Thank you, Natalie, for speaking on behalf of all the children here who I’m sure are very grateful for their for their moms. Just many different prayer requests, so we’d like to welcome those who are joining online. The parks are in Greece for work, Fernandez, they’re traveling out of town and others. So let’s begin with a word of prayer.
Father, on this day we express our gratitude for our moms, our unsung heroes who do many things in the background. They are the anchor, they are the glue that keep things together. Without them our families often would just be falling apart. So Lord we give we give you praise and thanksgiving for the gift of mothers in our midst and and what they’ve meant to us.
Father we just pray that you bless them on this special day, help them to know that they are special to to all of us and cherished in your sight as daughters of God. So Father we just thank you for that. We pray for Brother Ed, we pray for his family, especially his mom who’s grieving the loss of father and husband.
Father we this was unexpected but Lord you know all things. This was not unexpected for you, so we just pray for your comfort. We pray Holy Spirit that you would come visit with all the family members as to all the other brothers, the entire Kim household. We pray for your presence to to be strong in their midst.
I pray all of them would draw closer to you. Lord we’re reminded that we are our days are numbered and so Lord we want to live wisely in the days ahead as a living sacrifice to you not knowing when you will call us home. Father we just pray for this service. I pray that you meet us. Pray with for all the family members of the Hill family who are traveling.
Pray for your traveling mercies, your presence to be amongst them and protect them. Thank you for bringing our family back safely. Thank you Lord in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Our family we we got we were in Chicago this weekend for my nieces graduation from college. She is the first one in the family to graduate so it was a seventeen of us gathered there including Jackie’s dad and we took a family picture.
So it was a special Danny. She graduated as an engineer from University Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She’ll be going to Colorado for her first job so our prayers are with her. If you could pray for Danny, pray for her. Got to meet her to surround her with good good new good friends. Please also remember Jim’s relative Mr. She for his dementia.
Let’s pray for Jim for God’s wisdom for him as he as he shares the gospel with him in the days ahead. Okay well let me start with an announcement. This is and we should pray as well. This is the last Sunday here. I know it’s rather sudden. I think you’ll you’ll find that why it’s so sudden from the message that I’ll be sharing in a moment.
But this is our last Sunday here. We’re going to Culver City as of next Sunday 2 30 p.m. All the details will be sent out this week so be on the lookout for that. Okay let’s just pray real quickly for this place. Father we just thank you for the time which you provided for us here at corridor flow in a time of emergency when we had no place to go when our when our place was flooded a year and a half ago.
Lord you’re you’re so gracious and your timing is perfect. We thank you for Norey and Christine and their family for their generosity providing this place which was perfect for our needs during this time. We pray that you bless their family as they move back here and and figure out finances and and how to utilize this space for the weekends especially.
We pray that their vision to be a light for the gospel in in this city of Lumida and beyond would be fulfilled in this next season. Father we pray for blessings to be poured out poured out to them. Pray for wisdom to be poured out to them so they can utilize this space in a spiritual way and also that you provide for all of their financial needs.
Thank you Lord for Pastor Max and First Baptist Church of Culver City. We ask that you go before us. We know it’s rather sudden but Lord we are obedient to your voice and when you speak we want to obey immediately. So thank you that you’ve provided a place as soon as this coming Sunday possibly even Wednesday prayer meeting.
So father we just thank you that you’ve opened this door for us that this this pastor and this church family has been so generous with us giving us full access at a fraction of the cost. Thank you for all the ways in which you’re looking out for us and speaking so loud and clear. Thank you Lord we pray that you be with us in this service.
I pray that you would speak be with Jim as he shares the gospel with Mr. Xi. We pray for clarity of mind. We pray for a softening of heart and an ability to perceive intellectually and most importantly spiritually the words that are shared. I pray that you give Jim the right words and that Mr. Xi in his time of difficulty would be humbled and receive the gift of everlasting life found in Jesus Christ.
Thank you Lord for this opportunity to pray for extended family friends and relatives. Thank you Lord in Jesus name we pray amen. Okay I’m gonna ask some questions before we begin if you don’t mind. The first question is what story in the Bible captures the essence of the gospel most literally? Any answers? There’s a lot of Bible students here and I’m sure there’s not one right answer but I’m key in on the word literally.
Sophia? John? Which one? The gospel of John. Okay like John 3 16 or the entire gospel. Yes that’s a great answer. Anything else? If you could highlight just one story passage that most literally captures the gospel which is the father, the son, the sacrifice, the resurrection. Sophia? Okay that’s the one. Yes Sophia. Sophia is the greatest in the kingdom of God today.
Okay praise God. Okay so now that you know that that’s where we’re going today now I want to address anybody who is not a parent. This is for you. For those who have parents let me rephrase it. If your dad came to you one day and said God spoke to me last night and what I’m about to do to you may hurt you and you may die actually you will die but I need you to trust me.
How would you respond? And so I want someone 10 years 10 years old and younger to respond somebody 10 through 20 to respond and then somebody 30 years old and over to respond. So 10 years and younger it could be more yes yes Timothy yes. How would you respond if if your dad said that to you? You don’t have to overthink just your gut response.
What? Okay okay that’s that I think that’s expected for someone under 10. Any other under 10 your your gut reaction to your dad saying that? Yes John. Why did God tell you to kill your son? Why did God tell you? Yes you would question it. It’d be pretty confusing right Sophia? Scared. Scared yes I think that’s that’s these are all normal responses and so and then I want to ask those who are 10 through 20 you’ve been a little bit further along hopefully in your faith.
How would you respond and it could be the same. If you have any different responses could you share? Yes Natalie. You okay you do a lot some elaboration. That’s a a lot of concern yes yes yes Matthew. Yes yeah I think I think that’s very true. You might have thought your dad lost his mind and you would question what voice is he hearing in his head.
Yes yes. Anybody 30 and above how would you respond if your dad said that to you? Or it could be 20 to 30 let’s say let’s do 20 to 30 so now it’s very narrow so I’m gonna ask I’m gonna ask Timothy I’m gonna ask Timothy if if I said that to you what would you say? Yeah you would ask for yeah you’d have you have a lot of questions yeah.
Okay okay so I’m gonna ask you a question. Okay okay so you wouldn’t be scared because you think I would have a reason. Okay okay yeah it better be a good reason right right right anybody else 20 to 30 I guess that only leaves to Sean you don’t have to unless you have something. Okay okay so I’m gonna ask you a question.
Right anybody else 20 to 30 I guess that only leaves to Sean you don’t have to unless you have something to Sean. Right right yeah it could go either way depending on the trust level with your dad and and and the trust that you does your dad have a track record of with God yes I think that’s an important yeah yeah if you don’t trust your dad or you don’t trust that your dad has a track record of hearing from the Lord consistently over time probably you would dismiss it okay these are all great great points what about 30 and above so I think the rest of us can answer if your dad said that.
Anybody? Anything that wasn’t said? Yes — ask for proof. Yep. Yes, yes, yes, yes — show me proof. Yes, these are all the types of things that would cross my mind. And it makes sense. It kind of changes, but at the core we all have similar concerns. It slightly changes from when you’re a child — under ten, ten to twenty, and thirty and above.
The reason why — well, actually, before I say that, I don’t want to go too much into the detail of this text. Brother Abraham is going to preach on this text very soon, and so I don’t want to steal his thunder. So we’re going to just take it at more of a high level.
But the reason why I think the age is important — we’ll get to that in a second. But let’s turn to the text now.
Genesis 22, verse 1: “Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, ‘Abraham.’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Take now 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.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son, and he split the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.”
And so first — what is the main lesson here?
I’ve heard some outlandish interpretations of this text. One of them that I’ve heard is: this text is about idolatry. So if you love your child, this is idolatry, and God wants you to serve the church, and this is getting in the way of your service to the church. This is an idol — why don’t you sacrifice your children so that you can be a better minister? I’ve actually heard this from the pulpit, and it is just completely, completely wrong. And I can say that confidently because it says in places like Micah 6, verses 6 through 8:
“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
So this is not a story about idolatry. What is it? How am I confident that it’s not about idolatry? Because this is one of the texts that God gives an answer for in another part of Scripture. And so for the answer, we turn to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 17:
“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, ‘And in Isaac your seed shall be called,’ concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.”
So we understand from Genesis 12 and Hebrews 11 that this was a test of faith. And what was it? Abraham had the confidence that, as long as God is speaking and telling him to do this, God is going to fulfill His promise — which is to, through his seed, form a nation, and for that nation to be a blessing to all the nations. So how could that promise come to pass if he kills his son and he remains in the grave? So this is a confidence that after he kills him, God is going to raise him up. This is clearly not about idolatry. This is about faith in God bringing someone from the dead back to life — a resurrection faith.
Going back to our main text, Genesis chapter 12 — it says, after God tells him what to do, there’s no back and forth. Unfortunately, there’s no — this doesn’t seem like there’s even much struggle, because what God is asking him to do is so unbelievable, so impossible. And yet it says in verse 3, he rose up early in the morning and he went on his way to do the very thing that God asked him to do. I find this remarkable.
And this is the pattern that Abraham sets for himself. In Genesis 12, verse 4 — God tells him the promise — no, Genesis chapter 12, God tells him the first time. God calls Abraham when he’s still Abram. He says, “Through you you will be a blessing. There will be a nation through your seed, and through that nation you will be a blessing to all the nations.” And Abraham heard this as a seventy-five-year-old man, and it says in verse 4, “He departed as the Lord had spoken to him.” No struggling, no questioning — it just almost looks like blind faith. But that’s the kind of faith he has. It is so strong, it is complete, it is absolute. Just one word from the Lord — as long as he knows for sure it is the Lord — he’s establishing this pattern: as soon as the Lord speaks, I’m going.
Why are we going to Culver City next week? When the Lord gave me this passage last week, I did not know it actually had to do with our move. But it does. Why are we moving next week?
I actually wanted to move this week, because whenever the Lord speaks, I believe He wants us to obey Him immediately. I was tallying the number of places I saw and called and actually visited — most of them I didn’t visit, because it was just a no: either no response, or “we’re not renting this place,” or the place is full. It was churches, office spaces, hotels — some were just so expensive. A lot of them were just a dead end. And it was about a hundred places — over a hundred — that I looked at, in Torrance, Gardena, the South Bay, Lomita, everywhere. And out of a hundred, it was zero for a hundred.
But there was one opportunity, through Brother Abraham, for Culver City. And I wasn’t looking in Culver City. But it turns out God is one for one — when He told us Culver City, it was one for one. And when God speaks, He wants us to go immediately.
I remember asking the Lord a couple of months ago, when I was getting a little tired — Easter was approaching — I said, “Lord, it would be nice if You moved us before Pentecost. Can You get us to a new place? Am I going to be looking for a hundred new places for the next six months, because I started in January? Are we going to be approaching the end of the year still not knowing where You’re leading us?” And God heard that prayer.
Pentecost is May 28th. We’ll be moving next week, May 21st. So God heard that prayer, and we’ll be moving one week before Pentecost. So I praise the Lord for hearing our prayers and confirming — for myself, through the elder couples — and I think when we go there and we fellowship with that other church that’s opening their doors, when you get to meet the pastor, we will all feel confirmed: this is the right place for us. So I’m looking forward to it.
And Abraham — he doesn’t ask for clarification. I find, yeah, like many of you said, I find this odd, because I would have a lot of questions. But Abraham, from Genesis 12 now Genesis 22, Abraham has developed this type of intimacy and closeness and confidence that when God speaks, he has to obey Him immediately. Either right away — like he left right away, it seems, in Genesis 12 — into an unknown, no plan, just an unknown. He’s just leaving everything behind. And then Genesis 22, the very next morning.
I wonder if Abraham avoided Sarah that morning. I wonder if Sarah heard what Abraham heard. How would Sarah respond? I don’t — as a mom, I don’t know if moms would readily go along with this plan. I think Abraham woke up early to avoid Sarah. That’s just — it’s not in the Scripture, that’s just my interpretation. If this was our family, I would not talk to Jackie about it. I would just secretly say, “Okay, Timothy, let’s go.” And here he doesn’t even tell Isaac.
It says in verse 4: “Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place far off. And Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey, and the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.’ So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he — Abraham — took the fire in his hand and a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, ‘My father.’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ Then he said, ‘Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.’ So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him, and Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order, and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood.”
I think the key question here is: how old is Isaac? And that’s why I asked you in the beginning the question, and I wanted to hear from those ten years old and younger, because then you can put yourself in this story. And I want to hear from those who are ten to twenty years old — if you put yourself in the story, how would you respond? And those who are twenty to thirty — how would you respond? And then thirty and above, it’s similar but slightly different. And it’s understandable — by age, our relationship with the Lord changes, and we will respond to this unbelievable request slightly differently. Hopefully with more increasing faith as the years go on.
It speaks of the young men. How old do you think they are in this story? Any guesses? The young men in this story — Sophia? Eighteen. Okay, that’s a good guess. Yeah. Anybody think they might be older? These young men, they’re the young men slash servants. They work with or for Abraham, almost like employees.
Yes, Natalie? Fifteen. Okay, okay. So you think they’re teenagers. Anyone think they’re older? Yes — twenty to thirty. Okay. Anybody think they’re thirty and above? Anybody? That’s okay.
When we say “the greatest in the kingdom” and Jesus brings a child, that’s a very specific word — it’s an infant to seven years old. This word for “young man” or “servant” is anywhere from adolescent to twenties to even thirties. It’s a range. Like if you’re 100-plus, Abraham — everybody’s young to you, everybody’s a young lad to you. And did you know that when it speaks of Isaac, it’s the same word — “young man”? So he could be an adolescent all the way to possibly in his thirties.
Because I think when we read this story, and some translations might have the word “boy” in there, we think of like under ten. Like when I hear “boy,” I think under ten. And that has a certain picture that goes along with it. And imagine the horrific picture of Abraham as a 110-year-old with Isaac as a ten-year-old who doesn’t quite have the faith. And yet Abraham knows he has to do this. And maybe as a 110-year-old, he’s still strong enough to overpower his son, and he’s forcing him to lay on top of the wood, and he binds him. Think of how horrific that is.
Think of it if he’s a teenager to twenty or in his twenties — I don’t think Abraham physically can even do it, right? If he’s thirty, for sure. So I think the age actually does have something to do with it here.
And let me just give you a few markers, because I think God is starting to give me some insight about decades.
Twenty years old is an important age. Timothy is going to turn twenty soon. So twenty years old is an important age in the eyes of God. It is the age when you can serve in the military. It is the age when a census was taken in the Bible and taxation was expected — it was for those twenty years old and above. So you could serve in the military, you were counted in the census, and then you were taxed. Also, as we know in the Exodus account, God holds people twenty years old and older responsible for their sin. Before that, when you’re under twenty, somehow you’re under the covering of your parents, and so God looks at you as a child in your parents’ household. And so even if they were rebellious, somehow God says, “You can enter the Promised Land.” But if you’re twenty years old, He says, “No — you’re going to perish. You’re responsible for your sin.”
So there’s some important cut-off at twenty. As a thirty-year-old, there are some important things — some important characters, I think, that we see in Scripture. Joseph — guess how old he was when he became governor of Egypt? He was thirty. What about David when he became king? How old do you think he was? Thirty. What about when he was called to be a prophet? How old do you think he was? Thirty. What about Jesus when He began His public ministry? How old do you think He was? Thirty.
So there’s something important about twenty — God considers you a man or a woman, an adult. Maybe we can say that’s the age of accountability, that you are now standing before God on your own, outside the covering of your family. Jesus even mentions it — like if you are a non-Christian married to a non-Christian, but one of the spouses became saved, it says your non-believing spouse is somehow clean, because you can’t have a — it’s a weird verse that Jesus said. It’s like the spouse is treated somewhat differently from God’s point of view. And he says it’s for the sake of the kids, so that the kids are clean, so that they’re growing up in a believing home. Even with one parent being a believer, somehow that child growing up is clean in God’s sight. They’re covered. There is grace for that child. But when you enter twenty, that decade — somehow God looks at you now as an adult.
I don’t know how Timothy feels about that. He’s entering into that age. He was going to stand before God more than he did as a pre-twenty-year-old. And then thirty is another important marker, when there’s public ministry, when there’s something official. I wonder how old Timothy was in the New Testament when he became a young pastor. I presume he was probably thirty. So people who go to seminary right out of undergrad — I would probably say let’s pump the brakes a little bit. Let’s wait until you get tested a little bit. Let’s wait until you get married and start raising a family. Let’s see how that goes. And then maybe we can see you as a deacon at a church, then as an elder of a church, and then maybe at some later point after you’re thirty and beyond, maybe we can think about ordaining you. So that’s just kind of an aside.
So I think it would be a horrific scene — Abraham as a 110-year-old grandfather wrestling someone who is the age of his grandson, ten years old or less, whose faith might not quite be there. But Abraham has no choice, so he’s going to force a ten-year-old to lay on top of a pile of wood — a sizable amount of wood to burn yourself upon — and bind you to that pile to be burned. To me that’s a horrific scene.
If you’re ten to twenty, I think it’s a little different, because you would have to have the cooperation of Isaac at that age. I don’t think Abraham would be strong enough to overpower him. But as a ten-to-twenty-year-old, when God doesn’t quite look at you as completely out of the covering of your parents — would God call Isaac to that type of an assignment, to blindly trust your dad when you’re not quite established in your own faith? To me, I don’t quite see Isaac as a teenager or an adolescent. I actually see him beyond his twenties. I think he’s in his thirties.
And to me — when Jesus says, “I have come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets” — the Torah is the Law, the first five books of the Old Testament including Genesis — and he goes on to say, “Not even one dot will be left out, I will fulfill it.” When I hear that, to me I think: He’s literal about this. There are things in the Old Testament we don’t quite understand, but at the end it’s going to shock us how much every word mattered, every stroke mattered. It wasn’t being overly metaphorical — a lot of it was meant to be taken literally.
And so that’s why I think Isaac is in his thirties, because Jesus laid down His life voluntarily in His thirties. I think Isaac too was a literal representation, foreshadowing of Jesus. And as a thirty-something-year-old, he voluntarily laid down his life.
So here I think it’s a test of course of Abraham’s faith, but as much as Abraham is being tested, I think Isaac is also being tested. And Isaac — like Jesus, who is to come — Jesus says in John chapter 10, “I voluntarily laid down my life on my own accord.”
Was Isaac deceived into this? Was he, as a ten-year-old, not quite believing — was he forced and pressured into it? As someone who’s ten to twenty, faith is not quite there. Was he twenty — faith is not quite there? Was he guilted into it? Was he wrestled into it? Intimidated into it? Pressured into it? Or did Isaac have his full independent free will, and did he voluntarily — literally, like Jesus — lay down his life as a direct fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets?
I think he is literally in his thirty-third year of life. This wood — enough wood to sacrifice yourself upon — we’re not talking about a log. We’re talking about a stack of lumber. And I don’t think a ten-year-old is strong enough — no offense to the ten-year-olds and younger here — I don’t think you’re strong enough to carry a stack of lumber up a hill. It is a sizable amount of wood to burn yourself upon. But someone in his twenties could do it, maybe teenagers could do it, someone in his thirties could do it. But I think it fits the gospel more literally if Isaac voluntarily, as a thirty-three-year-old young man, laid down his life. Not blind faith — “I trust my dad” — no. He himself, and I think it’s even harder for him because he’s the one who’s going to get killed, and he’s saying, “I have faith, and my dad has faith, that if I get killed, God is going to raise me from the ashes.”
It says in verse 10: “And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.”
This faith being tested is not theoretical. It’s not theoretical. God had to see — is Abraham really trusting Him? That either literally or figuratively, He’s going to raise the son? Because that’s what it says in Hebrews. Because he was willing to kill him, he got him back. It is figurative in this sense; for Jesus it was literal — He was literally resurrected from the dead. But it takes Abraham going up the mountain, Isaac carrying the stack of wood upon which he’s going to allow himself to be burned, the same way that Jesus went up a mountain with a cross. This is quite literal in all its detail.
I think Jesus, as a thirty-three-year-old man, believed, “My Father is going to raise me from the dead.” Isaac likewise believed, and Abraham his father believed, that their Heavenly Father would raise Isaac, Abraham’s son, from the grave. And Abraham had to go as far as watching his son voluntarily lay down his life, voluntarily allow himself to be bound to a pile of wood, with a knife unsheathed and a downward motion — it had to go that far for God to say, “Now I believe you. You have faith in Me. You passed the test.”
We think faith is this simple little “I believe it in my head.” No. Faith is like this — God is going to ask you and me to do something, and maybe a series of things in our lives, which we would think is ridiculous, crazy. Everybody’s going to say we’re a mental case, that we’re not hearing from the Lord, that this is absurd. And we’re going to get mocked and ridiculed. But this is what faith looks like. It says in James chapter 2, faith like this comes with accompanying works, and it is difficult. It will be difficult. It is not theoretical.
How do we know that we have a faith that God can even raise the child that I myself killed? It’s when you have the child bound on a pile of wood, and you have the sword stretched out, and you’re going in a downward motion — that’s when you know you have the faith that the Lord is looking for.
“And it says in verse 11: ‘But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”‘”
We have all these theologies which make Christian life seem very abstract — like substitutionary atonement. Like, we deserve to die because of our sins. We deserve to be nailed on a cross for our sins. We deserve hell and eternal separation from God because of sin. But the theology says, “But Jesus took our place. He substituted for us. His blood atones for our sin.”
When I see that theology put up next to this passage, I see a literal substitution. Jesus literally took the place of Isaac, Abraham’s son. It wasn’t theology — it was literal. They had confidence, they had faith — God is going to provide a lamb. And there’s this male lamb, a ram, caught in a thicket. God provided. And we know that’s a foreshadowing of the ultimate substitute for our sins — Jesus Christ, who was the Lamb of God. But it’s not theology. It’s literal, in this case. Jesus, through the male lamb, the ram, took the place of Isaac.
And now we have to ask: who is the Angel of the Lord? Any guesses? Jesus. Yes. The New King James gives me a hint, because when it says “Angel of the Lord,” it’s a capital “A.” “Angel” means messenger. So this Angel is a big deal — it is an important Messenger slash Angel.
And then it says in verse 15: “Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: ‘By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son — blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.’ So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.”
This is a capital “A” Messenger Angel, and He swears by His own name. And it says in Hebrews 6, verses 13 and 14: “For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself.” So only God can swear by Himself, because there is no one higher than Him. So this Messenger is God, who swears by Himself. But no man has seen nor heard God — but we’ve seen and heard God’s Son, Jesus Christ. So this Messenger is a pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, coming to Abraham.
The last passage I want to share is Hebrews 12, verse 2: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
We know that Jesus struggled at Gethsemane — for a moment, for an hour or two or three, for a few hours at most. He struggled. He said, “Let this cup pass.” But once He resolved — “God, You told me to do this” — after a prayer, He said, “I’m going.” And when He was going to the cross, He didn’t do it with annoyance. He wasn’t bothered. He wasn’t in a bad mood. He wasn’t lashing out. He did it — according to Hebrews 12 — with joy.
So why do we obey immediately when God speaks, and why do we obey with joy? It’s because Jesus obeyed immediately and with joy. We know that Abraham obeyed immediately. Did he do it with joy? I don’t know. Did he do it with struggle, angst, tears streaming down, not knowing how much of a fool he’s going to be — “My wife is going to divorce me if this thing goes wrong, everything can crumble in this moment”? Did he do it with joy? I’m not sure. But we know Jesus went to the cross with joy.
So why do we obey immediately and joyfully? Because Jesus did it first.
So let’s obey God as a family of faith — to go to Culver City immediately next week, joyfully — because God has a lot of things that He wants to show us there. Okay, let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for the literal foreshadowing of the gospel in Genesis 22. We see, Father, Your heart in giving up Your Son. It wasn’t theoretical — it was literal. How much You must have grieved that this was the only way forward. There was no other way. It had to be through Your Son. But You love the world so much that You allowed Your Son to die.
And Lord Jesus, we know that You did not go to the cross because You were forced to, because You were just gritting Your teeth and trying to obey through effort. You did it immediately and with joy. This seems impossible — to do something like this — but to make it closer to home, You provided Abraham and Isaac, and they did it. We can do it too.
When You speak, Lord, as long as we’re confident it was You, we want to obey You immediately and joyfully. In the meantime, while we’re still waiting — because there are many seasons of waiting — help us to live faithfully. The twenty-five years that Abraham waited, he was faithful. You spoke in the beginning; maybe You were silent for twenty-five years. You spoke again, and then thirty-three years may have passed. You spoke again. But all the years in between, Abraham and Isaac just lived faithfully.
So Lord, we want to be faithful when we’re waiting for You. But when You speak, help us to obey You immediately and joyfully. Thank You, Lord, that You did it first, and now we follow You.
Thank You for Your body that was broken for us and Your blood that was shed. Every time we gather on Sunday, we remember Your death, burial, and resurrection. We want to have a faith like Abraham — that even if we have to give up our own son or daughter, we have a faith that You can resurrect that child from the dead. That is the kind of absolute faith that we want.
In Jesus, thank You. We pray that You meet us. Pray that You go before us to Culver City. We go there with full joy — we want to meet You, Lord Jesus, and we want to meet the body of Christ there. We want to be Your hands and feet there. We want to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, serve the body of Christ in Culver City and beyond. Whatever You have for us, we want to meet You, Lord Jesus, and serve the body of Christ there.
Thank You, Lord. Pray that You meet us as we close this service. In Jesus’ Name, Amen