Trusting God with the Things We Love Most

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Hebrews 11 and Genesis 22, you might just mark both spots in your Bible this morning because we will look at both. While you’re turning there, I want you to think about your life and what’s really important to you. And when I say what’s really important, I mean that thing that you worry about, that thing that maybe you obsess over, that thing that keeps you awake at night, that thing you care most about, the thing in your life that you would protect at all costs, the thing you would never give up.

What is it that you love most? And I’m not asking you to give me an out loud answer. And folks, I’m also not looking for a Sunday school answer.

Well, of course I love Jesus the most. Well, that should be true. That should be true for all of us. But I’m talking about the thing on earth that you love above everything else.

Now, it’s different for different people. For some people, it may be a spouse. For some people, it may be a home.

For some people it may be a job. For some people it may be their sense of pride. What is it that you love most and will defend at all costs?

What would be the hardest thing in the world for you to give up? Now, when I stop and think about this for myself, for me it’s my children. And I don’t say that in the sense that I love my children more than my wife, but I feel a different sense of responsibility toward my children.

There have been times in my life where my children were the only thing I had. I heard a friend talk several months ago about Paul when he was shipwrecked. He talked about the broken pieces.

If you read in Acts chapter 27, when he was on his way to Malta, he was shipwrecked. The Bible talks about the people grabbing onto the broken piece of the ship and swimming to shore. And those broken pieces were what kept them afloat in the storm and in the waves.

And there are times that my kids were the broken pieces for me. When the storms of life were knocking me around, they were the only thing. Other than God’s grace, in terms of earthly motivation, they were what I clung to and what kept me afoot.

I know all parents love their children, but I spent so much time having to try to be both mom and dad for them that I feel doubly attacked. And so you don’t mess with my children. And that’s not a threat.

I’m just saying that’s. . .

In between doctor’s appointments, we stopped at Chick-fil-A on Thursday for the kids to have, well, for all of us to have one, but for the kids to play. And some little girl came complaining about some boy that had pushed her, and I thought she was pointing at Benjamin. And her grandfather said, oh, he’s just a little thug.

And I looked at Charlie, I said, is he talking about my son? I started to stand up in the. .

. And I’m generally a laid-back kind of guy, but I love my kids. I would fight for my kids.

I would. . .

I just can’t convey to you. And if you’re a parent, you understand. But they are the thing that I worry about most in this world.

Worrying about their well-being is what keeps me awake at night. It’s what sends me into a tailspin, and Charla has to pull me out of it. That’s the thing I worry about most. That’s the thing that keeps me up at night.

That’s the thing that I would never give up control of, is making sure they’re okay. And yet sometimes there are situations where you have to realize, where I have to realize, they really aren’t in my control to begin with. I have to remind myself, okay, God can take better care of them than I can, and yet I want to worry about them.

I want to say, what can I do about this situation? How can I fix, how can I take charge in this situation? and realize God’s already got this, and I have to let go.

And loving them so much, that is a terrifying thing to say, I’m going to let go and let God have his will in a given situation, because I want to be in control of this. I want to make sure everything’s over. The reality is God can take better care of them.

God loves them more even than I do. That’s hard to remember. It’s hard to get that through my head.

And folks, whatever it is that you love most, whether it’s a child, whether it’s a spouse, whether it’s your good name, whatever it may be, whatever that thing is that you love most that you just can’t let out of your control. We’ve got to come to the realization that we can trust God with those things, because God can take better care of them than we ever could. Now, I know we tend as believers to believe that in our minds, that our gut feeling sometimes is very different, and the way we act about it is sometimes very different.

But folks, we can trust God with the things that we care most. We can trust God with the things we care about most to the point that we are able to give them up and say, God, you take care of me. It’s out of my hands. Now, Abraham dealt with this same thing.

In Hebrews chapter 11, it talks about him. We’ve looked at this passage before, what’s called the hall of faith. But it went through, and we talked about it in previous weeks, where it kind of gives the highlights of his story here, talking about him being called out from where he lived and go to another country that he didn’t know.

And God says, basically, get up and go, and I’ll show you where you’re going when you. . .

Wait a minute, you’re not telling me even where I’m going? No, just get up and go. And then it turns in verse 17 and says, By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from whence also he received him in effect.

So that gives the highlight of the story and praises Abraham here for his faith. And that really is the important message for us to take out of this story that we’re going to look at in Genesis chapter 22, is that it was the faith of Abraham that pleased God, the faith of Abraham, his willingness to give up Isaac. Now, as you recall, as we’ve been talking about this idea of a journey of faith and looking at Abraham’s life as an example, he’s been promised a child many, many times.

I sat down yesterday and started skimming through the book of Genesis to try to see how many times here did God promise him a child. And I came up with at least four. And I say at least four because I’ve written them down and I’m not certain I didn’t miss one or two or five.

I mean, it seems like every time you turn around in the story of Abraham, God was promising him a child for multiple years. For over a decade, he was promising him a child. Even before he took matters into his own hands.

All told, it was 25 years. God was promising him a child. In Genesis 12, in Genesis 13, Genesis 15, Genesis 17, he makes these promises and promises him not only a child, but promises him that his descendants will be a great nation, that they’ll be innumerable.

They’ll be like the stars in the sky. They’ll be like the dust of the earth. You won’t be able to count them because there will be so many.

And so for 25 years, God has been promising him a child. Say, okay, God’s been promising him a child. If you didn’t have children in those days, you weren’t anybody.

Your worth was based, especially as a woman, but as a man as well. Your worth was based on the size of your family as much as on the size of your holdings, your wealth and everything. Nowadays we look and see how big is your house, how big is your bank account, how fancy is your car.

Back then it was how many kids did you have. And for them to have none, it was a desperate situation. It was a whole situation.

And God for 25 years had been promising him a child and then finally God delivered. Now finally in our terms, God was not a day late in his plan. But God finally delivered, and Isaac was born to Sarah, and Abraham had his son, and he raised his son, and in the story where God sends them up the mountain, a lot of times we hear the story, we see pictures of it, and we think of Isaac being a small boy.

And yet, I think Isaac was probably a little older than that, because he helped his father carry some of the stuff up the mountain that they were going to need. In Genesis chapter 22, it says, and it came to pass after these things that God did tempt So we have this conversation between God and Abraham. God calls out Abraham.

And Abraham says, Here I am. It says that God tempted him. Now understand, the Bible does say that God is not tempted by evil, and neither does he tempt any man.

So when we are tempted to do wrong, we cannot rightly say that God made us do it. God tempted us to do evil. And so for it to say here that God tempted Abraham, It’s really talking about more of a test. God is not whispering in Abraham’s ear saying, you know, if you’ll be okay.

No, God is putting Abraham to a test here. And he said, behold, here I am. And he said, 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 tell thee of.

25 years God has been promising him this. 25 years he’s been waiting for the fulfillment of this promise. 25 years he’s been wondering, where is my son?

Where is my son? I can’t wait until my son gets here. If only I had my son.

And then God delivers on the promise, and he has his son, and he raises him from the time that he’s a little baby. And, oh my goodness, thinking back on those times myself. Yes, they were tiring.

Yes, they were frustrating. But I wouldn’t change them for the world. I wouldn’t give them up for anything in the world.

Raising the kids from the time that they’re a little baby and watching them grow and watching them learn and seeing as they develop and they say their first words and they reach for objects and they take their first steps and they get sarcasm for the first time. That’s a big deal for me. I keep saying I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to understand that these are jokes.

But seeing as they develop and watching them grow into people and you invest all that time and all that energy and all that love and all those tears, you invest those in a child and you raise him and he is the center of your world. I have no doubt in my mind that that’s how Abraham felt about Isaac. And then several years down the road, Isaac is a young man, and God says, yeah, that son that I promised you, that son you’ve waited for so long for, and that son that you’ve worked so hard with, I want you to take him and I want you to offer him back to me.

And we’re not talking here offering him back to me like Hannah did with Samuel. Raised him for a few years and then took him back to the temple to be raised up as a priest and as a prophet and as a judge. We’re talking about to be offered as a burnt offering.

God says that’s what you need to do. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t blame Abraham. He said, there’s no way.

I mean, seriously, if I heard that message today, I would go see a doctor. Because clearly I’m not understanding correctly. And yet Abraham spoke with God so regularly.

realized that this was God’s speak. He realized that this is what God was commanded to do. And so now Abraham again is faced with a choice.

Just like he was faced with a choice early on. Get up and go to a country that I will show you. He’s faced with a choice.

Do I sit here and think about it? Do I say no? Do I go?

He got up and went. I mean we see no evidence that he argued with God or that he took some time to think about it. He got up and went.

Abraham is now faced with a choice here. Do I say know that Isaac is the most important thing in my world and nobody’s taken him away from me? Or do I recognize that God gave him to me, he belongs to God anyway, and trust that God’s going to take care of this situation as only he can?

And there’s one right answer to that. In his situation, in any situation I face, in any situation you face where there’s that choice to be made, there is one right answer. And that right answer is to realize that whatever it is that we love, that we’re clinging to, God gave it to us, God owns it, and God can take better care of it than we possibly could.

Yet, I cannot fault Abraham if he’d say this. So Abraham has the choice to make, and verse 3 says, And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and claved the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went to the place which God had told him. Abraham gets up and he goes.

But not only does he get up and go, it says early the next morning. With me, it’s going to be one of those situations, okay, when we get around to it, that drives Charlie crazy. When are we going to such and such a place tomorrow?

Just when we get around. And when we get around, it gets later and later as I’m realizing, okay, I’m going to have to give something up. I’m going to have to sacrifice my son.

We’ll go when we get around to it. We’ll just take our time. He got up early, early.

And went out with his son, cut the wood, and they packed the nations to go, and they went to where God told him to go. And on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Think about this for a minute.

He knows that he’s being commanded to go and sacrifice his. And even though he’s made the decision to trust God, sometimes that doesn’t make it easier. Still there’s that unease, there’s that dread of, okay, I know God can do something.

It’s the not knowing. He’s traveled with his son for three days. They have gone and traveled to the place that God sent them.

And he didn’t go and prepare the sacrifice the next day and get it over with. For three days they’re traveling and he’s one dude. And it’s three days of traveling and then he sees the place of fire.

And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. So he didn’t tell them what they are. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son.

See, this is what makes me think. Isaac’s probably not a little boy. Firewood is heavy.

And laid it upon Isaac his son. And he took the fire in his hand and a knife. And they went both of them together.

And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said, My father, and he said, Here I am, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? See, Isaac was old enough and alert enough to realize that there’s a sacrifice that’s going to be made here, a burnt offering, and we’ve got the wood and we’ve got the fire and we’ve got the knife.

We’re forgetting something. Where’s the lamb? Where’s the lamb that’s going to be sacrificed?

Verse 8, and Abraham said, my son God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. There’s a sort of a faith mixed with resignation here in his relationship.

Son, God will provide a sacrifice. probably not knowing if God’s going to provide a literal lamb or if he’s really going to have to go through with what God’s called him to do but you see in what we’ve already read in Hebrew Abraham believed that even if he had to sacrifice his son God Abraham at this point is putting all of his God does not know how the circumstances are going to work out realizes that God can take care of his son better than he can realizes that God is sovereign here that God is in charge of all of this and still not realizing how is he going to work this circumstance. I tell Charla all the time, I pray for God’s will to be done.

I know God’s will is best and I know God’s will is what should happen, but sometimes in a moment of honesty, I have to say, I’m afraid that God’s will will happen. And so it gets hard at times to pray, your will be done. But even in my human frailty, thinking, unless it’s something I don’t want, we still have to realize that even if it’s something I don’t want, God still has a plan in mind that’s better.

Verse 9 says, And 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. So they’ve come there and still God hasn’t intervened, And so Abraham resigned himself to going through with what God called him to do.

And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called out to him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I.

And this is not doctrine. The Bible doesn’t say this. This is just my imagination of how this played out.

But I imagine that he called out to Abraham with a loud voice because Abraham didn’t see him. If I was about to have to do this, my eyes are closed. I can’t watch.

but whether his eyes were open or closed he called out to him Abraham Abraham and he said here I am I’m right here verse 12 he said lay not thine hand upon the lad neither do thou anything to him for now I know that thou fearest God seeing thou hast not withheld thy son thine only son from me and Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horn and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Yerah. As it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

Then the angel of the Lord comes to him and makes a covenant with him, makes an agreement about blessing him and his family for his faithfulness. Now a couple things here. The story of the ram, or the detail about the ram being caught in the thicket.

The way I’ve heard this explained for many years does not seem like this was coincidence. I mean, you have to be a pretty big believer in coincidence to think it was one. But a ram is a big, tough animal. I mean, there’s a reason Dodge didn’t name their trucks the squirrel.

The ram is a big, tough animal. Strong, as far as sheep go. A thicket is just a bunch of thorns. thorny vines and branches.

And how a ram got stuck in there to begin with is strange, but how he got in there would be strange. I think they’d know better than to run into a big thorny patch. But how he got stuck in there by his horns, how he couldn’t have just ripped himself free, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

From my reading of it, the best explanation is that God stuck that ram there. God stuck a ram there to be used as a sacrifice. And just as Abraham said, God provided a lamb.

Just a grown up lamb, but God provided a lamb for sacrifice. You cannot convince me that this was a coincidence. And the angel came and said that now we know.

Now we know where your faith is. And I read this and why God tested him, why God decided to prove him, is a difficult question for me to answer. God knew already where Abraham’s heart was God knew that Abraham had faith God knew how this story was going to turn out before Abraham was even born things and circumstances in our lives don’t happen and God says oops that caught me off guard didn’t see that one coming God knew but at this point the angels knew everybody around knew and Abraham knew and sometimes I think it’s in in times of difficulty, times of testing, that our faith is shown for what it is or what it is.

It’s easy to have faith and to trust God when things are going well. It’s easy to have faith and trust God when what He tells us to do lines up perfectly with our desires. But at other times when what we love is put in jeopardy, at times when circumstances start to knock us around and we think, I can’t possibly follow through with what you do, It’s in those times of difficulty that we learn where our faith, how strong it is or how strong it isn’t.

And so the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord said in verse 12, For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that you have not withheld your son from him. At that point there was no doubt in anybody’s mind whether Abraham feared and trusted God and how much. And I think Abraham needed to know how much he really trusted.

I think Abraham needed to know how faithful God would be. That when Abraham’s called on to do something that doesn’t make sense, something that seems like it should go against everything that he holds dear, that even then God is trustworthy, even then God has a plan in mind, even then God can take care of the circumstances of his life better than Abraham ever could. And so I ask you this morning, what are those things that you love the most?

Those things that even if God said, give those to me. Those things that you’d say, no God. Those things that are hard to trust God with, because even though we know in our minds that God is in control, even though we know in our minds that God is more powerful than we are, even though we know in our minds that God is sovereign over all of this, We just can’t bear to let go of the control and trust God with these things.

Like I told you from my children. There are some other things that are hard to trust God about. Not because God’s not faithful, but because my faith as a human being is not always where it should be.

But that really is at the top of the list for me. What are those things that we need to be reminded that God is in control even of those? Make a list of the things that you think are so big in your life that, no, God, I can’t ever surrender those to you.

I can’t ever let you be in charge of those. I can’t ever make decisions here that don’t make sense to me because I’ve got to know X, Y, and Z down the list all the way, everything that’s going to happen and I’ve got to be in charge of. Those are the things that we most desperate.

Because if they are that important to us, hear me on this, if they are that important to us, they are too important. If my kids are so important that I stay up nights worrying about them, if my kids are so important that I would give my life for them, then my kids are too important not to. And you can apply that to any circumstance in your life, if it is important for you to worry about.

It’s like to let go of that control. But folks, we’ve been talking through this series, I’ve been talking, a journey of faith, living a life of faith, being strong men and women of faith who trust God and walk with God the way people like Abraham did, in an imperfect way to be sure, but still walk with God. We cannot walk with God by faith if we hold things back and say, God, you have all of my life except this one category right here.

It’s too important to trust us. I want to share four thoughts with you. Four thoughts with you that I take from this passage, from this story of Abraham.

and what it means trusting God with things that we love most. First of all, we need to love God more than any. And when I asked you this at the beginning, I said, not looking for Sunday school answer here. I love Jesus the most. We should.

But I’m talking about the things on earth that we love most. And then we need to make sure we love God more than those. Folks, anything that we love more than God, anything, even a good thing, that we take and put in a place in our lives that only God should occupy, We don’t have idol worship. We don’t bow down to statues.

Really? I have spent most of my life living in or around Norman, Oklahoma and Fayetteville, Arkansas. Nobody can tell me that there’s not idolatry in America spending Saturdays in the fall.

Football. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about. Sports and money and cars and TV and video games and food.

These are some of the idols in America. And folks, even a good thing can be idol. My children can become an idol real quick.

We’ve got to make sure we love God more than anything. Abraham realized after that as much as he loved Isaac. Second of all, we need to put God first readily.

We need to put God first readily. I say readily because I’m not sure how good it is if we’re putting God first because we have to. We have no other options.

We feel like our arms are twisted into it or our backs are to the wall. We need to willingly put God first. As soon as the situation arises, say, okay, God, whatever you want me to do. As I said, Abraham didn’t take days to decide whether he was going to obey.

As hard as it was, God told him what to do, and he got up early the next morning. We’ve got to put God first readily. Third of all, know that God can take care of your life better than you can.

Abraham figured God had a plan, and it was a lot better than his plan of saying, no, Lord. Abraham figured that God would provide a lamb, maybe a literal lamb. Maybe he was going to provide Isaac, but if he did, he was going to raise him up from the dead.

Bottom line, Abraham didn’t know what God’s plans were or what God’s ideas were, just like most of the time we don’t know what God’s plans are. But he knew that whatever it was God could take better care of his life, his child, his situation, God could take better care of the things that he loved most. And once we realize that God can take care of the things we love most more than we can, it makes it a lot easier to trust him. Now, also don’t delude yourself into thinking that’s a one-time decision.

Wait a minute. Trying to take this back. God, you can handle this better than I can.

Keep me out of it. It’s probably not going to be a one-time decision that God can take care of our lives better than we are. And finally, we need to look for God’s provision when we’ve surrendered.

Once you have taken the step of faith and said, Okay, God, this is yours. God, I’ll make the hard decision you’re calling me to make because my life is in your hands. My children are in your hands.

My job, my wife, all of it. All the things I love most, they’re all in your hands. Once you’ve surrendered that to God, realize that He can watch.

watch what he’ll do. Expect him to do something. Expect God to do miracles.

I don’t know what miracles tell you. I don’t know specifically what miracles he’ll do. But I do know that God is a God of doing the impossible.

We see it all throughout scripture. I’ve seen it in my own life. God doing things that only he can do.

Life to him. And don’t walk away from it as, oh, God. Give it to God and anticipate what he’s going to do.

Watch for him to do something.

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