In our text for today Abraham is called by God to
sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar that they would build on the mountain. Shocking really when you think about it at all! But, Abraham’s faith was such that he did not question God’s wisdom, but rather followed in obedience regardell of how absurd the call of God appeared. I cannot imagine anyone today that would be willing to do what God asked at this point. In fact people today are often willing to abandon the Christian faith entirely when demands are placed upon them to make any change in their lives. I am sure that many people today would not even have been walking with God at the point that we find Abraham at the beginning of this story. Yet Abraham followed in obedience, certain of the fact that God would provide whatever was needed at the time of the sacrifice.
Just as Abraham was called to sacrifice the life of the
one that he loved, we too are called to sacrifice the life that we love in pursuit of a relationship with God. While none of us is called to sacrifice our children to God we are called to sacrifice our own lives in obedience to God. And just as strongly as Abraham may have wanted to object to God’s call, people today reject God’s call as well.
Addictions, self-centeredness, hostility, bitterness, all of the many ways that we seek to serve self over God and others. These are things that God requires us to lay on the altar in sacrifice to him. And just as God provided a way out for Abraham, He will provide a life filled with satisfaction and joy to those who obediently place their own lives on the altar in obedience and love.
Abraham was travelling with his son to the mountain
fully expecting that God would provide a way for him to not have to sacrifice the life of the child that he loved so very much, but even if this had not happened Abraham would have followed through on what God had asked of him even though it did not seem logical. Remember that Abraham and Sarah had waited for many years to be given the son that God had promised to them and it was only after they were well up in years that God granted their desire to have children and their desire to experience God’s promises to them that their offspring would fill the earth and form a great
nation. Now, the God who continually defies the laws of logic asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, in order that God would be glorified. How was this to glorify God? Well the sacrifice of Isaac would probably not have been very glorifying, But how very glorifying it is that Abraham followed in obedience completely and God then provided a lamb so that Isaac would in every way be the fulfillment of God’s promise and Abraham’s dream! Several thousand years later we read this story and we see that God was indeed gracious and provided the way out for Abraham.
But then, we fail to carry this obvious lesson into our
own lives today. We fail to see that God requires of us that we too sacrifice the one that we love the most on the altar of God. I am not talking about Children or spouses or anyone else, rather we are called to sacrifice ourselves. Most people in the world today are so in love with themselves that they do not take the time to do anything that even remotely resembles a step of faith or obedience.
We read in the book of Romans that the wages of sin is
death. In order to avoid that death, all that is required is that we follow Christ in obedience by allowing him to have our broken and sin filled lives. Death, though, is the way that most of the people in the world live! That, my friends, is the ultimate contradiction. We were all once dead and living apart from God. Without the presence of Christ in our lives
we are dead to all of the joy and satisfaction that could be ours by following Christ.
In our world there are those rare people who might
choose death over life, but, for the most part, people spend their entire lives seeking to discover what it means to truly be alive and the will to live that exists in the core of each person is the strongest desire known to man. Why is it then, that we spend so much time seeking life, by looking at the bottom of a bottle or in a little pill, or in therapy to help us overcome the dysfunctionality of our families when all that we really need to do in order to find life is to admit that we are indeed responsible for our lives and our choices and then allow God to take these burdens from us. That, my friends, will bring life to us in ways that we have never before known.
There is a law of physics that tells us that for every
action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That means that when we are driving our cars down the road and we put our foot on the brake the brake pads grab onto the disk or drum in the wheels of the car and the friction of the tires on the roads brings the car to a stop. If we see something in the road ahead of us we are the ones responsible to put our foot on the brake and bring the car to a stop. If we didn’t do this, we would hit or run over whatever it was that was in the way.
This may seem elementary, but it is amazing how many
people in this world would hear that statement and state "well, of course"... and yet when asked about the messed up condition of their lives they are all to willing to blame everyone else. The question really is "who is driving your car?" well, it ain’t your dysfunctional family, your neighbors, or anyone else in the world... it is you. Plain and simple, we are responsible to drive the "car" of our lives responsibly and with integrity.
God, however, realizing that none of us is perfect, gives us an opportunity to turn over the wheel to Jesus Christ by allowing him to help us steer our lives around the obstacles of life and to hit the brakes in time to avoid collisions that we are inevitably going to be confronted with.
I guess what I am trying to say is this. We are all
sacrificing our own lives by our own free will by trying to do it all on our own. In fact, that is one of the primary ideals of the American personality, that you are responsible to make or break your life yourself. And guess what, when things go wrong with our lives we are the only one to blame, because we have chosen to sacrifice the life that we could have
though Jesus Christ. However, by admitting that we cannot do it on our own we are not admitting defeat, we are merely joining the winning team. We need to be willing to lay our life on the altar of God and to allow him to have control. He’s a lot better driver that we are.
Just as God provided that alternative sacrifice for
Abraham to offer God has provided a sacrifice for you and I so that we do not have to resign ourselves to living in brokenness, but rather, we are freed to live life in such a way that we are fulfilled, enriched, and empowered to rise above the condition of our lives.
But most of us in this room today are saying, "yes, but I have already given my heart to Christ and he is already in control of my life". I would ask you to take a long hard look at your life and ask yourself if you have lived up to this claim entirely. There are a great number of people in the church of Jesus Christ who continue to try to manipulate God’s intention for their lives and do not fully lay their lives upon the
altar. How many of us are guilty of trying to maintain our own sense of control over our life and not really letting God have his way with our lives? I think the answer to that question is that way too many of us are in that boat.
God did not ask Abraham to sacrifice an animal, of
which he had many. He asked him to sacrifice his only
child... everything that would make Abraham’s life have
meaning, was dependent upon Isaac’s future as well. at
least if Abraham was to have success in the eyes of the
people around him. God required that he lay it all on the altar and then God rewarded that Faithfulness.
God requires that you and I too, lay it all on the altar. we are not permitted to hold back any part of our lives for our own gain or ambition, and when we do finally submit every part of our lives God will then return to us life like we have never known it before. So the challenge that you and I must accept is that we give up even the seemingly central parts of our lives so that we will experience the true presence of the Lamb that God has provided for you and me as well. God
provided a lamb for Abraham and Isaac on the Mountaintop.
God has also provided a Lamb for each of us and he has
offered through THE Lamb a life of significance like we will most certainly never know without him!
