Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey. This morning we're going to continue our series on the power of one. Last week we talked about the power of one lunch. We talked about the offering that a young boy gave in order to see a whole multitude fed. Today I want to talk about the power of one sacrifice. It's continuing on in that same kind of vein. We're going to read from Genesis, chapter 22 today. Verses one to eight. So you can follow along on the screen. Or if you've got your bibles, feel free to mark it and underline it and highlight it. Whatever works for you. Let's read together. Sometime later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, abraham, here I am. He replied. Then God said, take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain. I will show you. Early the next morning, Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship, and then we will come back to you. Abraham took the word for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac. And he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father. Abraham said to his father, Abraham. Father. Yes, my son? Abraham replied, the fire and wood are here. Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering. My son and the two of them went on together. Let me pray this morning. As we look at God's word. Father, we thank you for this incredible passage of scripture, this testimony of your goodness and your faithfulness of courage and sacrifice.
[00:02:00] Father, as we look at this today, would we consider in our own lives what it means to be giving ourselves to you as a living sacrifice? Father, I thank you, Lord, for the season of consecration. We find ourselves in the. As individuals, as a church, and as a movement, Lord, as we're believing that you will move in our midst. But, Lord, it begins with us laying our lives down before you. Lord, speak to us as individuals, as we worship you this morning.
[00:02:29] God, may that worship continue in the way we would respond today. In Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:36] Welcome back to all our students. How many students? For the first year you're into your university studies. Anyone here for the first year couple? No, no, most are back just second year.
[00:02:49] Thirds? Yeah, thirds. Wonderful. Welcome home. Welcome back. Well, it's so good. How many people liked school when they were younger? Like really, really loved school.
[00:03:00] How many really didn't like school at all? Oh, wow.
[00:03:05] Okay.
[00:03:08] Well, I had two favorite subjects at school. It was break time and lunchtime.
[00:03:15] Anyone else? Yeah, they were definitely my favorite subjects. Lunchtime was all about training and trading. Let me explain.
[00:03:26] Football. I just couldn't wait for break to happen so I could go out and play some football. But I also discovered my entrepreneurial gift when I was in primary school, about nine years old, before roll ups. You know the fruit roll ups that you can buy in the supermarket? My mum had a monopoly on fruit roll ups. She was the dehydrator queen. She had the big dehydrator and she would dehydrate fruits. Plums, nectarines, bananas, kiwifruit, whatever it is. She would dehydrate it and nobody had it. You couldn't buy it in the stores. I was the only kid at school with fruit leather. And so I would go to school and people were intrigued by this forbidden fruit.
[00:04:05] And so they would want to try some of this fruit and so I would offer them some of this fruit for an obvious trade. And so mum would send me with Marmite sandwiches. Do you have Marmite over here? Yeah. Who loves Marmite? Oh, hey, I've got friends. I didn't like Marmite back then. I didn't like my sandwiches. In fact, I would often. Sorry, I think mum's watching online. Hey, mom.
[00:04:31] I used to throw the sandwiches in the bin because I had fruit leather as a commodity. It was more valuable than bitcoin. Seriously.
[00:04:39] And I would trade this fruit leather. In fact, I started packaging up in little plastic packages, just a little strip of this leather. And I could trade it for a doughnut. I could trade it for a can of coke, packet of crisps. I was eating. Well, I was like a king eating there at primary school. But then there was also the cricket tournament that I organized. So I was nine years old. I charged an entry fee for this cricket tournament. I don't think the teachers were aware of it. They probably shouldn't have been aware of it. Well, they should have been aware of it. And so we had 16 teams enter this little cricket tournament that I organized. So I was the organizer, I was the treasurer. We collected a fee. It was really sounding bad.
[00:05:22] So we had this cricket tournament, 16 teams. I picked the best players in the school to be on my team and we cleaned up like we won every game right through to the knockout. We won the final, I took the prize pool and we split amongst our team. I'll tell you what, match fixing and international cricket had nothing on me.
[00:05:42] But I'll tell you what, one thing I did not like about school, and that was the tests. How many people love exams?
[00:05:50] One, two, three people. You're insane. Seriously.
[00:05:54] I'm sorry. You need help. If you like a test, if you like an exam, then you.
[00:05:59] But exams are necessary, right? They're so important to take a test, to take an exam to see whether you are qualified to pass. But I didn't like the exams because I either knew what was in the exam or I didn't. And apart from those multi choice tests, I mean, you can only pick a so many times.
[00:06:19] And then the chances mathematically are you probably only going to get 25%, right? You might fluke it another time. But I found the tests were so difficult, I didn't enjoy those.
[00:06:31] How many people enjoy the tests that God gives us in life?
[00:06:38] Not one. Not even one person that says, count it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds, because it's going to test your character and your perseverance, and you're going to grow in your faith. No one likes those tests or exams. No one, when you look back. But no one's enjoying the test when they're in the middle of it, right?
[00:06:58] But this is the reality we're seeing in this passage of scripture. We see Abraham about to take a test for something that he hadn't really studied for. This was like a pop quiz. Those ones that the teacher says, hey, we've got a test today and you haven't studied. It's that nightmare that some of us have as a recurring nightmare. And we're just like, I'm sitting at test today.
[00:07:21] Abraham has been asked to sit an exam.
[00:07:26] As we walk through this passage, we're going to see that he wasn't necessarily prepared for the question that he was about to be asked, but he was prepared because he was a man after God's heart and he had deep character.
[00:07:39] Do you remember the first thing an examiner asks you to do when they give you your test paper? They say, write your name on the top.
[00:07:47] Well, we see that at least Abraham got a point for that.
[00:07:52] God says to Abraham, Abraham. Abraham responds, here I am. I'm here. I'm right here.
[00:08:01] And even in this first introduction to this story, we see something really, really important.
[00:08:08] Do we know God's voice?
[00:08:10] Are we aware when God is actually speaking to us, can we tune out the noise of the world enough to say, God, is that you speaking, or is that something else?
[00:08:24] I am increasingly concerned about how much noise is in our world.
[00:08:32] So much information we could take in so many opportunities to even learn and grow and gain knowledge. And all of these things are good. But so often we can find ourselves missing God's voice, even though God wants to speak, do we find enough time in our day to be quiet before God, to hear that gentle whisper?
[00:08:54] Hey, Mike, I love you.
[00:08:58] Hey, Mike. You're doing better than you think.
[00:09:02] Hey, Mike, there's someone I want you to encourage. Could you send them a text? Could you give them a phone call?
[00:09:08] Hey, Mike, how about that thing that you haven't given to me yet that's stopping our relationship? Would you give that to me? Have we learned to be quiet in the presence of God, to hear his voice? Abraham, he was a busy man. He was a wealthy man. He was a businessman. He was busy with lots and lots of things. And yet he heard God's voice. Here I am.
[00:09:31] So let's enter the exam room of obedience. This morning, I want to talk about the power of one sacrifice. Verse two. It says, God says, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.
[00:09:44] That's pretty specific, but it's not his only son.
[00:09:49] Isaac was not his only son.
[00:09:51] When you think about it, he actually had two sons.
[00:09:57] If we look back in the story, God said to Abraham in Genesis twelve, you're going to be a father of many nations, and the nations will be blessed because of you.
[00:10:05] So Abraham, he was 75 at the time, and he says, we can't produce a child. My wife is too old to have a child.
[00:10:16] God says, I'm going to give you this promise and you will be the father of many nations, and you will be a blessing to every nation.
[00:10:24] But Abraham did what we sometimes do. When God has taken a little while on coming through with his promise, he thought, how about I give God some help? Anyone ever tried to help God, he didn't come through quick enough. So what do we do? We give him a hand.
[00:10:41] So they came up with this really good idea, which wasn't really a good idea.
[00:10:48] Sarah says, well, why don't I give you Hagar, my maid? You sleep with her and we'll have a child. You can have a child. And they did. But it wasn't the child of the promise that God had established. That promise was for Abraham and Sarah.
[00:11:09] Sometimes God asks us to do something, and then he puts a big, long wait on it.
[00:11:16] How many people hate the wait?
[00:11:22] Come on. If we're really honest, when you know God, he's given you a scripture, maybe there's a prophecy that's been spoken over your life. You just got this feeling inside of you that you know, you just know that you know that you know that God wants to do something and yet it doesn't happen. And we say, is it today, God? Is it tomorrow? Is it next week? Is it next week? And we can get frustrated and we can try and force God's hand. And sometimes he says, I just want you to wait.
[00:11:51] Wait.
[00:11:52] How good was that this morning for what Sean brought? Come on, we just gotta sometimes just wait.
[00:11:59] Wait. Because the miracle might not be delivered yet, but we can trust him. He will come through.
[00:12:09] God recognizes Isaac as the child of the promise because he belonged to Abraham and Sarah.
[00:12:15] We pick it up in verse two, God says, and go to the region of Moriah, sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains. I will tell you about.
[00:12:23] Anyone have children. Got some parents in the house. Some of you got older children.
[00:12:29] What was their favourite word? From the age of three. We heard it this morning. Why Sean brought that up? Why?
[00:12:36] Why do I have to go to bed? Because it's good for you. Why can't I eat chocolate for breakfast?
[00:12:42] And our response is, just because.
[00:12:45] Just because. That's like a default parent answer.
[00:12:50] But I've got to say, I have had some big why? Conversations with God in my life. Some of you might have heard our story that we took some time to have children. We thought we did everything right. We got married and we honoured God with our life and we just thought we'd have kids like all of our friends were having.
[00:13:07] Many years later, we're still in this process of God. Why? Why hasn't it happened? Why hasn't it happened when we want it to happen?
[00:13:17] And then you ask stupid questions like, do you not love me?
[00:13:20] But it doesn't feel stupid in that moment because the reality is it feels like God hasn't given me what I want.
[00:13:28] But we have a loving heavenly Father who knows what we need, and most importantly, when we need it.
[00:13:37] And part of trusting God is saying, God, even though I don't understand, I'm going to trust you anyway.
[00:13:48] Here's my first thought about the power of one's sacrifice.
[00:13:54] True sacrifice often requires obedience without understanding.
[00:13:59] If I was Abraham, I would be asking the question, why?
[00:14:03] Why do you want me to sacrifice the son that represents the promise you've spoken over my life.
[00:14:10] That just doesn't make sense.
[00:14:13] It doesn't make sense, but true sacrifice often requires obedience without understanding.
[00:14:20] So Abraham gets going with this instruction. Start walking towards the mountain region, and I'll tell you when you get there.
[00:14:29] Imagine putting that into your maps.
[00:14:32] What's your final destination? Don't know, but I'm heading there.
[00:14:37] How do you explain that one to Siri?
[00:14:41] Where are you going? Not sure yet. I'm just heading that direction.
[00:14:47] Anyone ever experienced that before?
[00:14:49] You just know that you're supposed to go this way, but you're not sure what's at the other side.
[00:14:57] Remember when we first became pastors of church? At the age of 30, my wife told me I wasn't allowed to cut my hair anymore.
[00:15:04] I had to go to a hairdresser. And so I went to find a hairdresser.
[00:15:10] So we were living in Tauranga, which is in the north island of New Zealand, and I went to find a hairdresser. One day we started walking towards the middle of town, and the first place we got to, middle of the day, it's closed. It's like, oh, that's interesting. Went to the next hairdresser, and I got there and I just felt a nudge. It's like, carry on walking.
[00:15:33] Okay. So I carried on walking, went to the next place, and the place was open, and I had a haircut, and I sat down and this lady, young lady, Candice, cut my hair. And we started talking. Half an hour to an hour in a hairdresser salon, and you end up having quite a deep conversation. You get to know somebody quite well. And I asked lots of questions.
[00:15:56] And I said, at the end of it, I said she shared even some of the challenges that she was facing. And I said, I'd like to pray for you. Would you let me pray for you over this month? I'd love to pray for you. And I went away. And that whole month, I ended up praying, praying for her. And I went back. It was like a month later, and I found myself in this place where it was like, okay, I need to pray for her. And as I'm praying, I'm getting these words boxed in.
[00:16:23] I'm thinking, I wonder what that means.
[00:16:25] Didn't have any understanding of what that actually meant. So I went into this next haircut, and we're chatting away and still don't know what it means. Still don't understand what boxed in means. But that's all I got. As I was praying for her and she starts talking, she says, we're moving out of our flat. I'm feeling a little bit boxed in. And immediately I said, do you struggle with claustrophobia?
[00:16:51] And it was like jaw down on the ground going as though I'd read her mail. And she said, horrific. I can't be in the same room with somebody if there's a wall on one side and they're beside me.
[00:17:06] I said, well, God showed me the words boxed in as I was praying for you this week, I'd love to pray for you over this next month. Would you be okay if I did that? And I did, I prayed for the next month. And as I prayed, I came back the very next month. And you know what happened? She said, it's changed. It's turned around. It's like I'm not scared anymore of being on my own, being alone in that confined space.
[00:17:32] Now. I had no idea when I started walking what I was about to go into, but I knew that I was taking a step in the right direction, and I just had to trust God in that situation.
[00:17:44] So how does Abraham do in the obedience test? How do we do?
[00:17:49] How are we doing in the concentration test? Are we doing okay?
[00:17:56] Can I say? We love families here. We do. And we love parents. We do.
[00:18:04] We love parents who are doing their very best to lead their kids.
[00:18:08] And this is okay. This is church. This is what church is all about.
[00:18:12] So don't ever get worried about that. We know we've got some great people out there and some great parents doing a great job.
[00:18:19] But come on, eyes on me. Eyes on me back here.
[00:18:25] How does Abraham do? How does he do in the obedience test? I think he does great. Listen to this. Early the next morning.
[00:18:33] I don't know about you, but if God asked me to go and sacrifice my only son, the son of a promise, I'm entering about 40 days of prayer and fasting before I'm making any decisions on that. It's like, God really? Is that you?
[00:18:45] You gotta be kidding. Early the next morning, I mean, he didn't even stay in bed with a cup of tea and a scone. Seriously. He didn't even. He just. He was up the next morning.
[00:18:57] I tell you what, you don't want to dodge test day with God.
[00:19:01] And so often we can miss that test, that momentous, because we just want to hold on to our thoughts or our feelings, our emotions, and we're like, I don't want to go there yet. I don't want to go there yet. Here's what I've learned so far in my walk. As a disciple of Jesus, it's wise to sit the test. When God sets it.
[00:19:21] When he's asking us to step, we step. When he asks us to wait, we wait. When he asks us to go, we go.
[00:19:31] His timing, it comes with a measure of grace. Our timing, it comes with a measure of pride and selfishness. Actually, can we just stop for a moment? Father, we just pray for your peace in this place right now.
[00:19:45] We ask for calm. We ask for your presence to be here. We thank you. You are a God of peace. We just declare peace in this situation right now.
[00:19:58] We thank you. Thank you for that answer to prayer right now. We thank you, Jesus, for peace, for calm.
[00:20:05] In the mighty name of Jesus.
[00:20:08] Amen. Amen. Amen. Yeah, just keep praying. Keep praying.
[00:20:16] What I love is, with Abraham, there was an instant obedience.
[00:20:20] He just went, he says, yes, I will go.
[00:20:26] They still didn't know where they were going. But they were heading towards a mountain. They were heading somewhere.
[00:20:31] Then they get to this place where God says, this is the place. This is where I want you to be.
[00:20:36] It says, he said to his servant, stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you. My second thought this morning is worship is sacrifice.
[00:20:49] Sacrifice is worship. They are interchangeable. When Abraham said he and the boy were going to worship, he didnt find Tendi in a twelve string ibanez guitar.
[00:21:02] And the sticks he was carrying, Isaac was carrying. They werent drumsticks.
[00:21:08] They were going to worship.
[00:21:11] Worship that came at a cost.
[00:21:14] You know, there was a sacrificial system that was required for sins to be forgiven. Back then, if you sinned, you had to sacrifice, slaughter an animal in order for your sins to be forgiven.
[00:21:26] I had a quick check in the car park as I came in. Didn't see any bloodied carcasses on the top of your roof racks.
[00:21:35] Didn't see any in trails or anything like that.
[00:21:39] Aren't you so thankful that that is not what our worship looks like now?
[00:21:46] Aren't you thankful for one who gave his life as a sacrifice for your sin, for mine, for the sins of the world, for all these years to come? What an amazing God we serve. Who would give us himself as a sacrifice that was worthy?
[00:22:05] See, worship costs us. It should cost us both Abraham and Isaac. They understood what worship meant. They knew there had to be a sacrifice in order for worship to take place.
[00:22:21] Isan today.
[00:22:23] Where's Esan?
[00:22:26] She's gone. She's. Yeah.
[00:22:28] It cost her something today. I could see that she wasn't just there singing a song. There was, there was. There was a transaction going on. There was something that was going on. I want to point her out, but she won't mind.
[00:22:44] See, when we come here and we sing songs, worship is not the two slow songs after the two fast songs. Worship is a lifestyle. Worship is a sacrifice. Worship is coming to God and saying, I'm giving myself to you. I'm laying my life down again at your feet and saying, I'm not going to get up until you ask me to move again.
[00:23:07] But this is what Abraham says. He says, stay with the donkey. The boy and I, we will go up and worship, then we will come back.
[00:23:17] Now, he wasn't talking about sacrificing the donkey, because the donkey's already ruled out. There's only two people going up. We're talking Abraham and Isaac. We will come back. Now, I know we struggle with pronouns in today's day and age, but we, in that instance, definitely meant two people coming down.
[00:23:39] Abraham didn't understand everything that was going on, but his faith said God promised that God would see a generation in this lifetime blessed by a loving goddess. So I'm going to trust you, God, no matter what.
[00:23:54] And I love this. Recorded in HebRews 1117. Abraham reasoned that God could even raise from the dead. And so, in a manner of speaking, he did receive Isaac back from the dead.
[00:24:06] In his mind, was Abraham even processing in that moment, I may have to sacrifice my own son, but I believe in a God who can raise dead things back to life again. Now, that's some faith, without having the story of Jesus there that we know and understand that God can bring dead people back to life.
[00:24:28] But there was something within Abraham that said, I believe that if this is God's promise, no matter what it looks like, no matter what the circumstance looks like, I can trust God will bring this to life.
[00:24:46] Were going to worship, and after that, we will come back down. I dont understand, but it wont stop me believing in the promise.
[00:24:55] And I want to bring things to a close this morning as the team come, and I want us to climb the mountain and head towards the end of the story, because weve been talking about Abraham, but theres two people in the story, because we've got a young boy, a young man named Isaac. We don't know exactly what age he was.
[00:25:16] Many scholars would say probably early teens, but some even up to 2030 years old. What we do know is that Abraham was 100 when he was born.
[00:25:27] What we do know is that the sticks, the wood was put on Isaac's shoulders. So he's probably not an infant.
[00:25:35] So we know this is a young boy that understands worship. Why? Because he's asking the question, where's the sacrifice, dad? So he understands what is happening. So we know that he's probably a young boy to a young teenager walking with Abraham up this hill.
[00:25:53] Genesis 22 six. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father, Abraham. Father. Yes, my son? Abraham replied, the fire and wood are here. He's probably observed sacrifices before. But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
[00:26:12] Now, Abraham's response is kind of a typical dad's response.
[00:26:18] The lord will provide.
[00:26:20] Can't quite tell you yet what's going to happen. I'm not totally sure myself. I'm kind of winging this one. But the Lord will provide.
[00:26:29] And I wonder, as a father, how he was processing this.
[00:26:35] If we step closer, getting to the place where he's now building the altar and preparing the sacrifice.
[00:26:45] What's going through his head?
[00:26:47] What's going through his heart?
[00:26:49] How many more? Why? Questions? Or. Or how would he have had to take from Isaac and that walk up the mountain?
[00:27:00] But Abraham replies, the Lord will provide, son.
[00:27:04] Did he ask again? We don't know.
[00:27:08] But what we do know. There was a moment when they got to the top of the hill and Abraham begins to bind him with the rope.
[00:27:18] I reckon at that point something's sinking in for Isaac.
[00:27:24] So let's do the maths. Abraham. Hundred, 110, probably Isaac anywhere between ten to 1820.
[00:27:37] I went out for a run with my boy the other day. He's twelve.
[00:27:41] He left me for dead.
[00:27:43] He was gone and I could not catch him.
[00:27:48] You don't think when Isaac worked out that he was a sacrifice, he couldn't have got up? That he couldn't have pushed his 110 year old father away? Said, are you kidding me, dad?
[00:28:04] But there was something in Isaac as there was in Abraham.
[00:28:11] This says, I will be a part of this without full understanding.
[00:28:21] When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar. On top of the wood, we see a son being obediently laiddez upon an altar.
[00:28:39] In fact, it wouldn't even surprise me if Isaac got up himself.
[00:28:48] Imagine that.
[00:28:50] Come on, fathers.
[00:28:54] Imagine that.
[00:28:58] Imagine the thing most precious to you and God saying, will you give this to me?
[00:29:04] The power of one sacrifice.
[00:29:09] And yet Abraham trusted God.
[00:29:13] Abraham knew that God could raise this back to life.
[00:29:20] Come on. The dream that you have believed for, that you think is dead and buried, God can bring that back to life.
[00:29:27] That very thing that you think would never happen, God can make that a reality.
[00:29:39] Have you ever wondered if Paul, the apostle in Romans, thought of Isaac when he said in Romans twelve one? Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.
[00:29:55] Do you think he looked back in that passage and saw a living sacrifice in Isaac that was prepared to stay on the altar as easy as it could have been for him to get off the altar?
[00:30:10] A question for each of you.
[00:30:13] Do you know where the altar is?
[00:30:16] Do you have an altar in your own life, a place where you would give yourself fully to God, saying, I will place myself on this altar, and I will offer myself as a living sacrifice to you?
[00:30:30] Not singing a couple of songs, but saying, God, whatever it takes, I will lay down my life for you?
[00:30:43] What I do know is that Paul would have been thinking of another son that climbed a mountainous with wood on his back, carrying his own cross to Golgotha up onto the hill of the skull.
[00:31:02] Jesus obediently followed his father's request to die on a cross. Isaac didn't deserve to die. Neither did Jesus.
[00:31:14] And yet Jesus did it for your sins. For my sin.
[00:31:19] He's a newsflash. You may or may not know this. We are not holy in our own.
[00:31:25] We are not righteous. We are not good enough.
[00:31:30] Our sin separates us from God.
[00:31:34] Our sin requires payment.
[00:31:38] And there is only one sacrifice that will take that sin away. And that sacrifice is in and through Jesus.
[00:31:47] This is the good news of the gospel.
[00:31:50] This is what it's all about. This is what the christian faith hangs on.
[00:31:56] That a son would climb a mountain, go to the cross, die a death he didn't deserve, so that we would be forgiven.
[00:32:07] And here's my final thought this morning when we walk in obedience. God provides a sacrifice.
[00:32:15] He himself provides the sacrifice.
[00:32:18] Sometimes we think that we're the one bringing the sacrifice, but God has already brought the sacrifice.
[00:32:28] And in responding to him, we are saying, I recognize what you did for me, God, I'm so thankful.
[00:32:37] And there are many in this place over many decades, I would imagine people who have said, jesus, I know I'm not good enough. Jesus, I know I have sinned. Please forgive me. I turn from my old way of living, and I want to live my life for you. And in a moment, I want to give an opportunity for anybody here in this place to be able to pray that prayer or words to that effect that say, jesus, I want to acknowledge the sacrifice of you made for me on the cross and give my life to you completely.
[00:33:10] I just imagine as Isaac lay on the altar, I think by now he's probably crying.
[00:33:18] I wonder if he was even in the altar asking questions. Dad, dad, why does this have to happen?
[00:33:25] You know, Jesus. When he was in the garden, he wept, he wrestled with the fact that he had to go to the cross. There was deep anguish that it says. It was like drips of blood, sweat, sweat, blood pouring from his forehead.
[00:33:43] There was this intense feeling, emotion that Jesus wrestled with himself even on the cross. Cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[00:33:59] But then we also see. I wonder if there was a moment when Isaac said, but you know what, dad? Father, if this is what God wants, then I'm in.
[00:34:08] Because Jesus also said with his last breath, into your hands I commit my spirit.
[00:34:16] Friends, when that is our response to God, when he asks us to sit a test of obedience, into your hands I commit my spirit.
[00:34:27] Here's what I know to be true. God himself will provide the sacrifice. God's provision is always Jesus, our Lord, our saviour, our healer, our provider. The lamb that has overcome Jesus is the sacrifice.
[00:34:45] And as Abraham drew the knife above his head, ready to plunge it into the chest of his son, he got that close. He got that close.
[00:34:56] Genesis 20 211. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham. Here I am, he replied.
[00:35:05] Do not lay a hand on the boy. He said, do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. I don't know about you, but I would have hit the ground in a bubbling mess. There.
[00:35:22] Abraham looked up, and there in a thicket, he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of a son. So Abraham called that place, the Lord will provide. And to this day, it is said, on the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.
[00:35:43] What is the purpose of living a life of worship?
[00:35:47] To be made holy and pleasing to God. Hebrews 1010 tells us, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. You know, the greatest words we could ever hear is, this is my son Michael.
[00:36:07] And him, I'm well pleased.
[00:36:10] That's how God spoke of Jesus.
[00:36:13] But you know what? He speaks that of you, too.
[00:36:19] He knows your name. He knows every hair on your head, some with more hair than others.
[00:36:28] He knows your name and he loves you.
[00:36:32] He died for you.
[00:36:35] You might be in this place saying, I don't know if God even knows me.
[00:36:40] I don't know if God is even real.
[00:36:45] But I'm certain that there are people here today.
[00:36:48] It's something you've sensed and felt today of the presence of God.
[00:36:54] And I want to give an invitation right now for anyone in this place.
[00:37:01] They would say, God, I want to give my life to you fully.
[00:37:05] I want to acknowledge the work of the cross and surrender my life to you as you gave everything for me with every head bowed, every eye closed.
[00:37:17] Would you take a moment just to settle your heart before God and just listen.
[00:37:25] Listen for his voice?
[00:37:30] Do you sense him calling you, inviting you into a new relationship with him?
[00:37:41] If you do?
[00:37:43] I want to pray a prayer.
[00:37:45] A prayer that many have prayed over many years.
[00:37:51] The words in the prayer don't change anything. It's a response of your heart that says, God, I need you.
[00:38:00] So would you pray this prayer with me?
[00:38:04] Dear Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for me.
[00:38:14] I acknowledge that I have sinned and I am a sinner.
[00:38:21] I have lived life my own way and I ask you to forgive me today.
[00:38:29] Please forgive me, make me clean and give me a new hope in a future.
[00:38:38] I receive your forgiveness and your gift of grace today.
[00:38:44] In Jesus name, amen. Amen. You can open your eyes.
[00:38:51] I want us to do one thing this morning.
[00:38:54] Whether you're here in the room or whether you're watching online, if you prayed that prayer, giving your life to Christ, saying, yes, I want to follow him. I want to give my life fully to him.
[00:39:05] I want to invite you to do one thing for me so that we can celebrate with you.
[00:39:09] Now, we heard this morning, we're part of a family. We want to help you take your next steps, the journey that you're on with God. If that's you, and you pray that prayer, we want to acknowledge your decision today and celebrate with you. So can you do something for us right now? Could you raise your hand up nice and high and say, yeah, I prayed that prayer maybe for the first time. Amazing. So good. Praise God. Anyone else here this morning? Give us a wave if that's you. Anyone else? Yes. Come on. So good. Anyone else? Anyone else pray that prayer up the back? Yeah, up the back there. Oh, fantastic. Praise God. So good. Yay. Come on.
