Radical Obedience

Sermon Summary:

This powerful exploration of Genesis 22 invites us into one of the most dramatic moments in Scripture: Abraham’s test on Mount Moriah. At the heart of this narrative lies a profound question we all must answer—do we love God’s promises more than we love God himself? Abraham had waited decades for Isaac, the son of promise, and now God asks him to surrender that very promise. What unfolds is not just ancient history, but a mirror for our own spiritual journeys. We discover that testing is inevitable in the life of faith, not because God needs to learn something about us, but because we need the experiential knowledge of His faithfulness. The passage reveals two paths through our trials: our way, which leads to hurt, self-absorption, and anger, or God’s way, which begins with humility and draws us deeper into relationship with Him. The beauty of Abraham’s story is captured in the Hebrew phrase ‘Yahweh Yireh’—the Lord will provide, the Lord sees. When we choose radical obedience in our own tests, we don’t just survive them; we engage in God’s redemptive story, enrich our own narrative, and become a light for others walking through darkness. The ram caught in the thicket wasn’t just provision for Abraham—it was a preview of the ultimate Lamb who would be provided on that same mountain range centuries later.

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Sermon Points:

Key Takeaways:

• Regular, consistent engagement with God’s Word is the primary catalyst for spiritual formation and discipleship
• Abraham’s life was characterized by calling, connection, and commitment over a 40-year journey with God
• Testing is inevitable in the Christian life; God tests us to refine our faith and prove its genuineness
• There are two paths through testing: our way (hurt, self-absorption, anger) or God’s way (humility, focusing on God, learning, and growth)
• Temptation finds its way into the middle of tests, seeking to make us fail rather than be shaped
• Trust is the heart of passing the test; Abraham learned to trust God completely over four decades
• God can be trusted because He keeps His word and provides what we need
• When we respond with radical obedience, we engage in God’s story, enrich our own story, and enlighten others’ stories
• The knowledge of cognition differs from the knowledge of experience; God desires to experience our obedience with us
• Abraham’s test points forward to the greater sacrifice of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem

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Scripture References:

Sermon Transcript:

Amen. Thank you Worship Ministry, for leading us today in worship. Well, as you know, if you’ve been a part of our time together, on Sunday morning here at First Baptist Arlington, we have a theme for this entire year and it is Flourishing Together Transformed on the Jesus Way. And I want to let you know that on Tuesday, our ministry staff, the leaders in our ministry, we were able to have about a two hour long meeting or so with Kate Long. You remember Kate, she is our researcher from Harvard that is leading this flourishing study.

She said to tell all of you hello and she’s praying for you. And we love Kate, she is awesome. But she’s leading the Harvard research team on the Flourishing in Church study. And so she spent that time with us helping us understand how to interpret the results of the survey that you all participated in. There were some 1287 of you that completed the survey.

And so we are digesting the data and we’ve learned some good things about where we are, our self assessment that you have provided for us. And there’s a lot of good news in that survey. We also learned of some things that we feel like we need to address. And so just pray for us as we unpack all of that data and come to an understanding of what the Spirit of God is saying to us about how to respond to it all. So I’m really grateful for it and it really connects us to this conversation about flourishing.

Now you know that each season of the year we’re exploring a different facet of the overall theme. And so for the winter, our emphasis is on what we’re calling designed to flourish. And it’s our belief that God has created us with an intention for us to flourish as his people. And so what we are going to be engaged in throughout this year is a conversation about what we’re calling intentional discipleship. And that means that you and I have the opportunity to choose how we are going to follow the Lord or not follow him in our daily lives.

And I’m really looking forward to this season with you as we have these conversations together. One of the things that we have already learned, all the research that we have been able to read tells us this about Protestant Christians, which is where we are, how we’re categorized in all the research. The single biggest catalyst for spiritual formation and discipleship in the lives of Protestant Christians is regular, consistent engagement with the Word of God. We’re learning that that is the single biggest catalyst to help produce growth spiritually and formation spiritually in the lives of Protestant Christians. And so with that said, we’re wanting to encourage you in that regard.

So we have returned this year to our daily Bible readings, and I would love for you to sign up for them and participate with us together. You can go to fbca.org Bible readings and you can actually ask for that to be sent to you every morning to your inbox. Love for you to sign up for it. As I put those daily Bible readings together, Kurt Grice is writing the devotional guide for us each day and is actually connecting it to the domains of human flourishing and as it connects to our understanding of what it means to flourish as Christians. So some of you have already signed up for it.

It’s really, really good and rich. I’m grateful for it, and we’d love for you to join us and be a part of that journey. So here’s what we’re going to do on Sunday mornings for the next few weeks with this conversation in front of us about intentional discipleship. We’re going to look at some disciples in the scripture and see how they intentionally chose to follow God through various seasons or episodes of their life and see if we can’t learn a little bit more ourselves about what it means to be an intentional disciple. Okay, so we’re going to begin today with Abraham.

He’ll be our first disciple that we’ll seek to learn from his experience with God. Very familiar page in your Bibles, page 22 of Genesis. Okay, so if you have your Old Testament with you, let’s look at it. Entitled it the Message today. Radical Obedience.

So let’s look at this story. Very familiar story out of the Life of Abraham. Genesis 22, verse 1. The text reads, 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, I, 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. And he said to his servant, stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and we’ll come back to you.

Abraham took the wood 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. Father. Yes, my son, Abraham replied.

The fire and the 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. 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. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, abraham, Abraham. Here I am, he replied. 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’ve not withheld from me your son, your only son. Abraham looked up, and there in a thicket, he saw a ram caught by its horns. And he went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his 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. The angel of the Lord called Abraham from heaven a second time and said, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you’ve done this and not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. Make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies. And through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed.

Because you’ve obeyed me.

What an incredible story out of the life of Abraham. And so let’s just make our way through it. Let’s start with the trek that Abraham was on. Abraham’s life with God was a long journey, and it was characterized by what I would call, calling connection and commitment. When we read the story of Abraham, as we have read this passage in Genesis 22, we know that the story of Abraham doesn’t start in Genesis 22.

It starts pages earlier. Genesis 12, where God originally called Abraham. And you read Genesis 12:1 through 9. As God and Abraham intersect, God calls him, and Abraham begins to connect his life to the life that God has invited him to. Then we see Abraham’s commitment to God.

There are eight verbs in Genesis 12, one through nine. Abraham went. Abraham decided he would go. He journeyed, he traveled. In other words, those are action verbs, and they signal Abraham’s response in obedience.

Then you come to this story, and now we’re about 40 years later. Abraham was 75 years old in Genesis 12 when he was 100 years old. Isaac was born, and now we’re somewhere around 10 to 15 years later, give or take. So we’re about 40 years in, if you will, somewhere in that neighborhood of Abraham, following the way of the Lord. And he was very well acquainted with, with the ways of God.

I wonder this morning, are you in your own life, are you well acquainted with the ways of God? Derek, I mean, Eugene Peterson says this about Abraham. He says every time Abraham left one place, the road lengthened and the landscape widened. In other words, there was always more when Abraham was obedient. Abraham wasn’t perfect.

We know that he made mistakes along the way. But generally speaking, the trajectory, the trend of Abraham’s life was one of radical obedience. God would speak and Abraham would respond. Abraham learned the difference between his way and God’s way. I’ll ask you once again, have you learned that yet?

Have you learned the difference between your way and God’s way? Well, that’s what I want us to talk about this morning. So let’s get to the heart of the story. This story is about the test. The story of Abraham and Isaac at this point in the journey begins with God’s plan to test Abraham’s faith.

Now I want you to think about the context of Abraham. Abraham lived in the ancient world surrounded by pagans. And if you know anything about the pagan world at this point in history, the people who were pagans in general believed that there were forces at work that somehow intersected their lives, their daily lives. One of the things that they were very concerned about had to do with fertility. They wanted their land to be fertile, and they wanted their families to be fertile.

So they wanted to see the land bear fruit, and they also wanted to see their families bear fruit so that they could see the future of their people surviving. And so they believed that there were certain gods and goddesses that somehow controlled fertility. And so one of the common practices in the ancient world was for ancient people to make sacrifices to the gods and goddesses. Fertility. And those sacrifices varied depending upon the God or the goddess’s requirement based upon what these pagan people believed.

There were some pagans who believed that the gods or the goddesses of fertility who blessed their families required them to return some of the fruit back to the God or the goddess. What that meant was, is that many of them practiced child sacrifice. The firstborn child was evidence of the God or goddess’s blessing. And so in order to satisfy that God or goddess and guarantee there’d be more children to come, you would sacrifice that first child to that pagan God. Does that make sense?

Abraham saw that that’s the world he lived in. Not necessarily something he agreed with, but it’s the world he lived in. And now, after 40 years or so of following God, Abraham now finds himself in a conversation with his God. And now his God, the God of the Bible, the only God who is, says to him, I want you to take your son, your only son. Now, we know this isn’t his only son, right?

He has another boy, Ishmael. But this is the son of promise. This is the Son through whom the promises of God are now connected. And he says, take that son, the one you love, and I want you to offer him up to me as a sacrifice, as a burnt offering. And Abraham obeys.

So the question is, is this God going to require child sacrifice like these pagan gods? It’s a very puzzling passage of scripture. It’s the test of Abraham’s life. And so here’s what God tells him. He’s in Beersheba.

And God says, now I want you to go to Moriah. Now, where is Moriah? Well, that’s a great question. And scholars have researched it for centuries. As best we can tell, Moriah is only mentioned one other time in the Old Testament.

Second Chronicles 3, verse 1. And what the Bible tells us there is that Solomon built the temple at Moriah. And so this series of hills, if you will, this region that we now know as Jerusalem, is where Abraham, Moses makes his way to offer up this sacrifice. Later, Solomon will build a temple there. Later, just next to it, Jesus will be offered up as a sacrifice for our sins.

So that’s where we are. So here’s the test of his life. And we know that Isaac is not a baby now. And the reason we know that is because Isaac is big enough to carry the wood. So probably a young teenager.

He’s also big enough to ask questions. Now, Isaac is perceptive. He has watched his dad worship. So he knows what a sacrifice is. He’s seen his father offer up sacrifices.

So he says to his dad, hey, dad, I’ve got the wood. You got the knife, you got the fire.

Where’s the lamb? And what a perceptive question. Therein lies the test. Derek Kidner, who’s written a wonderful commentary on the book of Genesis, says this the test, instead of breaking Abraham brings him to the summit of his lifelong walk with God. Now here’s the question.

Why would God test Abraham like this? Well, here’s what I want to share with y’ all this morning. And it is really based upon my study of the Scripture as well as my own personal experience of following the Lord for a long time. Here’s what I want to make sure you know. Testing is inevitable.

You just need to know that God is going to test you. Sometimes he will send the test himself. Sometimes the test will be filtered through Him. But he is going to test you. It is his nature to test his people.

It’s as old as mankind. If you go back and read the second page of your Bible, Genesis 2, God has placed Adam in the Garden of Eden. And the Bible says that God told Adam this. In the center of this garden are two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And God said to Adam, do not eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Now why did God say that? Here’s what he told Adam. If you do, you will die. It was a test. God was testing Adam.

Later Eve would be created and she would join test. And you think about it. Faith is going to be tested. What good is untested faith? How strong is your faith?

The only way you will ever know how strong your faith is is if it’s tested. And so just know testing is going to come. Now I will say this about God. God knows how we’re going to respond. God knew how Abraham was going to respond.

God knows everything. I believe theologically I’m convinced that neither you nor I will ever add to the knowledge of God. You’re not going to help God’s knowledge base. Just not going to happen. God knows all.

However, theologians have studied this and debated how this plays out. And this is what I think we have discovered and what I believe. There’s a difference between the knowledge of cognition and the knowledge of experience. God knew cognitively obviously what Abraham would do. But God had a desire to experience his obedience with him.

I believe that’s still true today. God knows us and what we will do, but he has a desire to experience it with us, alongside us and through us. And so God is looking forward to this experiential knowledge and Abraham, but just know the test is coming. In fact, the Apostle Peter says this about testing and he knew a little bit about testing in First Peter 1. He says this, in all of this, greatly.

Rejoice, though now for a little while. Peter says you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials, all kinds of tests. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold which perishes even though refined by fire may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Peter says, testing comes your way so that your faith will be purified and proven to be genuine. And that genuine faith, proven and tested, will give glory and honor to God at the end of time.

So just like gold that was purified in the ancient world by the goldsmith placing gold in a crucible over an open flame, stoking the intensity of that flame until the gold melts and falls to the bottom of the crucible, all the impurities rise to the top and the goldsmith would rake them away. And now what was left was pure gold refined by fire. God will refine our faith through times of testing. Now here’s what you and I have got to decide. It’s not are we going to be tested?

You’re going to be tested. So here’s the question. How are we going to respond when we’re tested? And as I have watched people, as I’ve lived through this myself, as I’ve studied the scripture, I would contend there are at least two options there. You can choose one of two ways to make your way through a season of testing.

And we all have the option. Let me give you the first way. The first way is you can choose your own way. And I’ve watched it play out many times. And usually when we choose our own way during the times of testing, we make our way through things like this.

First of all, we just get hurt. It just hurts our feelings that we’re being tested. We don’t really understand. In fact, we can’t believe it and it’s just hurtful to us. That leads us to what I would call being self absorbed in our test.

Why me? Why is this happening to me? Why don’t you do this to so and so? Who needs it and frankly deserves it more than I do? We get self absorbed test.

This should not be happening to me. Is God not paying attention? Does God not know? Which leads to the third thing. And this is where the trouble really is.

We focus all of our energy and all of our attention on the test itself and it consumes us. Every conversation is about the test. Every experience is viewed through the lens of my test. All you can think about is your test. It completely consumes you.

It absorbs all of your energy and attention. And what it leads to is you just get mad. This leads to anger. And that anger is challenging because you don’t know where to place the anger. But you’ve got to find an object.

And so sometimes you will take that anger and place it on other people. Surely they’re a part of all this and it’s their fault that I’m going through this. And so you find yourself completely self, absorbed, frustrated, angry and unsure of your relationship with God. That’s one way. There’s a whole nother option, and I believe it’s God’s way to make our way through a test.

Let me outline that one. If you choose God’s way, I would encourage all of us. We begin with humility because we approach our tests humbly because hopefully the outcome is going to be less of you and more of God. See, that’s what’s at play here. Less self sovereignty and more God’s sovereignty.

And instead of focusing on the test, I would encourage you in this path, we focus on God and we delve more deeply into our relationship with God and we try to determine how we can best express our love for God. Even in the test, we find ourselves drawn to him, knowing that he’s a God who loves us and cares about us and that he is paying attention. That leads to a part of the journey. When you know, when you get to this point, you know that you’re maturing in the test. And that is you begin to ask the question, what am I supposed to learn from this?

How is this supposed to inform me in my own life and my own journey? And then you will know how mature you are when you can finally get to the place and you begin to ask the question, how might God use this in my life and in the lives of others? That’s a very different path. Now here’s the warning I want to share with you. When the testing time comes to our lives, you just need to know the tempter comes alive.

Because you see, temptation finds its way in the middle of the test. Satan is very good at it. Because here’s the thing, Satan wants to enter your test and his goal is for you not to be shaped. He doesn’t want you to be formed. He doesn’t want you to be shepherded.

He doesn’t want you to be discipled. He wants you to fail. And he wants to be able to use this failure from now on. He wants to keep this looming in your spiritual inventory. Yeah, you failed this last time.

Yeah, you came up against this and this is how you respond. You see, that’s why God doesn’t use people like you anymore. You know, that’s why you’re always going to be like this. You’ll never get over this because of all these failures. Look at how you responded when God Tested you.

That’s the tempter. Do not let him gain footing. He’s really good. The testing time is going to come. And so here’s the heart of what should happen when you and I are tested.

Trust. Trust. Abraham learned to trust God completely. The Bible says that Abraham believed God and God counted unto him as righteousness because Abraham learned he could trust God. As a matter of fact, if you still have your Bibles open, let’s look at this story.

In verse 8, when Isaac says, where is the lamb? I want you to look what Abraham says in verse 8. He says, God himself will provide the lamb. That word that’s translated provide in Hebrew it actually means to see. In other words, he says, God is watching.

And maybe we can put it like this in contemporary English parlance. God will see to it that this will be taken care of. That’s what he told Isaac. God’s going to see to this so you can trust him because that’s who he is. Abraham had to learn this.

Now remember, this is not day one where 40 years in, he’s learned a lot already. He’s learned to trust God. Have you?

Have you? Let me read to you a lengthy quote from Eugene Peterson’s book, the Jesus Way. He has a whole chapter on Abraham. He says this faith has to do with marrying invisible. Invisible.

When we engage in an act of faith, we give up control. We give up sensory confirmation of reality, in other words, sight, hearing, etc. We give up insisting on head knowledge as our primary means of orientation in life. The positive way to say this is that when we engage in an act of faith, we choose to deal with a living God whom we trust to know what he’s doing. We choose a way of life in which bodily senses and physical matter are understood as inseparable and organic to vast interiorities and immense beyond heaven.

And we choose to no longer operate strictly on the basis of hard earned knowledge, glorious as it is. But over a lifetime to embrace the mystery that must dazzle gradually or every man go blind. That last phrase is a quote from Emily Dickinson. Don’t you love that? If God were to truly display his glory, it would blind us.

So he has to dazzle us with it gradually. This is a powerful personal journey for Abraham. Here’s the test. For Abraham. God has made these promises to Abraham.

And what God is basically asking Abraham is this. Do you love these promises more than you love me? Which is it? Isaac represents the promises. He represents your future.

Do you love that more than you love me? I’m going to test that, let’s take that away. You kill that, and let’s see whether you love that more than you do me. What a. What a powerful test.

I don’t want to be tested that deeply, do you? But Abraham was what a personal journey he was on. He had to learn to trust and believe God. You know what the Bible says in The New Testament? Second Corinthians 5, 7.

We walk by faith, not by sight. That’s such an easy verse to memorize. It’s really hard to put in practice on Monday morning.

We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the assurance of things not seen. And sometimes it can be particularly challenging. Skip Heitzig, he’s a pastor out in California. He says when our life is illogical, we must become theological.

I love that we lean into what’s true, what we know, that we can trust God. How do I know Abraham did well? Again, if you have your Bibles open, look back at verse five. Here’s what it says. Abraham says to the servants, y’ all stay here with the donkey.

I and the boy will go over there, we will worship, and then we will come back. Well, who is we?

Abraham and Isaac. Now he’s going to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering. I don’t know if y’ all know anything about burnt offerings or not. I know you’re about to go have lunch, but let me just help explain it to you. The typical offering in the Jewish world was you slit the throat of the animal and you sprinkled the blood on the altar and you kept the carcass.

The priests often would keep the carcass of the animal. It was their food, it was their pay. But a burn offering, you put the entire animal on a fire and it’s all consumed. So we’re not talking about a normal, regular old slit the throat offering. God has told Abraham, offer up Isaac as what?

A burnt offering. There will be nothing left. And Abraham says to these guys, me and the boy will be back in a minute. Wow. Well, Abraham must have known something or believed something.

So if we go all the way to the New Testament, y’ all still with me? Sometimes people zone out when it gets hard. So if you zoned out, it was too hard. Come on back in, it’s gonna get harder. Okay, but in Hebrews 11.

Don’t you love Hebrews 11? Y’ all know what Hebrews 11 is? It’s a family photo album. It’s where Grandpa’s called everybody in and says, alright, this is your great, great Great great, great great great granddad, this is your great great great great great grandmother and just gives you these snapshots. Abraham has four pictures in the photo album.

He gets a whole page. Okay, look at verse 17. By faith, Hebrews 11. By faith. Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.

He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son. Even though God had said to him, it is through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned. Abraham reasoned, now that’s the New Testament’s written in Greek. That Greek word is the word we get our word logic from. He reasoned.

He said he decided, based upon his thought and his experience with God, that God could even raise the dead. And so, in a manner of speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death. So the preacher in Hebrew says Abraham must have even believed that God could give him his son back somehow. And that’s why he could make that statement in verse five. Well, here’s the truth.

The truth is that God demonstrated he could be trusted and he provided a sacrifice in the place of Isaac. In fact, Abraham had a penchant for giving places new names when something happened. Sometimes he would even give a new name for God. He does that in verse 14. Abraham, verse 14, called that place in Hebrew yahweh Yira.

The Lord sees and he will see to it. The Lord provides. Now, growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, my home church, we would have said Jehovah Jireh, y’ all ever heard that? But in Hebrew it’s Yahweh Yireh. The Lord will provide.

Moses wrote this. And Moses said, even to this day, when you go to that mountain, you know what you call it? That’s where the Lord provides. That’s where the Lord sees. Throughout Scripture, God has proven he can be trusted.

He keeps his word. The story helps us see the climactic moment. And it slows down. I mean, you’ve got Abraham is told by God, go. Three day journey, he goes.

He gathers everything he needs to get. And all of a sudden, when you get down to the nitty gritty, the narrative slows way down. Look at verse nine. Here’s where it goes into slow motion. They reached the place that God had told him about.

Been on a journey for three days. Lots of conversation. We don’t get any of that, but we get this. Abraham built an altar there. Then he arranged the wood, Then he tied up Isaac.

Then he laid him on the altar. Then he grabbed his knife. Then he raised his hand, and at the last second, an angel cried out and said, abraham Abraham, don’t slay your son. Derek Kidner says that he wrings the last drop out of meaning. We take it all the way to the end.

At the very last second, God intervenes. And guess what? He provided Ram in the thicket. And they offered that up as a sacrifice. So let me ask you, how much do you trust God today?

If you’re going through a test, do you trust him? Years ago, before I ever met y’, all, I went through what I would consider one of the biggest tests in my life. And it was challenging. And here’s what I would admit to you as your pastor. I’ve been tested many times, and I’ve done both.

I’ve chosen my way sometimes, and I’ve chosen God’s way sometimes. Which way do you think has worked out the best in my life? God’s way. But when I went through the test of my life, at the beginning of it, I chose my way. I did.

I’m honest enough to tell you I got hurt. I just couldn’t believe it. And my whole life just got focused on the test. That’s all I would talk about. I could be in a conversation with you about Auburn, and somehow or another, I’d get to my test.

It was just there. It was the lens through which I saw everything. It was the be all, end all. I invited people into my test. I blamed people for my test, and I struggled.

And I found myself moving further and further from where I should be. And then I grew angry in my hurt. So let me just tell y’ all this. Y’ all know around here, we like to say blessed people, bless people. We’ve also learned, though, that hurt people hurt people.

It’s when my anger and some of my own hurt, it spilled out. Until one day there was a reckoning between me and God. And I realized that I needed God’s help. And I confessed and I told the Lord, I’ve been on my way long enough, and I’ve tried to unravel, and it has not worked. And I’m sorry.

And I took my hands off and I decided, lord, show me what to do. And the Lord showed me a path of humility. He showed me a path of focusing on him and delving more deeply into him and who he is rather than me and who I am. And you know what I learned about God? He’s so much better at unraveling stuff than I am.

He’s an expert. You got some knots in your life right now. I’m here to tell you the Lord Almighty is an Expert in knot untying. But you got to give him the chance to do it. And when you do it, you learn the valuable lesson.

That’s the truth. He can be trusted. I’m here to tell y’, all, you can trust God even in your test. I love to trace things throughout scripture and history. So let me trace something real quick for you and we’ll be done.

Because in this story, there’s something we can’t help but see. We recognize it points to a greater sacrifice in Jerusalem, in Mount Moriah that culminates in the redemption of humanity. In any New Testament theologian, we can’t help ourselves when we read this story. You got a three day journey. You got the boy carrying wood.

He’s the only son he’s offered up as a sacrifice. Come on. Are y’ all with me? He’s in Jerusalem. We can’t help it but look at it and go, wow.

This is the grand story of redemption in miniature. You see Jesus carrying his own wood. You see Jesus being the Lamb of God. You see Jesus going up Mount Moriah. So, yeah, we can’t help that.

Abraham had no idea that he was participating in that story. Of course he didn’t. He’s just living his life. But you can trace the grand theme of redemption in his life. So let me say this, and I’ll be doing three things real quickly.

First of all, when you respond with radical obedience in the test of your life, it offers you the opportunity to engage in his story. That’s the first thing. Second thing I would say is when you respond with radical obedience, it enriches your own story. And the third thing that I would say about it is it enlightens the story of others. So if you’re in a test right now, just want to encourage you.

Be obedient to God and you’ll find your way into his story. And as you make your way through it, he’ll enrich yours. And he can use yours to enlighten all of ours. May it be so. Let’s pray together.

Well, Father, we come before you today in humility and gratitude. We’re thankful, Lord, for all you’ve done for us. And some of us have been through some tests. There are people in the midst of testing right now. And if there are those in the sound of my voice that are being tested, I just lift them to you right now, Lord, asking you to show them your way.

And if they’ve lost themselves on their way, I pray that they’ll come to their senses and find their way back to your way. And may you guide them. And may they learn some deep truths about you that will change them and shape them them in their own journey of discipleship. And may you find us useful in the lives of others. It’s our prayer today.

In Jesus name, amen.