Friends, if you have a Bible, would you please open with me to Genesis chapter 22?

Genesis chapter 22. We are doing a series over the story of biblical history. And last week we looked at the story of the garden and the way that the garden points us to the very end, the day when we will live in a garden city. In the presence of the triune God, holy and perfect in every way, because Jesus Christ, the second Adam, was for us our true Redeemer and allows us now with great hope to know, with confidence, with certainty, that those of us who are in Christ will be able to enjoy Him for all eternity.

And we will live not in a garden, but in a garden city. And today. we come to another major movement in the biblical story, and that is the story of Abraham. Now, you Bible scholars will know that after the fall in Genesis 3, then there was the story of Noah. It takes us from Genesis chapter 6 through Genesis chapter 9.

And the Lord saved the world through eight people.

And then after the Lord redeemed, The world. Through those eight, he made a promise that never again will I flood the world. And mankind came together and they built a tower for their own glory sake. And the Lord lest man should again usurp God, he confused their languages in Genesis chapter 11. And so when you come to Genesis chapter 12, the story slows way down.

And it talks about how the Lord called a man out of a link called er, the Kades, a man who was the son of a moon worshiper. named Terah. His name was Abraham. And the Lord said to Abraham, Abraham, not because you're special, not because you're the most faithful, not because of anything intrinsic in you, but simply because I have set my love upon you.

I'm gonna call you out of your land, and I'm gonna call you to a land that will be plentiful. And I'm going to, through you, give you more children than there are stars in the heavens and sands on the sea. And through you, Abraham, all the people of the world will be blessed. And he invited him into this amazing covenant in Genesis chapter 15, where God passed through the smoking pot and the flaming torch.

You can read chapter 15, please do, where God Himself said, I will be faithful to my promise and to my namesake. And then He gave Abraham a seal of that covenant promise in Genesis chapter 17. And that seal was the sign of circumcision, which every male child in Israel, the descendants of Abraham, should receive as a sign of them being consecrated, set apart, made holy unto the Lord.

And so now we come to Genesis chapter 22. And one of the reasons why we're talking about Genesis chapter 22 is because it is this very vivid and beautiful picture of the ram caught in the thicket who, as you'll read, at the very last moment God provided a way after he asked something incredibly hard of Abraham.

And so if you're willing and able, let's stand together and we'll pick up where John read for us earlier In Genesis chapter 22, we'll pick up at verse 9 and read from 9 to 10 This is the word of the Lord. Please give your attention to it. It is given to you in love.

And 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, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But an angel of the Lord called to him from 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 horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

So Abraham called the place, the name of that place, The Lord will provide, as it is to this day. And on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but God's word stands forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, please. Do you remember your first car?

Mine was a 1985 CJ7 Jeep. Oh, I love that car. Here's a picture of it with my friends. It was an amazing car. Do you remember your first car? No, what great memories. I want you to imagine this morning that you're 16. And I want you to imagine that your parents give you a new car. Not just a new car, but they give you your dream car.

And there it is in the driveway, glistening in the sun. And your father or your mother hands you the keys to that car. They show you the title. They teach you what a title is. And they say, this car has your name on it. It's your car. And you get to receive the keys of your dream car. It is a beautiful thing.

Can you imagine it? Now, what do you think the first thing after your parents give you that title and those keys to you, what do you think the first thing they say to you is? That's right. Now take care of it. Because you have to learn about oil changes, and you have to learn about keeping the car up to date.

You have to learn about all the maintenance of a car. It is given to you as a free gift, and yet what? There is responsibility expected of you, isn't there? And for in Genesis chapter 22 reminds us that we have been given something far more beautiful than a new car. In Genesis chapter 22, the Lord gave Abraham a covenant promise.

And that covenant promise was not to receive anything material. It was to receive something that was to be eternal. It was a covenant promise that I will give you a land. And in that land you shall dwell and be my people and I will be your God. And I will give you more children than there are stars in the sky or sands on the seashore.

And through your children all the nations will be blessed. He gave Abraham this amazing gift. The title was in his name. The covenant promise was sealed with a sign, namely circumcision. And so, isn't it interesting, as Moses, remember friends, who's reading this story for the first time? Who's hearing it?

Moses is telling the story of Genesis. Don't miss this. He is telling the story of creation and fall and redemptive history to the people in the wilderness.

He's telling the story to them to comfort them that just as God has been faithful in the past, and He will be true to His promises, these promises are yours, O Israel, He is telling them. And just as these promises are yours, and with all the confidence that we have because those promises are ours, there are days when He takes you out into the wilderness.

And he leaves you there and you think you're going to die. And in fact, not only does he take you out to the wilderness, but he does what does it say? The very first line of Genesis chapter 22. If you're in the wilderness as an Israelite, and you're hearing Moses, and here's what Moses says, after these things, God tested Abraham.

And every Israelite would think that they're in the middle of a test.

And what's the question to us this morning, O Trinity? We too are in the middle of a wilderness.

And we too are asked the same question that the Lord asks Abraham. So what I want to do this morning in the moments we have together is I want us to look at two aspects of this sermon. The church's testing and the church's provision. The church's testing and the church's provision. And I want you to know that God is faithful to his covenant promises.

And he will fulfill those covenant promises through the Lord Jesus Christ who is the true Lamb of God. And he will do that for the sake of his elect. Oh, it's a beautiful story. Would you come with me back to that day in Genesis chapter 22? I want you to notice, first of all, how the text of Scripture slows way down when you get to this part of Genesis.

It's as though Moses in retelling the Israelites slows down and gives them minute by minute and raises the tension. The church's test. In Genesis chapter 22, we find Abraham in the midst of unimaginable tension. God has asked Abraham to sacrifice his son.

The very son through whom God had promised that there would be the redemption of his people. Isaac was the child of promise. He was the one through whom God said, I will make a great nation out of you, Abraham. Not through Ishmael, but through Isaac. All the families of the earth are going to be blessed through this son, and I want you to sacrifice him.

Now, why would, why could Abraham even do something like this? Like, if Abraham was a modern person. Abraham would go, You want me to what? You want me to sacrifice my son? And as modern readers of Scripture, sometimes we have a hard time with this passage. How could God ask Abraham to sacrifice? I mean, child sacrifice?

This is why the Bible is just, it is it is, some people would argue, this is why the Bible is just full of all this violence in the Old Testament. I can't hardly believe it. But remember, friends, think of how the Israelites would have heard this passage. They're in the watering wilderness.

They're listening to Moses tell the story of Abraham sacrificing his son, and none of them would ask the questions we ask about child sacrifice to them, because they know That God has asked for the firstborn of all of their families to be set apart and consecrated unto Him. He says in Exodus chapter 13, The firstborn are mine.

He has a specific command. Consecrate me, all of the firstborn, whoever is the first to open the womb among all the people of Israel, both man and beast. It is mine. And the word consecrate means to set apart. It means to set apart the firstborn to dedicate them. And the Lord lays a unique claim on the firstborn of the children of Israel.

And so the people in the wilderness are hearing this, and they're not thinking, they're not thinking about the horrors of child sacrifice, they're thinking immediately of the exodus. And they're thinking, well of course it makes total sense for God to ask the firstborn of us. Because the Lord saved our firstborn, because the blood covered the doorposts during the exodus.

And all the firstborn of Egypt died, and He saved us. And so we gladly yield to the Lord our firstborn. We gladly yield to the Lord the whole of our life. And Moses challenge to Israel is the same challenge Scripture calls us to believe today. Will you believe the Lord when He calls to test you?

James chapter 1 tells us that the Lord never tempts us. But He does test you and He tests you for your good. And that test is not because He's going to take away your inheritance. The test is not that He's going to take away your identity in Him. You're not going to lose the title or the deed to the new car.

It's yours. You've got it. But He does test you to refine you. And I just want you to understand the significant stakes that the Lord called Abraham to yield when He asked him to offer up his firstborn son. In the ancient Near East, the firstborn. Received a double portion of the inheritance. The fancy 50 cent word is primogenitor.

They were the ones who were responsible to lead and guide the family after the father died. And so Abraham is giving up

incredible security by offering Isaac to the Lord. His own security in old age is being forfeited. God is saying, do you trust me with your retirement, Abraham? I want it. Not only that, he was asking him to think about the emotional investment they had made into Isaac. They had waited to have a child. And finally, the Lord granted them a child.

And Isaac is the child of promise. And here they are, weeping, enjoying the faithfulness of God with this child. And God says, hey, you know that child that I gave you? I want it. I want it.

And in some way, every sermon is hard to preach because it has to go through my heart before it comes to you. And I wonder if, like me, the Lord's asking something of you. If you have children who have walked away from the faith, what would He wants them. He wants you to yield them up to Him, and fight, and claw, pray, invite people alongside you, to encourage, to call them back.

He wants you to be faithful to them. He wants those of you who are really struggling to make financial ends meet, to know that He has given you every dollar that's in your bank account. It's His. He can do with His money what He wants. It's His. And He's given to you a certain amount to steward for His glory's sake.

Do you trust Him with it? Some of you are looking for a local church. And the Lord is asking you the audacity of leaning in to the local body. But I don't want to, it feels vulnerable. And the Lord says, do you trust me with your Isaac? Because, perhaps, just perhaps, Moses knew that Israel had made their security and their safety in Egypt the idol of their hearts.

And they longed for it once again. And Moses says, let me tell you the story of Abraham. He gave up his Isaac. Will you give up your security? This,

this moment is not just a moment in the story of Abraham's life. It is a profound illustration of God's faithfulness to his people. Covenant promise, because the God calls out to Abraham, and when he calls out to him, Abraham, the Hebrew Old Testament says Hanani in Hebrew, behold it is I, here I am.

Abraham says it,

Jacob says it, Joseph says it, Isaiah says it, all throughout the Old Testament when God calls out to them. These forefathers of our faith and the prophets, they say, Lord here I am,

and I wonder if we can say. He and Ani hear I. When the Lord calls you and your test

honest questions, what do you fear the most that he might be calling you to do or to give up for him?

When you think about your future, what do you dread? What is something that you couldn't live without? Who or what do you love or treasure the most? What do you find yourself daydreaming about when you're stressed or overwhelmed? Where do you first turn? What is your escape when you're in pain?

What are you striving for that will help you feel like you finally made it?

Whose opinion of you matters the most? Moses is doing surgical surgery. He's doing intimate work in the hearts of the Israelites in the wilderness, as he's telling them the story of Genesis. And so also the Holy Spirit, through His Word, intends to do the same in you.

The Lord tests us for our good. And He's put us in a covenant community where you're not unique, as special as you are. He's given us a body to bear the burdens of each other together. And whether your daughter's going through cancer treatment, or your children have walked from the faith, or the Lord is asking you to yield to Him your occupation and your job, or asking you to step out in faith in some incredibly hard and difficult way, I want you to stand in line with those Israelites of old in the wilderness who heard this story for the first time, and I want you to be able to say, Lord, here I am.

I am. Is there anything in your life that you still grab on to so tightly that the Lord can have everything about your life except not this? And like the monkey's hand who's stuck in the coconut. You've heard that illustration before, right? He sticks his hand in the coconut, and once he grabs whatever is inside, the monkey can't pull his hand out of the coconut, which is attached to the tree.

And no matter what happens, the monkey is so stubborn, he'll never pull his hand out. And so the hunters Come by and they take the monkey because he would never let go of what's inside. What are you clinging to? What is your Isaac? The church's test is that he doesn't give us one great test of life, he gives us a thousand little tests.

Maximus and Minimus, the early church used to say, the greatest things happen in the smallest ways. Are you as a body able to yield your Isaacs to the Lord? And I want you to recognize what was it that helped Moses in the midst of this, Test. Abraham bound Isaac and they ascend Mount Moriah. And Isaac carries the wood for his sacrifice, reminding us of another one who also climbed a hill with the wood on his back to be sacrificed, the Lord Jesus.

And notice it says in Genesis 3 through 3 through 5. Abraham rose early in the morning, he saddled his donkey, he took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac, and they cut the wood for the burnt offering, and they arose, and they went to the place that God had told them. On the third day, Mos Abraham lifted up his eyes, and he saw the place from afar.

And notice what Abraham does. He says to his young men, Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come to you again. When you are tempted, sometimes you, when you're tested, sometimes you're tempted to avoid worship. But listen to what Moses is calling the Israelites in the wilderness to do and believe.

When you're tested, You find the strength of your test in worship, not apart from it. And if you're being tested, it is a call for you to come back to corporate worship, to lean into the body of Christ more and more and more. Abraham took Isaac, and what does it say they did? They went up to the mountain alone, and there he worshipped.

It's in the context of worship that you find your strength in the midst of the trials. And so this body is given full of vulnerable people who know they need the grace of God to help strengthen you in the midst of your trials so that you're able to say, Hanani, Lord, here I am.

Not only the church's test, but second, notice the church's provision. Notice what the Lord does here for Abraham. He raises the tension. He says, just as Abraham is about to bring the knife down on Isaac, an angel says, Abraham, Abraham! And again, what does Abraham do? He says, Hanani, here I am. And he says, don't lay a finger on the boy.

And then notice, notice that Abraham turns his eyes and he sees caught in the thicket. And if you have that coloring page, Lord, here is the ram caught in the thicket. And for generations to come, we want our children to remember the story of Isaac, who was provided for by the ram, which was caught in the thicket.

And we're going to immortalize it in one of the hammer beam trusses of the church, where the ram is caught in the thicket, so that we always, as we worship, we'll look back on the story of Abraham giving Isaac, and say, Lord, what are my Isaacs? Hanani! Here I am! And he provides a ram that was caught in the thicket, and the Lord takes the ram.

Abraham takes the ram, and he sacrifices The ram in Isaac's place, at the very last moment he provides for him. And I wonder if you know what was sacrificed to give you the identity that you now have in Jesus. Do you know that God the Father loves you and at the right point in time, in the fullness of time, Paul says, the Lord sent the lamb.

His only son to be the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world. And it's interesting as you read throughout church history, you see the early church fathers as they read chapter 22, they all just cry out, what a picture of the gospel this is, when Augustine is writing, The city of God to the pagan Romans as Rome is being sacked, and he says there is a city of man and there is a city of God.

He recounts all of biblical history, and in book 16, in chapter 32, Augustine writes of this passage, Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice is a figure of Christ. Carrying His own cross. Isn't that beautiful? And in the ram caught by its horns in the thicket, we have a type of Christ who is crowned with thorns, made by the Jews, offered for us.

And just as the ram was caught in the thicket, and just as Jesus is crowned with the crown of thorns, therefore the church, which is the seed of Abraham, is redeemed, and God promises to bless all nations. And it is fulfilled once and for all through the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Hallelujah. Every time you go to an Owasso high school football game and you see those ram horns on those helmets, you think about Genesis chapter 22. The ram caught in the thicket. High school students, if you're at Owasso, every time you see that statue at the front of the high school, when you walk into school every day, see it as a token, a reminder to you from the Lord, saying, the ram caught in the thicket.

It is the ram that is given for us. And the implications of, of Genesis chapter 22 are just, they're massive. It's massive. Here we see the continuity of God's covenant promise that no matter what he asks of you, he'll be faithful to his covenant promise, which Abraham believed. He says, we will go up to the mountain in worship, and he says, and we will come back to you again.

So confident was Abraham, that despite how astounding the request was of him, he knew that God would be able even to resurrect Isaac from the dead if necessary in order to fulfill his covenant promise, God will be faithful to his covenant promise. Do you believe that? Here you see the election of Abraham and all of God's people through Abraham.

All those who spiritually place their faith in Jesus are true Israel. You see that God called Abraham, not Deuteronomy chapter 7, 7 and 8, not because of anything lovely in Israel. He set his affection on them. He loved them because he loved them. Joshua, I think it's chapter 24, Joshua says that the Lord called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees from a pagan family.

Because the Lord was to give him Isaac, through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. God set his eyes upon Abraham because he loved him. And O you church elect, God has called you, He has drawn you, even here today. As He calls you to yield up your Isaac, He is calling you to say, Come to me, come to this table in faith, to yield up whatever it is that stands in the way.

For those of you who aren't believers,

Bring your objections. Let's talk about them. Maybe the Lord is asking you to yield up what the deeper objection is under those objections. Maybe He's calling you to lay down your self saving strategies and rest in the good news that you're saved by the work of another, not yourself, which runs counter to almost everything that we're taught as modern Americans.

Oh Christian, what if the Lord is calling you to yield your life in some particular circumstance? way that only you know, and He is.

Are you able to come to this table with nothing in your hands to bring, but simply to the cross to cling?

The witness of this church in this community is in the way you do the little things. The way that you yield up your obedience to walk in the way of the Lord when He asks you to. Because the world watches you. You've been given this amazing gift of your salvation. And in a few months time, people are going to see you in a beautiful building.

That is, for us, also God's amazing gift to us. And the world's going to wonder, are they any different? And we have the privilege of holding high the beauty of the gospel to say, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. And Isaac, after Isaac, after Isaac, we are going to walk forth in obedience, trusting Him that He is able even to resurrect Isaac from the dead.

Because God is faithful. to his covenant promises. Hallelujah. And he has yielded this great truth to us in signs and seals of the Lord's table. Where Jesus, when John the Baptist first saw his cousin versed upon the scene, what does he say in John 1 29? Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins.

Let's pray.

Father, that you've given us something far greater than the deed to a new car. You've given us The deed to eternal life purchased for us by your son, your only son, who was the true ram caught in the thicket for us. Jesus, thank you that just like Isaac said, Father I see the wood and I see the altar, but where's the sacrifice?

And in that garden of Gethsemane, you said, Oh, you said to your son, and Jesus knew it. He himself was that sacrifice for us. Thank you, Lord, that you have redeemed us through the death of your son. And would you help us to believe it? Would you help us to yield up the whole of our lives to you for your glory's sake?

And to take such great joy that you will be faithful to your covenant promises. That nothing eternal will harm us. You will never forsake us or forget us. You've given us life and help us even amidst our wilderness, like Israel of old, hearing this for the first time, to trust in your covenant promise.

And we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.