Sermon fo September 28

Here is the sermon for this week. Enjoy.

As many of you know by now, we are on a sermon series called “From Creation to Christ”, where we will be walking through the Bible in 12 weeks. For the last two weeks we have been covering Creation, and something called the Fall. What we need to be aware of is that the Bible is a play written in four acts, Created, Fallen, Redeemed, Restored. As we continue in the series all of this will be come more clear. So, in two weeks we covered Created and Fallen. What we will see for most of the remaining semester is that Redeemed is most of the rest of the Bible.

Before we begin this week, I want to say that we are skipping a lot. And we are going to have to skip even more as the semester goes on. It is not that the parts we skip aren’t important, just that we have limited time, and so sacrifices must be made somewhere. I say that this week because we are jumping right to Abraham, about the half way point in Exodus. If you are familiar with the Bible you will notice that we are skipping Cain and Able, Noah, the Flood, and many other things. Sorry. If you really need me to speak to them, then I will say in Genesis 4 the first murderer takes place, the world goes to hell in a hand basket, God finds a righteous man called Noah, and saves him while he wipes the rest of the world out. Many of you may have heard these stories in church as a kid during Sunday School, and you really shouldn’t have, because telling kids about the death of other kids seems very sadistic and wrong somehow. Here is a quick tidbit about the Noah’s Ark story: there are over 450 flood stories around the world, from people groups in China, the Mediterranean, and the New World. Anyway, today we are talking about Abraham, who for most of the sermon is called Abram. Know that these two names are the same guy.

As we read this, we should also try to get a feel for the entire book of Genesis, which I know is hard since we are skipping some. If you were to read the book on your own, what you will find is that it is pushing us toward this man, Abram. We read 1 chapter about all of Creation, 1 about human creation, 1 about the fall, and then 9 others summing up the rest of human history. In the same way that Genesis 1 pushed to the creation of humans, really neglecting the rest, so too does Genesis push to Abram. He is really the main character of the book. We are going to see this literary device used throughout Scripture. Often the Bible skips much of history to get to the next guy. We will see this with Moses, David, and finally Jesus, that being said, lets jump in. We read in Genesis

Genesis 11:27-32

27Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.

31Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

Now these verse are not the crux of the sermon today, so the question can be asked, why did I read them. Two reasons: 1. It is here that the book of Genesis makes a jump. It is clear from the details given and the grammatical structure that this is a history. Where some of the previous stories could be read as history, or myth, or poetry, the Bible is forcing us to read this as history. We are to know that Abram was a real guy, who really lived, had a house, a job, a family. 2. Sometimes we, as westerners and Christians, tend to skip the genealogies. We don’t see them as that important, the names are hard to say, we so no good in reading them, so we jump to the “good parts”. When we do this, we do a disservice to both ourselves, or faith, and the Bible. Genealogies are going to be very important for the rest of the Bible. Two of the Gospels, the book about Jesus life, start with them. Also, these guys are in the Bible. They did something to get in there, and we should honor that. Finally, we read in the Bible that all scripture is God breathed and profitable. This includes these genealogies. So when we encounter them, we should read them and study them, not dismiss them.

We also find out some about Abram. He is from Ur, for one. He is not Jewish, nor Hebrew. He is from Ur. We also know that he has no kids since we read that Sarai, his wife, was barren. I want to pause here just to say that this has been a very challenging sermon to write. Abram is the central character of Genesis, and the Jewish faith, and we are going to cover him in one night. The only way I found to do this is to tell a narrative. This means that some scripture which is in your program is just for you to look up, and I am going to paraphrase it. It also means you have to trust me until you can look it up, otherwise we would be here for a few more hours. The narrative begins:

Genesis 12:1-4a

1Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him

This is the first interaction we see Abram have with God. And what we see is God calling him to a different country. In a Global society that doesn’t seem like such a big deal. We are all travelling all the time, right. But for the day, it was huge. When God calls him to a new place, he is essentially demanding he leave everything behind. His family, his life, his security. This all takes place about 2000 BC. If you know anything about the time period, you know they didn’t have email. They didn’t even have regular mail. The way you talked with someone was to go to their door. If you left the country, there was large possibility that you would never see your friends again. And your friends at this time weren’t just people to get lunch with at the DC. They were the only protection you had. There was no police, or Interpol, or FBI. If you left the safety of your clan, you were toast. There were also no planes, or cars or trains, so you had to walk everywhere. The roads were extremely unsafe, because as I already said, there were no police. Bandits and robbers and murderers waited to jump upon unsuspecting caravans. I am not exaggerating by the way. It was very unsafe to travel.

This is what God is calling Abram to. When Abram goes, he is taking his life in his own hands, so to speak. He is trusting God to protect him, guide him, provide food for him, since he can’t take his farm with him, and everything else. It would be like God asking you today to go to LA, but you have to walk, could only bring one back pack full of stuff, only as much money as is in your checking account right now, cut up your credit cards, ATM cards, etc, never call home again, and you aren’t allowed to hitchhike, call for help, or pay for hotels along the way, and when you get there, just trust God has the perfect mansion for you- only much scarier and less safe.

We have to also ask the question, “Why does God call Abram?” What I mean by that is what was it about Abram that made him stand out? Was he a perfect Christian? Did he go to church every week? Was he just such a good guy? What was it that made God call him? The only answer in the Bible is a little later in Genesis, and it is that Abram believed God. See, at the time he was called, Abram was a sinner. Lets pause here for a moment. Have any of you heard of the Ten Commandments? Most, good. We can read this as a list of things that make God mad and us sinners. This is not the only or most important function of these commandments, as we shall see next week, but it suffices for now. It is a list of do’s and don’ts. Now the first tow commandments are the real big ones. The first commandment is that we should have no gods before God, and the second that we shouldn’t make idols. They are pretty big deals. So we would surely think that Abram has kept some of these. Now they haven’t been given yet officially, but one would assume that God still digs them, he did just wiped out the entire world for breaking these commandments just a few chapters earlier. I think it is a safe assumption that the commandments are still in effect for Abram.

Do any of you know what Abram did for a living before God called him? He made idols! His job was to carve graven images for people and them sell them as gods for others to worship. He must have had idol upon idol in his home and garage. He is breaking the commandments, but more that this, he wasn’t even worshipping God. God calls him when he is a idol worshipping, lawless, filthy sinner. He is actively breaking God’s rules, even profiting by it, teaching others to do it, and God calls him. This is the first in a number of scandalous relationships God will have throughout the Bible.

Well, you may say, God called him when he was a sinner, but I bet he cleaned up his act, started listening to Christina music only, got a suit, and went to church for the rest of his life, and you’d be wrong. Now I am not saying those things are bad. And certainly Abram becomes a better person as his relationship with God progresses, but he was not perfect before his calling, and we will see, nor is he perfect after. Why am I making a big deal of this? Because God gives grace to the sinner. As we walk through the Bible we will see everyone, and I mean everyone God chooses to initiate with is broken in some way. Church isn’t a place you need to be clean first to enter. You don’t need to be perfect or flawless to enter into a relationship with God. All you need to do is believe and follow him. As we continue Abrams journey we will see him doing many things, changing his life in certain ways, worshipping God. And we will also see there is only one thing that the Bible credits his righteousness with. It is not correct worship style, or a fully holy life, it is that fact that he believed.

Abram is called, and he follows, and we expect the next chapter to be him in the land God promised him. But it is not. What happens next is in Genesis 12. Abram goes to the land, but then continues on, and ends up in Egypt. He went there because there was a famine. Here’s the thing though, God doesn’t tell him to go to Egypt. He tells him to go to the land he called him to. So the first thing Abram does is not trust God. Now we may object and say, well there was a famine, and didn’t you, Nate, tell us last week that the husband is to care for his wife. If she starved he wouldn’t have been a very loving guy. And that is fair, but we also must ask, could not God have given them food, or ended the famine? Maybe the famine was so that Abram could settle the land, since everyone would have been leaving? I say he was not wholly trusting God. The reason for this is what happens next. As they are entering Egypt, Abram tells Sarai to pretend she is his sister and not his wife because she was very beautiful. He was afraid he would be killed by the men of Egypt so they could marry Sarai. God just spoke to him and told him he would bless him, and now Abram is lying to save his own skin. This does not sound like the actions of one who is trusting God.

I also cant imaging the conversation he had with his wife. So, uh, can we, uh, pretend, you know, to not be married, you know, just for a little while? I mean I still love you, but… we could have a super secret marriage. It will make it even more special.

Any way, she apparently is very beautiful because the Pharaoh decides she will join his house and be one of his wives, which, again, I can’t imagine Sarai was happy about. Pharaoh finds out Abram was married to her and kicks them out of the country because marriage was sacred, even to the Egyptians, and they are worried that God is going to punish Egypt for the sin. I image the conversation on the walk back to Canaan, the land God promised Abram, was even worse than the conversation about pretending not to be married.

So Abram screws up. We all do, right. What is God’s reaction to this? If I were God, I would give Abram a talking too about trust and listening and marriage, but that is not what happens. The next thing God does is to speak to Abram again and re-emphasize the promises He made. The pattern so far is God initiates with people he really shouldn’t, they trust Him, but not always, try things their own way, screw things up, and again God initiates with them. This is a God of Grace. God should have kicked Abram out of the family right way, but he doesn’t. Instead He reminds him again of the covenant he will make with him and his descendents.

And then a whole bunch happens that we won’t talk about, some battles, some giving of goats, all very exciting, and then we get to Genesis 15

Genesis 15:7-21

7And he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." 8But he said, "O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" 9He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13Then the LORD said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete."

17When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites."

There is a lot going on here, and we are going to gloss over most of it. God again is making his covenant with Abram. We have heard it all before. It almost gets redundant as we read the text, trust me. Here is what we need to take away from this passage though. We may be wondering what is the deal with all the animals and the splitting in two, etc.? In the ancient Middle East, this is how one made a covenant. The two parties would bring animals and kill them and split them and walk through them together. It was to show that the promise was expensive and to say that the same may be done to them if they renege on their part. What Abram is doing in setting all this up is what any Middle Easterner would have done if they were going to enter a covenant. It is what he knew. It is akin to signing a binding contract.

And then he waits for God, like he was told. He is back to obeying, so that’s good, but God doesn’t come. He waits all day. He drives away scavengers. He waits. And finally he falls asleep. And then God shows up. We read a dreadful darkness. This is something to be feared. Something otherworldly. And God speaks to Abram and makes his covenant with him, again. And then something out of the ordinary happens. I mean more out of the ordinary that having God speak to you or splitting animals in two. We see God come and the covenant established, and from what I just told you, or from your in depth knowledge of Middle Eastern Covent practice, we should expect Abram and God to walk through the animals together. But that is not what happens. God walks though by himself!

This is extremely important. What God is doing is taking the entire covenant upon himself. He knows that Abram can not fulfill it, and so He bears even Abrams half. Again and again we are going to se this in the Bible. God will assume the burden of both his role and ours, this culminating in the Cross where He will die in our place, assume the sin we amassed, and be our spotless sacrifice so we can once again fellowship with God. And it all starts right here, in book 1 of the Bible. The third act in the Play, Redemption, begins as soon as Fallen ends.

Abram would have picked up the symbolism easier than we. So know surely Abram is good. He has to understand God now. There can be no more doubt in his mind. I mean, how many times does God have to visit someone for them to get it? One of the promises of God is that Abram will have a son and that his heir will bless the world. But we read in the beginning of the Abram story that Sarai was barren, so it seems like this is an impossibility. Abram by this point is almost a hundred, and Sarai ain’t getting nay younger, so how are they going to have a son?

Abram and Sarai had the same thoughts. They knew how the human body worked. Sarai even says am I to feel pleasure again at this age? She knows that she has been through menopause and that is that. So somehow they come to the brilliant conclusion that Abram should take another wife. As if the first marital conversation Abram had went over so great. Has he forgotten how mad God was with everyone when he told Sarai to pretend to not be his wife? Now he is taking a second wife. I wish I heard the logic. You know, babe, I love you, right? Well, here’s the thing, God says I am supposed to have a kid, and who am I to go against God. I am fine not having any kids. You know that right. But he says… its not me really. But anyway, I love you, you know that, but, well, if you can’t have the kid, I was thinking, well, there’s this girl Hagar. She’s one of your servants, and well… Now to be fair to Abram, it was Sarai’s idea, but I know guys, and I imagine he had dropped hints around. And even if he didn’t, he is the husband. How about, Sarai, I Love you. I trust God. I don’t need Hagar. You are all the woman I need. But that is not what happens. He sleeps with Sarai’s servant girl, and she has a kid.

Ladies, how do you think this turned out? Cause some of the guys might be thinking, two wives, awesome. Tell them later. It turned out terrible. Sarai was jealous. Abram was getting it from both ends. The kid he had wasn't the kid God was talking about, and He tells Abram that. It gets to the point that Sarai kicks Hagar and her son Ishmael out of the house. Remember, it is 2000 BC. There is no welfare, there are no woman in the workplace, there is no food stamps. Woman were property to many of the surrounding culture, and women with kids were seen as damaged goods. She couldn’t marry, go to the wells, get a job. It was a death sentence. This is how Abrams second marriage turned out. And, as we shall see, it screws his kids up royally, who also take many wives, have infighting and jealousies, and betrayals, and everything else one can imagine. This is all found in Genesis 16. I suggest you read it. Side note, God finds Hagar by the side of the road crying and comforts here. He also blesses her and Ishmael and tells her he will be a great nation too, but a warring one. Muslims believe they are descendents of Ishmael.

And after all this happens we read

Genesis 18:1-9

1And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3and said, "O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on— since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." 6And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, "Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes." 7And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. 8Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

9They said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." 10The LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son."

Again God is giving grace upon grace. And he reminds Abram, who is now called Abraham that his wife Sarai, who is now called Sarah, will have a son. This is the second time since the debacle with Hagar that God has shown up to tell him this. The first time he gave them new names, and now he is just dropping a reminder. Look, I am really going to do it, so stop screwing around. It is like a “Save the Date” card for a wedding, and then the real invitation. What I want to draw you attention to here is the fact that three men and the LORD are used interchangeably. There are other instances where this occurs, and we need to ask ourselves what this means. I think it is fairly certain that there is a trinity without even having to stretch the text.

And Abraham’s story continues. Now, by this point God has shown up at least 6 times, Abe has messed up his marriage at least two, and over and over God has made covenants with him, really the same covenant, and shown Abraham that He will bear the burden Himself. You would think that Abraham is strong in his faith. He has been called righteous for believing God by this point, and so we should see a man who is secure in himself, his marriage and his God. And I imaging you can tell by my set up that that is not what we are going to see next. We are in Genesis 20 by this point in the narrative. Abraham is in a foreign country. And the king Abimelech is very powerful and scares Abraham. So what do you think Abraham does? That’s right, he talks to Sarah again, asking that she would pretend to be his sister. And the king finds out, and God is mad and the king is mad, and I imagine Sarah is mad. Sound familiar. Abraham has still not learned his lesson. This too will have consequences and his sons will do it to their wives. The lesson, men, is that your sons are watching you. They are going to be men the way you are men. Same for the woman. If you are not careful your sins will be their sins.

This story also resonates with me, and I think all of us. I became a Christian at 17 while in Jail after heavy drinking for a few years. After I converted I stopped drinking for quite some time. And then I had some trauma in my life, and instead of working though it I went back to what I knew best. I picked up a beer, and that was that. 6 years later I was in a detox crying out to God that he would save me form myself again. This is Abraham here, is it not? He gets scared and runs back to old habits. And this is all of us at times, isn’t it?

Now by this point surely God has had enough. Abraham has continually invented new ways to hurt himself, God, and those around him, and even repeats his mistakes. Surely God will find someone else, cancel the son that has been promised, and tell Abraham that he has had enough. But that is not what God does. After this God gives Abraham his son, and he calls him Isaac.

And it seems like everything should be all set. God came through on his promise, Abraham is finally obedient to God. The story is over, right? Wrong. After some time God comes to Abraham and the following takes place:

Genesis 22:1-14

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." 2He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." 3So 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. 4On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5Then 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." 6And 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. 7And 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?" 8Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together.

9When 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. 10Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." 12He 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." 13And 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. 14So 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."

This is another whole sermon, so let’s just pull out a few things. One, Isaac is a proto-Christ. In the same way Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, so did God sacrifice his. We also see this in the provision of the sacrifice. God himself provided our sacrifice as well. When we were dead in our transgressions, when a knife was literally going to fall, God spared us and provided the sacrifice himself. There is also a lot of theology in the fact that Isaac carried the wood, Christ his cross, etc. If you have been to church before you probably have heard all this. If not, we will be talking about it at house church, and you are welcome to come. We are starting one on Tuesdays at 6:30 this week and would love to have you, as well as to the Wednesday house church, which starts at 5:30.

What is often missed in Christian circles is the sacrifice Abraham actually had to make. This is a guy that has not really trusted God whole heartedly up until this point. He has lied many times, let his wife move into other guys houses so they wouldn’t hurt him, took a second wife to make sure he had a heir. He is not the standard of faith. And now God has told him to take his son, the one promised him, the one who was to fulfill God’s blessing, the one and only heir he is to have, his flesh and blood, to take him, and kill him and then set him on fire. That is what God is asking. Not let him die, or let him move out, or anything else, but literally take him and stab him through the heart and kill him, his son, and set him on fire. Talk about a test of faith! And Abraham does it. He has finally learned his lesson. He knows that God will provide. I imagine he is getting more and more nerous as they climb the mountain. He has said God will provide, and he believes it, but he is still on the look out for the lamb he is supposed to kill. As they climb, he is saying, ok, where is it. I know you God. I know you are good. Where is it. And he keeps going. He gets to the top of the mountain, looks around. No sheep. Ok God, where is it. I love you, I know you will provide. Where is the sacrifice. He ties his son up. A little more frantic. Where is it. He realizes that he has to kill his son. Where is it. He pauses, looks around. Where is the sacrifice. Looks in his sons eyes. Lifts the knife, and an angel of the LORD, says, What are you doing”! You crazy, crazy man. Look, there is a ram right over there. Killing your own son. Didn’t you know God was going to provide? I mean really! Quickly, when we see Angel of the LORD in the Old Testament we should always ask is this Jesus. I am not saying it always is or isn’t, but we should ask the question. Here, I believe it is.

The other quick lesson here is God is seldom early but never late, which sounds trite, and the type of advise one would give to a friend in pain to try to make them feel better, but not really. I mean you want to comfort them, but you know they messed up so you say, well the reason you didn’t get the house you wanted is that its not time. You know, God is seldom early, but never late. And then you walk away self righteous because you sure helped them to understand God a little better, and they shouldn’t be sad anyway. And it is trite, but I can say it is true as well. I have experienced it many times.

Just last month I got my paycheck, paid my bills, like a responsible adult, and then found out I had 14 dollars in my account for the rest of the month. I have 2 kids and a wife, and although I could eat only Ramen for the 30 days, they couldn’t, plus diapers can only be rung out and reused 4 or 5 times before they are gross, so we were in dire straights. And I was praying, ok God. You are going to provide. And nothing happened. And then again. And Again. And again. Nothing. And then, when it was time to food shop, I got two checks in the mail for a few hundred dollars. I was not expecting them, though I was. I know how Abraham felt, sort of. I didn’t have to almost kill my kid, unless starving them to death cause you have no money counts, but I don’t think it does.

Now what is this story all about? As I said before we will discuss it more in house church, but it has some application for tonight. See, we are all Abrahams. We were all unworthy of a holy calling, but God has initiated with us anyway. We all mess up all the time. Maybe we don’t let our wives marry other men, but there is always times when we don’t trust God, when we take back our lives in spite of what we know, in spite of the promises of God. And God continually takes us back. God continually gives us grace. God continually reminds us that he has taken this covenant upon himself. God continually reminds us of His promises. Abraham’s pattern is our pattern. We are all only righteous because we have believed. There is no action or law you need to follow, no worship style or Bible study you need to do to be good. You only need to believe God.

Here is the thing though, at some point during your faith, God will test you. There will be things in your life that he will ask you to sacrifice. He is going to ask you to trust him unconditionally. He is going to, at some point, as for your all. There will be a moment in your walk, a moment you don’t think you can do, when God is going to topple your world and demand you obey Him, and Him alone. God never wanted Abraham to kill Isaac, he had already promised Isaac a nation unto himself. What God wanted was Abraham to unconditionally follow him, to love him more than anything else. He wanted Abraham to know the depth and breadth of his faith. Abraham screwed up many times before, and if was anything like me, he focused on those defeats. He knew he couldn’t measure up. God was showing him he could. He had the faith. He did believe.

When we decide to walk with God, we need to know that his friendship isn’t cheap. He demands we leave all and follow him. We have to go to a foreign country, leave our old life behind. We may have to climb a mountain with our most precious thing, maybe our family, or job, or world view, or social standing, or anything else, and sacrifice it on an altar. We need to be prepared to give God our everything. He demands no less.

But know as we do this, that he too gave us everything. He died so that we wouldn’t have to. He sacrificed himself that we may live. He sent his son as the sacrifice, providing for all of us in a way we never could for ourselves.

There is one more story we need to look at before we end tonight. It is actually found near the beginning of Abram’s walk of faith. We read:

Genesis 14:17-20

17After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). 18And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19And he blessed him and said,

"Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
20and blessed be God Most High,
who has delivered your enemies into your hand!"

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Abraham at this point has decided to follow God, and as he does, a man, Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, a priest without beginning or end, shows up. And he reminds Abraham of the covenant God has made with him, and he gives him bread and wine. And we too have a priest without beginning or end who finds us on our walk of faith. He too brings bread and wine.

On the night he was betrayed Jesus took bread and be broke it and said, “This is my body, broken for you. Do this is remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup and said,” This cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this every time you drink in remembrance of me.”

If you are a follower of Christ, I invite you to this table. Know that there is a Priest who has met you as well. Know there is one who sacrificed all that you might live. I invite you to search yourself and see what you are holding onto. What are the idols you have made? Is it religion, false righteousness, school, money, security. Sacrifice them on this altar. Know that God himself will meet you at the mountain and provide what you can not. I invite you to follow this Jesus once again, having your heart made clean. He knows that you can not do it perfectly. He has taken the entire covenant upon himself. He took it to the cross. Eat this bread, drink this juice, and know, that just like Abraham, it is your belief that has been credited you as righteousness. God has gone to Calvary alone. He has called you while you were still in Ur, and he walks with you today.

If you are here and you are not a Follower of Christ, I invite you to use this time to pray and meditate on what has been said. I tell you God is the same God who called Abraham form Ur. He is still calling. We don’t need to be good to be called his, we just need to follow him. Search Him out. Ask him to show himself. He is Faithful. He is a Good Father. He will provide your sacrifice as well.

Scott’s going to come up and we are going to sing some songs. I invite you, if you know this Jesus as your Priest, as your Sacrifice to come and eat. He has brought bread and wine. Let us remember him. Let us pray.