Father Abraham // Radical Faith // Pastor Josh Evans

Amen. Amen. If you've enjoyed the music today, can I hear you say Amen?

Amen. And what phenomenal music to prepare us here today for worship. One of my favorite songs is Worthy is the Lamb. And I love any time that I see that is on the song agenda for a Sunday. And I look forward to that because I kind of think that that's what Heaven's going to be like just a little bit right there. And I tell you, I'm looking forward to that day. And each and every day, Heaven gets just a little bit sweeter.

And I'm looking forward to it. And so I appreciate you singing here today. Well, listen, it is good to see you here on a Sunday morning. Beautiful weather. And I tell you, I think we're avoiding the snow this winter at least. And come on, Lomax.

All right. And I want some snow. And last year, you know, was our first year moving back up here.

And we got quite a bit of snow. And I think it's because we prayed for it. So I don't know. I'm going to get on my knees tomorrow morning and we'll see.

We'll see who's more spiritual, Lomax or myself. All right. And but no, it's been just beautiful here today. My wife reminded me this morning when I was walking out the door to come to church that I haven't preached the last couple of Sundays. And so I think she was reminding me, hey, that doesn't mean you have to just preach really, really long today. And but no, we've had we were out of town last week. I appreciate Pastor Bailey filling in.

And it's amazing how if you pray for God to give you the voice for the, you know, 35 minute sermon, he'll do that. I know he wasn't feeling great last week. And then the week before that, we had revive week. And I haven't really seen you since revive week. But I tell you, my heart was blessed during our revival services. And I just want to keep reminding you that whatever decisions you made at revive week, I want to encourage you that it's revival is not just the services that we attended. It's what God can do in your heart.

And so whatever you made, all the decisions you made and different things. Remember, you can still live in a state of revival today. OK. And we don't have to wait till the next revival or anything like that. But it is good to see you in God's house. I will say if we have not met before, I want to echo what Pastor Bailey said earlier. My name is Josh.

I'm the pastor here. And I want to encourage you to take that new here card and fill it out. If you're a first timer here or not been here in a very long time, that is extremely important for us.

And you say, why is that? Are you just trying to get a bunch of cards in to say you've had this many guests? No, we really want to get to know you and we want to connect with you. OK. And so I understand that we got a gift that we'd love to get in your hands.

It's our way of saying thank you for being a part of our service here at Union Grove. I know if you walk in here sometimes in a room like this, it's hard to meet people and connect and things like that. Even if you've been here for a long time in here, we're all kind of jammed in here, you know, like sardines.

It's really difficult. There's other ways to connect into the life of our church, find friends and community here in our church. And I'd encourage you to plug in. Again, you know, Pastor Bailey mentioned some events coming up for the 50 plus, which are exciting. I mean, for those who are 50 and older, don't take offense to that, OK?

I mean, if you're already there, you might as well just own it by this point, OK? And but no, there's some opportunities for you to get involved, meet people and connect. That's important. I'm reminded and I don't want to get off of what we're talking about, but we preached on this Wednesday night at our Wednesday night midweek Bible study. I'm just I'm just so reminded how important the local church is to your life. And that's why we ask you to get involved. That's why we ask you to jump into a Bible fellowship class, why we ask you to go to different events that the ladies or men or senior adults, anybody's doing. This is a time for you to connect because we need one another in the church. And that is extremely important to your faith.

Well, if you have your Bible, go to Genesis chapter number 22 here today, Genesis chapter number 22. And we are continuing our series. Actually, we're concluding our series. I know it was brief. It was only four weeks in the life of Abraham. This is our fourth week here, but we've entitled this Father Abraham, Father Abraham.

And we've been looking at his life. And today is the most familiar passage in Abraham's life. In fact, every single person in here, even if you are somewhat newer to church and maybe not been in it your entire life, you're going to recognize this story the minute you look down at your Bible and you're going to see it. And you're going to know all about it. And any time we come to a passage like that, that is so familiar, it's easy for us to kind of brush through it like, hey, we've heard this a thousand times.

And so there's not anything new to get from this or to glean from this. I want to encourage you to lean in just a little bit, if you would, to what God might want to speak to you about here today from Genesis chapter number 22. I want to ask you this, and I feel like this is part of just Abraham's life in general, is for him, I feel like everything we've looked at in his life is really God trying to teach Abraham that he does not have to be in control of his life. Now, you and I love control, right? If you like control, would you slip up your hand? OK, I think all of us like control. We love that.

And and when things spiral out of our control and we have to rely on somebody else for control, we we get a little uncomfortable, little uneasy. I'm the type when I'm I'm going somewhere. I like to drive. I don't like anybody else to drive. How many of you are like that?

OK, I'm the same way. I like to drive my wife all the time when we're traveling. It is like, hey, do you need me to drive? I don't know why she keeps asking me that because I don't think I've ever said, sure, babe, take the wheel.

And I've never really done that. And because I love to be in control, I like to be in control of the GPS and things like this, because I, like many people in here, are control freaks. I control freaks. Raise your hand if you are a control freak and you're not ashamed of that.

You're just owning it today and you're a control freak. Well, listen, Abraham, when we look at Abraham's life, he is is really remember he is a human being just like you and me. He struggled. He had moments where he was weak in his faith and all of these different things. But his whole life, the story was God trying to teach him that you do not have to be in control of your life.

He did this from the very beginning. Remember, we looked at this series, Genesis Chapter 12. Do you remember when God came to him and he told him, I'm going to make of you a great nation. And in fact, I am going to give you a land that I'm not even going to show you what it is yet. But you just need to step out in faith and go. What do you mean go to a land that you're not going to tell me where I'm going?

You want me to just wander in the direction that that you have told me to go? Yes, that's exactly what God was telling him to do. You see, God was teaching him and trying to show him that he does not have to be in control of even his future or his direction. Let God handle that for him. You remember the story of Abraham and Lot, his family. God was teaching him that, hey listen, you don't even have to be in control of your family members.

Let me take care of that and work that out in your life. You see, the whole point of his life was teaching him that he does not have to be in control. That he would need to choose God above anything else in life. And here we kind of see this story, Genesis chapter 22, where God really asked of him something that, if we're truly honest with ourselves, is almost the far-fetched, most far-fetched command or something God has asked of anybody. Especially in this story of Abraham. Let's jump in verse 1. I'm going to give you just some commentary if we kind of work through this together.

And then I'll give you some application at the end of this, so just bear with me. But I want you to really understand the setting here in chapter 22 and try to give you some fresh perspective about that here today. In verse 1 it says this in Genesis 22, And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and he said unto him, Abraham, and he said, Behold, here I am. Now, before we go further, if you're like me, you see verses like this and you're quick to kind of wonder, especially if you've been in church for a length of time, you might have even, when you kind of breeze through verse 1 where it says God did tempt Abraham, you might kind of go back to James chapter 1. Remember when it says, Let any man say when he's tempted, I'm tempted of God. He says, Let no man do that because God doesn't tempt us.

So you say, What exactly does he mean here in the word tempt here in Genesis chapter 22 verse 1? Well, the word here means something totally different. In fact, it's from the Hebrew word here in Genesis 22, the Hebrew word Nassau.

That's how you pronounce it. And it literally means to prove something. It literally means to prove something. In other words, when he uses the word tempt here in Hebrew, he is saying that this is an opportunity for God to actually prove or to demonstrate the faith that Abraham have. If you go to the New Testament in James chapter 1, we're not going to turn there here today, but in James 1 13, he uses that word because God doesn't tempt anyone. That's from the Greek word, Peradzo.

And here's what that word literally means. It means to be tempted to sin. In fact, if you look at the New Testament, any time that Jesus was actually tempted by Pharisees or scribes or anyone to do something that was considered unlawful, that's the same Greek word that is used in James chapter 1. So what you see in the New Testament with the word tempt, some of you are bored out of your mind right now, but this is just intriguing to me.

So I want to share this. But what you see in the New Testament with the word tempt is tempting someone to actually sin. But in Genesis chapter 22, when it says God did tempt Abraham here in this story, it means it was actually proving or demonstrating his faith.

You guys with me on that? All right, I just wanted you to understand what the word meant. But you see here, he comes to Abraham and he says, Abraham. And he said, behold, here I am. Now, and I'm going to give you some commentary here because this is just so important.

I want to set this up before we get into this because many of you already know the story and you've kind of tuned it out as the minute we got here. When Abraham said, here I am, here's what that phrase is. And you can look throughout scripture at any time and choose. It is considered the deepest posture of surrender that you can have. So when God came knocking on his door here in Genesis 22, Abraham approached him, here I am. Now, I want you to understand, he came to him saying, whatever. I'm in a complete posture of surrender.

Now, if you think about this up to this point, every time God had come to Abraham, he was asking something pretty big of Abraham to do. He told him right back, Genesis chapter 12, you're going to have to leave your homeland. You're going to have to leave your family. You're going to have to leave all of this behind and you're going to have to go to a land that I'm going to show you of.

And in fact, I'm not even going to tell you where it is yet. You just got to rely on me. That's a pretty big ask. And so all this time, God was promising him and asking him of things in his life that were so far-fetched, promising that he would have a child. And he's old.

They're past childbearing age. And all of these different things, you know Abraham, remember, he's a human just like you and me. He probably, I wonder if he thought this.

I mean, he came with a complete posture of surrender. If that had been me, and this is just me being completely transparent with you, if God came knocking after everything he's already asked of me to do and he comes knocking at my door again, I'd probably be a little bit like, hey, babe, turn off the lights and let's act like we're not home today, right? Any of you have neighbors like that? That's why we live where we are so we don't have to worry about that a whole lot, right? We're in Florida. We lived in a neighborhood. We had houses like right on top of one another.

You know what I'm talking about. They're building a lot of those around here. Some of you North Davidson people that have lived here your entire life probably complain about that. But that's kind of what we lived in in Florida.

And I remember there were some times like it was never fails, you know, somebody selling something all the time in our neighborhood. And it was kind of like, you know, hey, don't move, don't move. You know, they'll never know we're here. Just let them keep ringing the doorbell.

And I know they're on the other line like I hear them inside of there. But if you're like me, you're probably like, man, Abraham has been, God's already asked him to do so much. I'd probably be like, really? What does God want from me now? I've already given him pretty much everything. What in the world is God going to ask of me now? But he didn't do that. He came and his posture was totally different. He comes in total surrender. Here I am. And he said this, God said, take now, verse 2, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.

Now, this is a request that is just wild to me. But I want you to understand what was happening here. It was much different or much deeper than what God was just saying to offer his son. The firstborn in scripture represented someone's entire life. You have to understand in this story, Isaac represented everything to Abraham. Everything from Genesis 12 up to this point, everything hinged itself on Isaac.

It was his son. In fact, they couldn't have kids back in Genesis 12 when God said, I'm going to make of you a great nation. And so he's sitting there like, God, I don't even have any kids.

And how in the world are you going to make my name great and give me tons of kids and give me tons of family and all this kind of stuff when me and Sarah, we don't even have kids and we're already past the age of childbearing. So God blesses them. He answers, you know, he meets them, gives them Isaac. And now here, God is telling him now, I got your attention. I've given you a son. Now I want you to sacrifice him. Let that sink in. Abraham's like, what?

Like all this time has gone by and you've promised that you're going to make of me a great nation. How in the world is that going to work if you ask me to sacrifice my son? But what he was doing is not crazy. He was actually teaching him that the thing that means the most to you, I want you to be willing to lay that down at my feet. And listen, there's a lot of you in here who have things like Isaac in your life that you're still holding on to and you're not willing to lay down.

You see, the point is, is he was trying to teach him to lay everything down at his feet. And so what did Abraham do? This crazy thing, Abraham rose up early, first three in the morning. He saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son and clave the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and he went into the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day, somebody say the third day for me. The third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place so far off. I'll tell you this, if it took me three days to follow God with something this crazy, I'd have probably given up by the third day, right? I'd have probably said, okay, three days.

I'd have had plenty of time to talk myself out of whatever God has asked me to do in this case and everything. But here's what I want you to understand. Radical faith is shown on the third day. Radical faith is shown down the road. You know, it's one thing for us to come into a place like this and we make a decision, maybe even here at this altar and we make a decision to lay something down at the feet of Jesus or to give something over to him or God, you're working in my life and I'm going to say yes to you in this area and we lay it down and it's easy maybe to do it in this setting every now and then. But what happens to a lot of us, just like a lot of living sacrifices do, we take whatever we lay down and by the third day, we've completely forgotten all about it.

Some of you made decisions at revive week and by the next day after it's over, you've already picked up everything you had laid down at the altar. You see, the third day will show how much faith you really have. On day three, Abraham's still climbing and still following God as much as he was when God told him exactly what to do. Verse five, and Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with the donkey and I and the lad will go yonder and worship. Not going to dive into that, but such an interesting word choice that he called it worship and come again to you. In other words, he says, I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you. Let me say that again. I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. I'm going to say it again. I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you.

Think about it. Abraham's the only one in the story at this point who knows what God has asked him to do. And as he's traveling, he tells his guys, hey, listen, y'all stay back here. Me and Isaac, we're going to go further and we're going to worship.

And then the two of us are going to come back. You talk about confidence in God. Listen, he was so confident in God. He knew God has asked me to do something. It doesn't make any sense to him.

Just like it makes no sense to you and me for God to ask him to do this. But he had so much confidence that God had promised way back in Genesis 12 when he said yes to the promise of God. And God said, I'm going to make of you a great nation. Abraham remembered the promises of God so much and he trusted in it that he had the nerve to say, hey, listen, I don't know how God's going to work this out. I don't know what he's going to do when we get up to the top of Mount Moriah. But somehow me and my son, because my the promise God's promised me is in Isaac. Somehow me and him are going to come walking down this mountain back to the servants. Verse six, Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, laid it upon Isaac, his son, took the fire in his hand and a knife.

And they went both of them together. And Isaac's probably starting to get a little concerned. Verse seven, Isaac spake unto Abraham his father. He said, OK, father. And he said, here am I, my son. And he said, behold, the fire in the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

He's starting to get puzzled. Verse eight, Abraham's confidence once again. And this is prophetic.

We'll get there eventually. Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. They came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and he took the knife to slay or really literally means to slaughter his son.

Isn't that wild? He was still in that moment like, OK, God's got to do something, but I'm going to go through with exactly what God is asking me. Now, you've got to think about this from the father to the son. How many of you have kids?

How many of you are a parent? Raise your hands high. Keep them up for just a second. Look around you. Parents, parents, parents. We're throughout this room.

My hands are raised as well. I have two children. I have an 11 year old and an eight year old. And I know I joke about them all the time, a lot of times with you, but I love my kids. Right. And you love your kids.

How many of you love your kids? Raise your hand. OK, there we go. All right. If your kids sitting next to you, I hope you raise your hand right there or it's going to be an interesting Sunday afternoon lunch. All right.

But listen, you know, you love your kids and we as parents hate to see our kids hurt. Right. We hate it. Like it bothers us. Don't believe me.

Go down here to the gym. And if a kid is sitting on the bench when the parent thinks they should play, they're always going to be sticking up for the kid. Right. They get upset about that. They're mad because they hate that. Well, we also hate any time they're going through relational problems. Right. Your kid ever come home and said, hey, so-and-so was mean to me.

You know what our natural tendency a lot of times is? Whatever. What's that? What's that? What's so-and-so's mom's name? I'm going to go find her. Right.

Are we the only ones? OK. But we also hate to see it when they're in physical pain. You ever had your kid break something or whatever? My son Lindley's been a lot easier over the years. But my son, he has broken five bones in his arms.

OK. In one arm, actually, he's broken it twice. Literally, we broke it. He had a cast on for several months and then he had the cast off for two weeks and broke all the same bones again. Like two weeks later. You say how was it a really cool story?

No. The second time all he was doing was he was getting rambunctious as a kid. And I don't know why, but he would jump into our minivan at the time and he got in the back. And he liked to before he buckled himself, he would like flip.

Who does this? But he did. And then he had this huge jacket on because it was winter. And and he I'm like, dude, get in your car seat.

I'm done with this. And he's like, Dad, my arm really hurts. And I'm thinking, OK, he broke it, but it's healed fine. I'm like, look, you're good. Just buckle yourself and let's let's get home. And he told me, he said, Dad, I really think it's hurt.

Can you look at it? And I'm trying to get somewhere, so I'm frustrated. And I'm like, I'm like, whatever. Take your jacket off. But it's not. And sure enough, it's like sticking out again.

It's terrible. And I was like, son, I knew it was broke the whole time. You know, let's rush you somewhere. And and so we take him to the hospital. And any time we've gone there, you know, with stuff like this, I'm usually the one in the room. Abby has a hard time in the room when they're setting these bones. Which is kind of gross and hard.

And yes, he's asleep. But it is difficult on us as parents to kind of watch this right and watch our kid who is in pain. Another time, Cameron, we had visited my parents and my parents live on like this farm area. So their house is here and and right on their property is like my cousins and their kids and everything.

Very similar to Davidson County. Some of you kind of build right next to each other. You don't talk about that's how my parents are.

OK. And so all of our families there. So when we're there, right when we pull up, my kids jump out of the car. Sometimes they hadn't even stopped yet. And they run to their second cousin's house because they're their same age.

And they just start playing right away. And so one time we got there and we were visiting from Florida. When we lived in Florida at the time and we pull up at my parents' house and and when we pull up, they jump out. Sure enough, they go straight to my cousin's house. They knew we were coming.

So they're ready for him. And they jumped onto the trampoline. And it was one of those trampolines.

It's kind of Davidson County style with no padding around it. You know, I'm talking about. And so it's one of those. And and they're jumping and jumping. And me and Abby, we hadn't unloaded anything from the car yet. We literally just got there.

We're talking to my dad outside the car. And all of a sudden we heard screaming. And I'm like, what in the world? And so all of a sudden these cousins start running up to us and said, Cameron is hurt. Cameron is hurt and bleeding. Well, once again, I'm thinking, how bad could it be?

It's probably not that bad. And so I end up going. And he had tried to do a flip and landed on the metal ends face first.

And all of his teeth were up in his gums. OK, so we're now out of town. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. So it was late in the evening. It's about six thirty at night.

Nowhere's open. So we had to get him through that night. And then first thing the next morning, I showed up at my parents dentist with my son and it was after covid. And so they would only allow me in there. And so I was in there with him. And and they told me after looking at it that they were going to have to pull four teeth, I believe they had to pull like four teeth out of his out of his mouth.

And I just sit there while they kind of go in there and just pull them right out of there. I'll tell you this. Any time you've seen your kid hurt, it hurts us. Any time as a parent, we hate stuff like that.

We hate like watching our kids go through any pain. Well, here you have Abraham, the promise, everything God has promised, his hope, his dream, his future. Everything about Abraham's life that God had told him is wrapped up into this teenage boy at the time on an altar.

And he's about to slay his son because he surrendered everything, including his future to him. Verse 11. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven. And he said, Abraham, Abraham.

I bet that was the most beautiful voice he'd ever heard in that moment. Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. Once again, the posture of surrender. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou has not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram called in the thicket by his horns, which signifies, I was talking about that this morning with somebody, that signifies that he was still without blemish, without spot. His horns were called into the thicket and Abraham went and took the ram and went and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. Now, they come up to the mountain and now he's able to sacrifice this ram instead of his son.

In other words, the ram was a substitution, sacrifice for his son. And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah Jireh, which means the Lord will provide. As it said to this day in the mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time.

And he said this, By myself I have sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou has done this thing, and has not withheld my son, thine only son. And God reminds him of this, that in a blessing I will bless thee. And multiplying, I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven.

You can't count them. That's how big your, that's how big of a nation I'm going to create in you as the sand which is upon the seashore. And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. So God reminds Abraham through all of this, as he laid down the thing that was the most important to him, his future, his dreams, the promise that God had made to Abraham. It lied in a teenage boy on the altar, and he was willing even to lay the most important thing down for the Lord. What surrender? What faith?

What trust? You say how in the world could I ever get to the point in my life where I, every time God calls, say here my Lord. What do you need from me?

What do you want? Because whatever it is, I'll lay it down. If you're honest here today, I feel like if we're all honest with one another, I've really wrestled with this. I don't think I could have done that. As a pastor of this church, am I scared to admit that to you?

I don't think I could have gone that far. But I'll tell you this, there's things about this story that I think Abraham had figured out in his life, that led him up that mountain. And you say, pastor, how in the world, in my life, can I walk up the mountain like Abraham did? How in the world, with something so crazy, can I ever lay everything down to the point where I am walking in a posture of surrender to God, no matter what? I want to give you three things that I think Abraham had in his life. Number one is this, you have to listen for the voice of God.

I think it's interesting that every time God called to Abraham, he immediately heard his voice and said, here am I, Lord. I'm right here. What do you want from me? What do you need me to do? What do you need me to lay down? God, whatever it is, I'll do it.

It doesn't matter. I want to state, God, I'm fully surrendered to you, whatever it is. But you see, he had to listen for the voice of God. Let me say to you, because you guys are not much different than I am, I'm sure, some of us are so busy talking that we miss out on God speaking to us.

Some of you might even run to God and you do all the talking and you're constantly like, God, I need you to do this. God, I need you to fix this. God, I need you to provide the money here. And God, I need you to heal this person. And God, I need you to fix this in my kid's life. And I need you to do this. And I'll be back tomorrow, God. And then, you know, and then we'll be good.

I want to see some answers though. And you see, some of us are so busy talking to God and requesting things of God. And we forget and miss on what God is trying to say to you. What God is calling you to. And I want you to understand that sometimes we need to go into the presence of God with nothing to say.

And everything to offer. To go to him and just say, God, I have nothing to say. God, I just want you to speak to me. God, I want you to know I lay everything down.

My career, my will, my money, my possessions, my home, my children, my grandkids, whatever it is, God. It is on the altar for you. But some of us, we struggle to hear the voice of God. And by the way, the scripture says sometimes God talks in a very still, small voice, like a whisper. Now if somebody whispers, you got to lean in a bit, right? You got to kind of get up next to them.

So you can hear them. You got to get close to them so that you can hear them. That's important when somebody's whispering to you. Well, sometimes I'll submit to you that if you really want to hear God's voice, you got to get up near him to hear it. I asked my wife, I like to illustrate certain things sometimes for you to kind of, first of all, show you our humanity, but also just to kind of drive points home, I asked her, hey, babe, you know, because sometimes if you're like me, if your wife says something to you and you're doing something, or you're busy doing something else, sometimes she can be speaking and you can audibly hear that somebody's talking. But when you stop to think, what did she say, you can't remember it. How many of you guys would say that's happened to you a few times? Okay, few of you.

Thank you. That happens. I asked her this week. I said, babe, just so I can tell them because I think, you know, it illustrates the point.

Has there been a time recently where where I've just not heard you, but you were saying something to me. Maybe I was busy or whatever and here was her response all the time. So I don't know if that helps illustrate, but sometimes she did say to follow up. She said she's learned to, and this is not good marriage advice at all, by the way, men.

So don't take what I'm about to tell you as license to do this, but she did follow it up by saying that that she has learned not to tell me anything important when Duke is playing on TV. Okay, and we're like that from time to time. But you know, if you ever need to have a serious conversation with maybe your spouse, or maybe your kids, I know for me with my children a lot of times, you know, here's the worst time to talk to my kids is when the PlayStation is going. You ever tried to go in and have a serious conversation with your kids when when they're playing a video game or they're on a phone or something like that. No, when I need to really talk to them seriously about something that's important. What I do is a lot of times I'll say okay kids.

I want you to turn off everything. I want you to sit and I want you to listen and we're going to talk about about this sometimes for us to hear people's voice in our life. We have to turn off and tune out all the other noise that is in our world. And for some of you you're not hearing the voice of God in your life because you have too much other things that are speaking into your life. You're not turning off the television long enough to hear from God. You're not silencing a cell phone long enough to really speak and spend time in the presence of God.

You're not finding places of solitude where it's only you and God where God can speak to you and you can lean as close as you can to him so that you can hear the voice of God. If you want to the fate that makes you go and the fate that makes you walk up the mountain. You have to be willing to listen to the voice of God. The second thing you got to do is obey the word of God.

You got to just do it. Let me tell you this faith is measured by movement. I'll say this faith is way more than just your words. Faith is measured by movement. It's what you do with what you say you believe not just what you say you believe.

There's a lot of people who say I believe in God and the Bible says you really know if somebody believes in God by the fruit that they they live with and the things that you see on the outside. That's that's the tension of the New Testament what the Apostle Paul said in James and and things like that James comes along and he says listen, you are saved by grace through faith. But let me tell you this if you are really saved and you know, the Lord there's going to be evidence in your life. There's going to be fruit in your life.

There's going to be works in your life. Why because faith is measured by movement here Abraham. He placed this faith in God and in God's provision back in Genesis chapter 12, and we see time and time again that he is coming to God with full surrender because faith is measured by movement. It's obeying the Word of God and by the way, it's obeying the Word of God even when it doesn't make any sense to you. You ever been asked of something that made no sense to you, but God said it and you just got to do it anyway.

Prime example every time I think about that thought I think about just what I'm doing today. If you I'll tell you anytime they come to our school. I played a school about an hour from here. I don't ever mention it because a lot of the students who play in our Christian school play them.

They get real upset when I talk about it. So I don't want to say where I went to school, but I went to school about an hour and 5 10 minutes from here a school that we play often and here's the thing I still see anytime we play them here in Union Grove. I still see the former administrator and his wife that his wife was our speech teacher growing up and I'll tell you in high school. I was terrified to ever get in front of anybody. Like I'm serious like you might think hey was Josh always like I'm telling you I would not have done it. In fact, there's numerous times in my speech class where I would get up and I would just say I can't do this and I just sit right down and I take whatever grade she would give me.

It was terrible. I mean, I was awful awful at it. The thing that I stressed about more than ever before in high school was a play that we were required to do and I was like why and then my senior year I'm sitting there in a room at camp and God calls me to do something that actually was the thing that I was the most fearful about. And that's to preach and let me tell you this it's amazing that what God calls you to he will always equip you to do and so if you're in here today and you say I'm in God, you know, he's been telling me I should do this but that can't it makes no sense because I'm really really bad at whatever he's asking me to do. Let me tell you this you better lean in and obey the word of God and whatever he has for you because all I can tell you is that he will equip you to do whatever it is that he's asking you to do and that's what Abraham learned Abraham had full confidence in the voice of God that it led him to being willing to obey the word of God.

And then the third thing and this is the big one. He trusted in the provision of God. You say how what kind of faith that he have to ever get him up that Mountain with his son. He had to listen to the voice of God. He obeyed the word of God. And then he trusted in the provision of God.

This is where it gets so good and the where you can't miss this story. It's easy for us to look at this story and we're even gaining principles about faith and principles about Abraham and how you know, we can be more like them sometimes I often wonder like if these Bible characters that we read about if they were here today and just say they were let's imagine for a moment that if Abraham was to stand up here today and you could ask him anything in the world that you would ask him. We would probably ask him things like, you know, like me and tell me how you did it.

Tell me what the walk was like. Tell me how scared you were when you reared back to slay your son there. Tell me was there any interaction with you and your son tell me all about I want to know all those details and things like this. And I think if we were to sit here in Abraham, here's our questions from our humanistic perspective. He would probably say listen that wasn't it at all.

He said the only thing and it's just me reading into it. I bet the only thing he would want us to know is who God is. You see the point of this whole story in Genesis 22 is not just about Abraham and what a great man of faith he was. The point of Genesis chapter 22 is how great and mighty our God really is.

You see I don't want you to miss the point the point if you leave here and just say man. I need faith like Abraham. That's that's true.

And that's good. But I want you to leave here today with a better sense of who God is because that is what God Abraham up the mountain all together. And when you recognize who God is following him makes total sense. When you get a glimpse of who God is and what he has done for you and what he has called you to do following him and laying things down at his feet becomes so much easier.

Because you realize who he is you see here. This story has such a prophetic meaning here verse 8 of our text right there. Abraham said my son God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.

You see the point that I think Abraham understood about God and the point that I want you to understand about our God is here. The promise was in the sun the promise everything God had promised to him was was in Isaac and you see so Abraham as he is laying there with with Isaac his teenage son there and is all of his hope all of his future. Everything about him was laid up on the altar there here today. I think the what he if he was standing here today is he would remind you and me that that day all he could think of what what was going to happen centuries later at a mountain really close to Mariah by the way where there's going to be an only begotten son. Another son a son who would come and walk up the hill and walk up the hill because of the will of his father. And he's going to willingly get on a cross. And he's going to be slain for you and for me.

You see the reason why Abraham was able to go up there is because he understood what was going to take place even at this same place. By the way, Jesus walked up the mountain to be your substitute. And everything in your life your hope your dreams your future your security your safety.

Everything that your soul is looking for is found. And the one and only begotten son of God who was your substitute who died for your sin who died for my rebellion for all of that. And he took his life. And he didn't get up off that altar. He stayed and Rose again for you and for me and because of that we know that the father he loves us. Just like when you look at this story verse 16, and he said by myself as the Lord speaking to him. By myself I have I swarm say the Lord for because thou has done this thing and has not withheld thy son not only son. You want to know how God you know, God the father loves you is because he did not withhold his only begotten son. He willingly allowed and gave him to die for you so that you could live again.

Say what's the point of the story when you understand what Jesus did on the cross for you? The only proper response. In fact, Paul would say it in Romans chapter 12 the reasonable logical sensible response. The only response is to lay your entire life down for him. That's the only response when you really get a glimpse of what Jesus saved you from when you really understand that it took him going to the cross so that you could one day live forever in a place called heaven so that you don't have to burn for eternity in a place called the lake of fire. Like when you realize that and you understand that you were an enemy with God the Father and Jesus dying gave you a way to have a peaceful relationship with God the Father when you realize that you had absolutely no hope in your life and no joy in your spirit and then because of Jesus dying on the cross for you it gave you a chance so that now you can have joy and now that you can have hope even when you see a lost loved one or a loved one that saved go on to be in glory one day and what do we always say? Hey heaven gets sweeter, right? You want to know why you can have that assurance and you can have that hope and you can have that faith?

It's because Jesus stayed on the on the cross for you and for me so that you can have all of that and the only proper response for what he has done for you is to lay your whole life and surrender to him. So I want to ask you with two questions. I'm going to ask our musicians.

They can go ahead and come to the platform. I want to ask you two questions. We're out of time and I just want you to answer these in your spirit today. First one is this have you placed your faith in him for salvation? Have you placed your faith in him for salvation? Let me remind you of this the gospel. You know, we know that term.

Here's what that is. If you're if you're newer to church or if you slipped in here, I know we have new people come about every week. I don't want to assume you understand what the gospel is. If you're in here today, here's what the gospel is. It is not a story of God coming down to you and because you were searching for him because you were looking for him. No, the gospel is actually really good news for you because it's a story of him coming to us when we weren't looking for him. When we were undeserving the Bible says that you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You see that was us. We could do nothing but sin and nothing but live after the flesh according to Ephesians chapter 2.

And you know what? God loved us in spite of that. Aren't you thankful that God didn't say hey, you got to clean yourself up before I die for you.

You know what he decided to do? I'm going to die for the messed up wicked broken people that is in this Arcadia community. In fact the broken wicked people that is in Union Grove Baptist Church. I'm going to die for them not they don't have to clean themselves up for me to do it. I'm going to do it in spite of who they are. You see that's what he did for you. That's the gospel and you say how do I trust that sounds awesome.

I want to trust in that you should it's simple. We complicate in churches a lot of times we complicate the gospel so much we complicate if you're in here and you you've heard it a bazillion times. Listen, it's always good to hear it again. The gospel is seriously as easy as ABC is what I say all the time about it. It's just admitting your need that you are in need of a Savior admitting that you're a sinner and that you cannot save yourself. Listen, you can't get to heaven by yourself. If you're in here today and you're trying let me tell you this that is going to get you absolutely nowhere except for eternal separation from God, you know, there's going to be a lot of people when Jesus comes back who are going to say I was this and I was I was at church every Sunday. And I was I tried to go to Bible study and I tried to do this but they never had a relationship with God.

They never stopped trusting in their own power and own will and own ability and started trusting in him. That's the only way you can get there is by admitting you're a sinner and that you can't save yourself and then believing on him believing that what he says in his word is true about you and what he's done for you and then just confession with your mouth. That's just agreeing with God that I'm a sinner and I'm in need of a Savior.

I can't save myself. So God I want you to come into my life and I want you to give me a brand new slate a brand new life. And he will if you're in here today and you've never done that listen in a moment. We're going to give you the opportunity where you can come down front. You say I'm scared to death to do that.

Listen, I get it, but this would be the most important decision that you could ever make in your life. And listen, if there's a person in here that you're worried about. Don't be don't be worried about anybody else because we want you to know for sure that you know, Jesus as your Savior don't walk out of this place not knowing him.

You can trust them. But the second question is for many of you have been saved is this have you laid it all down and surrender to him? What's holding you back? Is it your career?

Parents, is it your kids or grandkids? Is it your money? Is it your hobbies? Like no, I don't have time for God. I don't have time to share my faith. I don't have time to do all of these things because it's filled with all of this. Maybe you need to come and lay something down that you've been holding back because laying it all down is the only reasonable response to what he has actually done for you.

It makes sense. You say man, I've worked hard for that. Listen, he gave his life for you. It makes sense that you give everything back to him. Have you trusted Jesus as your Savior and have you laid everything down? Would you stand with me? Heads bowed, hearts lifted in prayers, the musicians play.