then Genesis chapter 22 where we find that passage verses one through 14 that's being referenced

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, and go to the land of Mariah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose

and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey eye and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. 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, he said,

here I am my son. He said, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac a's son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood the Abraham reached out his hand

and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from the heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his thorns 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. Well, the grass withers and the flower fades. The word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

I went to look at this passage this morning by asking three questions of it here in Hebrews. The first is, why would God test Abraham this way? The second is, is why would Abraham trust God this way? And then third, and maybe the question that all of you are asking this morning, how is this a Christian, a Christmas text and a Christmas sermon? And we'll answer that at the last this morning. But our first question, why would God test Abraham this way?

This is what the author of Hebrews calls it, verse 17. He says, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, God tested Abraham. You heard the same language in Genesis chapter 22, God tested Abraham when he commanded him to sacrifice his son, the son whom we are told in both texts that he loved. If that stirs emotion in you, you have a pulse. It's meant to stir emotion in you. And in fact, the very language in Genesis two, it's used over and over to stir emotion in you

and I ju-just in those 16 verses. If we were to go to the following two verses as well that I read this morning, you have these alternating terms of father and son, father and son, father and son. You have it 12 times, just 16 verses it's pulling on your heartstrings. You think about just the way that God called Abraham to this test. He piles up emotionally bound words. Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.

If you are reading that or you're listening to that this morning and you think, what is God doing? It's the right question. It's a fair question.

God is testing him. Now we need to be clear what is happening here. God is not tempting him. There's a big difference between tempting and testing enemies. Tempt friends don't tempt and God is not an enemy of Abraham. In fact, God will call Abraham his friend in the scriptures. Abraham will be the first that is called a friend of of God. It's an illuminating description as a friend. God tests or tries Abraham. Why? That's the question

to think through friendship just a little bit. If you'll think about it with me this morning, a true friend is someone who has our, our very best interest in mind. A a friend is, is someone that we know is is for us, that they want what is best for us. If we had someone in our life who called themselves our friend and yet we found out that they were plotting for our demise, that they were plotting for our worst, that they wanted our worst, we would say, of course, that

that is no friend and we would quickly abandon that relationship with them. The best of friends are those who in love seek to, to bring from us what is best in us. They not only have our best in mind that they want to see us at our very best. They nurture it, they solicit it, they draw it forth from us. And that's what Abraham's friend God is doing with him here. It's like a, a mother that is taking two steps backwards from that toddler child

that puts the child there and then just takes two steps backwards and just kind of holds out their hands and beckons the child to come forward. So God's doing that with Abraham here. He's just nurturing him. And Dave, you're hearing this right? Yeah, he's just specing forth and encouraging Abraham's faith.

I want you to think about Abraham here for a moment. Uh, think about what it is that he is facing. He's at a true crux and might even call it a crisis of faith because what God has asked seems contradictory. God has promised to Abraham that through a sun, Isaac, he shall be a blessing to all the nations and his offspring shall be as numerous as the stars of the sky and as numerous as the grains of sand upon the seashore.

That's what God's promise is. But now God commands that the one through whom this promise would come, that Abraham is to offer a sacrifice of this one through whom the promise is to come. It seems incredibly contradictory. Sacrifice the promise of many descendants through Isaac, disobey God and seemingly maintain the promise. Abraham has to decide. He has in essence decide does he take things into his own hands or does he continue to entrust

himself into God's hands? That's his question. Does he trust God or does he trust himself more?

Abraham, if you think about this, he had the opportunity to think about this for three days. He is to journey to this land of Mariah, to Mount Mariah and his three days journey away where God has told him to go and to go up this mountain to sacrifice his son. And so for three days he's thinking upon this. He had to think on this as he walked with the sun. He had to think on this as he trudged up that mountain, he had to think on this as he piled the logs upon his son,

he had to think upon this as he raised that dagger over and over, he had to keep asking himself, is God worthy of trust? Is he worthy? Which leads to our second question, why would Abraham trust God this way? Why does he do so? Because that's the conclusion that Abraham comes to is as he is journeying to Moriah, as he goes up the mountain and as he binds his son and as he piles the logs upon him, as he raises the dagger,

he comes to the conclusion that God is truly worthy of trust.

Why does he get to that place?

I've told you this before, but want to say it again is that we don't need to know the why as much as we need to know the who.

And that's a conclusion that that Abraham comes to who matters more than why. Why did God ask this? Abraham surely did not know fully, but he knew who asked this and that made the decision very clear for him. God has asked this of me and he's worthy of trust as you and I, as we go through life, we constantly have this question in our minds. We don't face the same thing that Abraham did. We weren't going to ever be called to this.

This was a promise that was through him. But over and over, throughout our lives, we have to ask this question, do I ultimately trust God or do I trust self? Do I entrust my life into his hands?

Do I trust my hands more?

You think about Abraham here. He could have been immobilized by the y

Sarah and he waited so long for children. They waited. He waited for a hundred years, her for 90 years. And then God grants this child why

this child was allowed. Isaac was allowed to grow and to mature in years. If God was going to ask for him to be sacrificed, why allow them to spend all of these years with this child? He's a young man at this point. Why? He could have been immobilized by wise whys. Any of those questions could have stopped him,

but he didn't focus on the why.

You know, right? That an answer to one. Why does not provide comfort or rest or confidence for the next why? And there are always more wise, you and I are going to face more wise today and this week and in the months ahead, let alone in the decades ahead, we're going to face hundreds and thousands of whys.

What ultimately matters is the who. Because when you know the who behind all of the why's, the who allows you to have strength and to have comfort and to have peace as you face every why. And he trusted the who, who commanded this notice the writer says in verse 19, Abraham considered that word there. It's the Greek word log. You can hear the word there. It's the word that we get the word logic from. He contemplated he thought upon, he added up, he computed

who this God was He thought upon him. And what did he know? Why would Abraham trust God in this way? Because he knew God was worthy of his trust. He knew that. How did he know that? Oh, he knew that from history. Abraham would've known the accounts of Adam and Eve, the accounts of Noah and his offspring. He would've known that though Adam and Eve had sinned in the garden, that God promised a child would be born into this world

and this child would crush the head of the serpent. That though mankind had rebelled against God, he knew this promise. He knew the history of God delivering his people through Noah and his family. He knew God to be great. He knew God to be worthy of trust from history. He also knew God to be worthy of trust from his word. God had promised him a son and he had fulfilled it. God had granted a child to a woman pastor childbearing years

from a man who was as a writer of Hebrew says in verse 12 as good as dead. They had no ability humanly speaking it was impossible. But this great and good God, he provided history and the word taught him as it has taught saints throughout the ages that this God is worthy of trust. It wasn't just history, it wasn't just his word. He knew this by experience God had provided for him over and over, calling him from the earth.

The kaldi's he had provided for him when he went into the promise land he had provided for him when he went down into Egypt, he had provided for him in the rescuing of a lot. He had provided a son.

He knew it by experience. This God is worthy of trust. He's great and he's good.

And the family that I grew up in, we grew up every meal praying the same prayer. And it went like this. God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food. Amen. Every meal. And when I went off to college, I came to saving faith in Christ and I returned back home with my newfound religious zeal. And when I came back home, I criticized that trite and truncated prayer. And in all my religious zeal I started praying

at all of our family meals. These long meandering, long prayers.

And years later I remember being convicted and coming to the conclusion that that was actually a really great prayer that we used to always pray.

It was a great prayer be because it gives voice to those two columns of faith that uphold a, a house of comfort, that God is great and God is good. And Abraham had come to that conclusion. He understood this. I want you to imagine if God was only great but not good, he he would be a tyrant If He was good but not great. And thank the Lord for John Anderson.

You are a gift from a good God. John.

If God was great but not good, he would be a tyrant. If he was good but not great, he would be impotent and it wouldn't matter. He'd be a nice guy, a kind of Santa Claus, but he's not. He's great and he's good.

And Abraham comes to that conclusion. The writer of Hebrew says in verse 19 that even if he has to carry through with this, that God was quote able even to raise him from the dead. He knew God to be great. He can do it. And he knew him to be Good, he would be willing

And he trusted that God.

My favorite moments at all of church history is, is of Poly Corp. That early church father that was a disciple of John and as Poly Corp is led into the coliseum and as as that Roman prefect is trying to get him to curse Christ. And Polycarp, this 86-year-old man is standing there before the Colosseum. And the prefect says to him, look, if you only curse Christ, we'll spare your life and not feed you to the lions. And then Polycarp says,

before all of that crowd is there jeering for his death, he says 80. In six years I have been his servant and he has done me no wrong. How can I now blasphemy king and my savior? He understood what Abraham understood, That God is great are our lives are in his hands,

That he's good And he has done us no wrong none.

How? How could you ever believe a God is great and good that asks Abraham to sacrifice his son? How could you ever believe that a God is great and the God is good as you stand in the Colosseum getting ready to face inevitable death?

That leads to the third question this morning. How is this a Christmas text and a Christmas sermon

As Abraham and Isaac are walking up Mount Mariah and Isaac is carrying that firewood? You heard Isaac ask that very poignant question. He's no dummy. And he asks of his father there in verse 70, he says, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And the response of Abraham in verse nine to his son is this, it's just as poignant. He says God will provide for himself the lamb. My son God is great, God is good.

On Mount Mariah, Abraham binds his son and on Mount Mariah he pours. He takes those logs and he puts them on top of his son. And on Mount Mariah, he raises that dagger to slaughter his son. And then you know from that text as we just read it, that an angel of the Lord appears all of a sudden and he cries out to him. Abraham. Abraham. And he stops him.

And then when Abraham raises his eyes, he, he sees that there is a ram caught in the thicket. And that is what is to be slaughtered. That is to what? Is to be sacrificed. And so Abraham now takes that ram and he offers that as a sacrifice on Mount Mariah. And he names the place God provides.

Where is the lamb? Father God will provide the lamb, my son.

But here is what is so key.

It wasn't a lamb that was caught in the thicket. It's a ram.

It's a ram.

Here's what you need to know fully. 1200 years later, we're told in two Chronicles three that Solomon, when he builds the great temple, he is commanded by God to build it on Mount Mariah. And it is there year after year for decades and hundreds of years that lamb after Lamb after lamb is slaughtered.

But all of that is just pointing forward to the one lamb that would be slaughtered.

Do you know where Jesus spends the last week of his life, where he is tried, where he is condemned, where he is beaten and ultimately where he's crucified?

On Mount Mariah

Abraham stated, this is often the case in the Bible, more than he could possibly know, God will provide the lamb, my son.

And he closed that passage. This will be the Mount on which God provides.

God is great. God is good. You see, it was there that the Father gave his only begotten son whom he loved.

When he tests Abraham's faith, the Rams provided. But you realize that the Father and the Son covenanted an eternity passed. It wasn't for three days that they thought about this sacrifice. It was forever and ever that the Father and the Son thought upon this, that the Father and the Son covenanted together. That the father would sin the Son into the world. That the son would be born into this world. That he would take upon himself, human flesh,

that he would live among sinners, that he would be counted as sin on our behalf and that he would be offered as a substitute for us and that he would be condemned. Not that wood was laid on him, but that he was laid on wood. Not that he was bound, but he allowed himself to be bound.

And the Father slays him.

He slays him.

See, when you and I think of Christmas, we are never to think of the incarnation, the Son of God becoming flesh without immediately finding ourselves running to the cross. He was born. He was born. Yes, he was born so that he could die

born so that he could die.

John the Baptist sees Jesus from afar. He will say, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

God will provide, he will provide the lamb. My son,

the Son or Savior Everlastingly is a living monument to the fact that God is great and God is good,

that he's worthy of our trust.

You will not know the why to everything. Why is this happening in my life? I don't know. Why is that happening? I don't know.

I don't know every reason. You will know every reason. But I know the who

and I know he is great. And I know he is good. And I know he is worthy of our trust and our faith now and into eternity. 'cause he gave his only begotten son the very lamb of God for sinners like you and I, and he planted from all of eternity.

You have reason to rejoice

to give thanksgiving to this God. He's great and good. Let's pray.

Our Father, we're thankful you are a God of such exceeding kindness.

You would sin your beloved son, the Son whom you have loved forever and ever,

and that there would be no substitute for him who would be a substitute for us.

Thank you for the gift of the Son born into this world, to save sinners.

Thank you oh Christ, for being willing to be made sin for us

to be as a lamb led before its shears and to be crucified for us. We might enjoy you and the Father by the power of the spirit forevermore and be true of every soul in this room we give you praise, our Lord and our God in Christ's name. Amen.