God the Provider

Thank you, Brad. Appreciate sharing that with us. So this is exciting how God is working and how Before we knew anything about the Atlantic store God it was preparing a tax refund for Brad To be part of that and and it is you know, thank you to how different ways God's equipping all of us to be a part For all of us. I'm sure there's different things that God is doing in our lives Well, we can we can share and it is exciting that he allows us to participate This morning as we are celebrating a 30 days of praise we are beginning with Genesis chapter 22 Because our focus during this time is going to be on God the provider and no passage I think speaks to that more clearly than Genesis chapter 22 By the way, Scott Puckett our associate pastor and worship leader is out of town this week. He is In Atlanta as many of you know his father is dying of cancer and Did really don't just don't know how much longer you'll be with us and the those Scott and his family up there to visit with him And so I know they would appreciate your prayers on a humorous note with Scott We always tease Scott whenever he's got a town that we finish our worship service on time And so today he I think he loaded it up just to make sure that we couldn't use that against them again But they will do our best This year's Super Bowl. I think it was different from most in that the game was actually more memorable than the commercials I usually the Super Bowl you watch for the commercial socials because the game really isn't all that exciting Well, there was one notable exception And it was a commercial that featured Christopher reed you all know Christopher reed superman who was injured and Through to a spinal injury now he cannot walk he cannot use his hands He can't even breathe on his own Well in the commercial you see Christopher reed all the sudden standing up and walking across the stage to incredible applause When that commercial aired Paralyzed victims around the country began calling their advocacy groups wanting to know how Christopher reed was healed Well, Christopher reed was not healed It was a commercial to give and to inspire hope that Christopher reed still is very much paralyzed that all took place with the With the advance of computer technology. He was made to appear to get up and walk and As you look at that commercial. He says the reason he did that commercial Reed said is because he believes that the greatest problem that people in wheelchair space is that they don't dream enough About some day getting up and walking that they don't dream enough about about getting out of the chair And they need that sort of hope if they're gonna press on in life and to achieve in life This week I was talking to a friend of mine who also suffers a spinal injury and who also cannot walk and this friend of mine Brought up the Christopher reed and he said you know like Christopher reed I appreciate all that he's doing for for people who've been paralyzed They said that it's kind of bothers them that crystal Because he said you know the fact is the Christopher reed will not walk again Even if they learn how to repair spinal injuries the fact is that every place below where the brake and the spine took place The neurons are dead. It's all mush It cannot and in our lifetime that will not change Christopher reed will not walk again My friend who I was talking to on the phone will not walk again. It will not happen And he said that's the reality And then to give a false hope is sometimes it's sometimes more harmful Charles Krauthammer hammer who's a writer for time magazine He's also a physician and he also is a victim of a spinal injury and is in a wheelchair And he says the same thing is my friend about Christopher reed He says again the same thing that Christopher reed will not walk And he says in fact it says the problem is not that people in wheelchairs dream too much Don't look him enough about walking out of the wheelchair The problem is they dream too much about it They think too much about it and therefore they don't prepare themselves To live with the reality as it is And because of that they're given this false hope And sooner or later that false hope will cause more damage than good You can feel the tension between these two points of view can't you One point of view says you know when you got to have hope to survive And that's definitely true none of us can function without hope But the other point of view says but if the hope isn't realistic If the hope is just you know self-delusional Then it's actually more harmful than good because it ends up Disappointing and I'll end up destroying you So if we're going to make it in life We have to have hope I mean you have to have hope to make it Life it has too many hardships That if you don't have hope that one day things are going to be different There are days you will not get up If you don't believe me now Wait it will happen But I hope that it is not real I hope that it is just piling the sky A dream that cannot happen There's no one It'll end up crushing you So where do we go to find real hope Enough hope to make you carry on Enough hope to give you energy And enthusiasm as you face life But I hope that it is real as well I believe that hope is found in looking at God's character Particularly the character of God Of being a provider Of the God who provides everything for his children When we put our hope in God the provider We have the strength of carrying on And it's a real hope So if that in mind you're with me to Genesis chapter 22 Genesis chapter 22 is we read the story of God's provision With his servant Abraham This is 22 beginning with verse 1 This is God's word Sometime later God tested Abraham He said to Abraham Abraham Here I am he replied Then God said Take your son Your only son Isaac whom you love And go to the region of Mariah Sacrifice him there as a burn offering On one of the mountains I will tell you about Early the next morning Abraham got up Saddle his donkey He took with him two of his servants in his son Isaac When he had cut enough wood for the burn 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 wood for the burn 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 and father Abraham Father Yes my son Abraham replied The fire and the wood are here Isaac said But where is the lamb for the burn offering Abraham answered God himself would provide the lamb for the burn offering my son And the two of them went on together When they reached the place God had told them about Abraham built an altar And he 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 have not withheld for me your son Your only son Abraham looked up and there in the thicket he saw a ram Caught by its horn He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering Instead of his son So Abraham called the 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 to Abraham from heaven a second time and said I swear by myself declares the Lord That because you have done this and have not withheld your son Your only son I will surely bless you and 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 the end of their enemies And through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed Because you have obeyed me The neighbor ham returned to his servant And they set off together for bishiva And Abraham stayed in bishiva This is God's word This morning we're just going to be looking at a couple of points from this And there's an outline in your bones and we'll be following The first point is the foundation of faith The foundation of faith Faith is foundational to everything Abraham is a man who had been tested He was a man God came to him when he was 75 years old And said Abraham you're going to have a son Now 75 year old man that's pretty miraculous But even more miraculous was the fact that his wife was 65 years old And 65 year old women didn't have babies back then any more than they do today In fact today with technology it's more likely For 65 year old woman to have a baby today than it was back then Well God did not give Abraham the son right away Instead every year God would say Abraham you're going to have a son A year went by two years went by Finally 25 years went by Abraham is now 100 His wife is 90 Imagine this a 90 year old pregnant woman going into labor Can't I just cannot picture the scene And I'm not sure I want to And Abraham is there with Sarah And finally the son is born The son that he had been wanting for his whole life 100 years he'd been waiting for the son His son grows up into a young man The passage calls him a boy At this point but a boy The word there he could have been a teenager And he could have been up to 30 years old He's pretty sturdy lad because he's able to carry a whole bunch of wood Enough to burn an entire animal So he's at least a teenager And so in here he has a teenage son And God says to him Says I want you to take that son That you've waited 100 years for You waited a century for the son And I want you to take that son Your only son the son that you love And I want you to kill him Now that's a test That goes beyond a test That sounds almost cruel If it doesn't sound cruel And it was even a greater test First of all Abraham and his son were close It was the son that he loved But there's even another part of the test The other part of the test is this God had promised Abraham That he would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth He had promised Abraham That his descendants would be like the sand on the seashore or the stars of the sky He had promised Abraham that he would make him a great nation And God had said all those promises would come about through Isaac Now if Abraham killed Isaac Then how was God going to keep his promises You see the tension? Abraham was caught It seemed like the command of God Contradicted the promises of God The promises of God was that God is going to bless Abraham through Isaac But the command of God was to kill Isaac So Abraham was faced with a choice Either I do not obey God Which means I'm saying God I don't trust you God you're a liar Or I obey God and kill my son Isaac And then the promises can't come true And that means God is a liar If the promises don't come true And so Abraham was faced with a choice Does he obey God when it seems completely irrational Or does he not obey God Because the promise and the command seem to be in intention And that's often the case in this verse God gives us commandments But they don't seem to measure up to his promises God promises God promises and if you look at scripture The promises that God has for us as Christians They are exceptional I mean God promises eventually a life of joy A life of pleasure A life of delight He promises that they care for all of our needs And you look at those promises and you say Well, part of my life is not that pleasurable Now keeping my money sounds more pleasurable Than giving my money away I mean doesn't that to you I mean isn't it more fun to I mean let's face it It is more fun to give than receive No it's not Come on It's more fun to receive than give We all know that You know the Bible talks about the joy of giving And we say no No And so you face this tension That the promise of God And the command of God seem to be in contradiction And Abraham had that tension And so the question was what was he going to do Well, we know the story Abraham took a son And is prepared to kill his son Now the question is Why was Abraham prepared to do that What gave him that courage As I look at that text I'm thinking there's no way I could have been as faithful as Abraham So why was Abraham faithful When we don't think we would be Because Abraham knew God God had made a promise And God had promised That through the through Isaac All the blessings would come about So Abraham knew that even if he killed Isaac Somehow Isaac would still have to live Because God promised That he would bless Abraham through Isaac Does that make sense? No But Abraham understood this That he trusted God Better than his own understanding And so he believed the promise of God The promise of God is this That through Isaac The blessings will come And so Abraham believed Somehow even if he killed Isaac Isaac would live We see this in the text Verse 5 Abraham is talking to his servants And he says Stay here with the donkey While I and the boy go over there We worship and then we will come back to you Now Abraham is going off To sacrifice his son He doesn't tell his servants that But I'm going to go kill my son And then I'm going to come back He says no I'm going to go And then my son and I We will come back Is Abraham deceiving his servants No He believes the promises of God He believes that Isaac Somehow is going to survive this ordeal We see it again in verse 8 Isaac is going along He said dad I know we're going to do this sacrifice thing And we got the wood We got the fire The ram or the lamb Dad where is the lamb And Abraham says Don't worry about it God will provide Now Is Abraham lying to his son Is he simply saying Listen son if I were to tell Okay son here's what's going on I'm going to kill you And I just don't want to tell you that Because if I do you'll run away Is that what's going on No Because Isaac Will have plenty of opportunities to run away Remember how old's Abraham He's in the 110's At least at this point Isaac is a teenager I have never met a teenager That could not run 110 year old man You know I think Isaac could have gotten away At any time he wanted to In fact we read that That Abraham ties up Isaac And put him on the altar You know Isaac had to cooperate If Isaac's nine He had to cooperate If Isaac's five He probably had to cooperate But as a teenager's a young man He had to cooperate At some point Abraham had to tell Isaac What was going on And so Abraham's not lying to his son He really believes Somehow Someway God is going to provide He doesn't understand it He hasn't figured it out But he believes God is going to provide He trusts God He believes the promises of God So he's believing the promises of God The strength and you to endure Any situation To take the risk of faith The step out and obey When it doesn't make sense To live your life on the edge Because it's what God is calling you to do You can do that Because you're saying Somehow God is going to provide That's what gives us hope That's what it helps us carry on We are praying That God will raise up $300,000 for the land Because we believe God wants us to have that winen Now How many of you believe that God can raise up $300,000 in 30 days Absolutely Now we believe that What if God doesn't What if he doesn't He's got a liar Where in the Bible did God say He's just going to give us $300,000 Did God ever say He was going to give us that land No God did not promise us But like Now I think he's going to do it But you know what? If he doesn't What does he promise? He's promised us this He says I will provide Everything you need I will equip you With everything you need for ministry Our confidence and our faith Is not that God's going to do What we think he ought to do Our confidence Our faith is God's going to do Whatever needs to be done And whatever is for our own good And for his pleasure And we believe that And so we can step out And say You know what? We're going to raise $300,000 And we can step out And we can risk Because either way We're going to say God's providing for his people I believe he's going to provide it But God has obligated himself to this I'm going to care for my children I will provide for you Always And so we cling to that And that faith is what gets us through Anytime you're in a difficult situation You're thinking I don't know if I'm going to make it I don't know if I'm going to survive I don't know if I'm going to have the resources I need To do what God's calling me to do That's the risk of faith Do you step out Do you risk God says I'll provide for you And it's what helps you endure Without that faith Without the belief The God is going to provide for you You cannot make it Hope inspires action Hope inspires action Emil Strey, this way Let's say that you took a job You and a friend took a job And it was a terrible job You had to work incredibly long hours Under awful conditions Your boss is always on your case The people you work with Or awful to place smells Everything bad That could be bad Is bad about this job Some are you saying That's my job And so Okay imagine you're in this job And it's the worst Than anything you can imagine And you But at the end of one year You know You're going to get paid $15 million for doing this job Your friend on the other hand Was hired for the exact same job Under the exact same conditions And they were told For one year of hard labor At the end they get a whole Wapping total of one year salary of $15,000 Do you think there will be a difference In the way you approach your work And in the way they approach it You know they're going to go to work And say I can't take it I can't take it anymore I'm going to die I'm not going to make it I cannot take this job It's too much It's too much I quit I just They won't be able to endure You're going to be going to work And going $15 million You can whistle while you work For $15 million I mean you know You can go For one year You can put up with it The difference is What It's the same conditions The only difference is One person has hope The other person has no hope One person looks and says I've got a prize at the end The other person says What prize And the difference isn't And that's what affects That's how it affects your life The same things You look at the promises of God And we say God says I'm going to provide I'm going to care for you We can whistle while we work in a sense We can labor and sacrifice for the kingdom of God We can pour ourselves out For the kingdom of God Because we're saying You know what? In the end We know it's going to be worth it We know it's going to be worth it We know That any risk we take For the glory of God God's going to bless us so richly As his people Eventually Eventually And so that inspires us And it's what inspired Christians Throughout the ages How in the world do you think those Christians In the early church Were able to stand courageously When they knew they were going to be burned At the stake They had hope They had a real hope And it wasn't a hope And a pine a sky The resurrection of Christ Gave them real and meaningful hope You have the same hope And that is the foundation For how you're to live The hope of how the promises of God Well that leads us to the second point The challenge of faith The challenge of faith With faith is our foundation It results in a challenge And here's the challenge Faith means Obeying God When it doesn't make sense Faith means Obeying God When it doesn't make sense It did not make sense For Abraham to kill Isaac How does that make sense That's completely irrational Here's the son that he loved to kill Isaac meant to lose his son His only son The son that he loved The one he dreamed for It meant to lose all the promises of God It meant to lose all hope and life For Abraham It made no sense to kill Isaac Yet he trusted God He obeyed God Because faith means obeying God When it doesn't make sense Abraham was faced with a choice He could either rely on his understanding of the situation Or he could obey God God said I want you to sacrifice Isaac Abraham could have said God Let me explain to you the problems with this I can't do it I'm going to have to overrule you on this one Because God you don't seem to understand You promised that all the blessings You're going to come through Isaac If I kill Isaac Then you're out of your fulfilling your promise So Lord it's in your best interest That I disobey you Because see God I have a better understanding of this situation Than you do And you know and I think that's typically how we respond Anytime we disobey God That's exactly what we're saying We're saying God I know better than you Anytime we refuse to live by faith And walk by sight We're saying God I understand some things that you don't And it doesn't make sense Abraham though was a man of faith He trusted God When it didn't make sense Last summer we were all shocked John F. Kennedy Jr.'s playing crash Off the coast of Martha's Vineyard And quickly the reports came out about why it had crashed He was an inexperienced pilot Flying in conditions He probably was not qualified for to fly under He was not instrument rated Which meant he can only fly By visual by what he saw And the problem was he got out over the ocean at night And at night over the ocean There's no light or anything And so you have no idea exactly where the horizon is And then he had to flew into Martha's Vineyard There was a great thick haze And as one pilot who flies out of Martha's Vineyard a lot Said He said when you fly into that thick haze You start to experience what they call spatial disorientation You have no idea what's where You think the plane is going left When the plane is actually going right You think you're going up When you're actually going down You get very confused experience vertigo Now the reason experienced pilots Can handle this whereas inexperienced pilots cannot As inexperienced pilots are trained to trust their instruments Your body is saying you're going you're going up And yet the instruments say you're going down It's very hard to go against how you feel You say I know what it feels like to go up and go down And so obviously the instruments broken That's what the inexperienced pilot will do Let's say I know I'm turning left The instruments as I'm turning right Something must be wrong with my instrument panel It takes incredible faith to trust your instruments When everything in your body tells you something else When your instruments tell you one thing And your body is telling you something else It takes they to trust the instruments The good pilots those who survive Are those who learn to trust their instruments Nothing selves Abraham understood this Everything in his body was telling him This is wrong This isn't good This won't work Yet Abraham instead of trusting himself Like a good pilot trusted the word of God God said here's what I want you to do Abraham Abraham said I'm sure to himself he had to say This doesn't make sense But he trusted God rather than himself That's the challenge of faith That's the challenge of faith And you face it every day Do I obey God when it doesn't seem to make sense Or do I trust myself Do I trust my own understanding Which am I going to do Am I going to trust God when God says The way we're to live is we're to live with integrity We're to live with honesty We're to be faithful in our marriage We're to live people who are to be truthful And that's the command of God But sometimes you're getting situations Where it seems like honesty is not the best policy Have you ever been in those situations Oh yeah It sure seems like honesty is a lousy policy And yet you're faced with are you going to trust God Or trust your understanding And that's the challenge And God calls us the live a life of faith To live a life of risk Here's the risk My value system that I'm born with Naturally tells me to be happy I need a lot of money Success would be nice Popularity would be good And I need control Control would be big You know And to be happy In fact if I had control You know people would just do what I want them to do I know I'd be happier Now if my kids just do what I wanted them to do I know I'd be happier And we look at life that way And we look the same thing You know if I had all my money to spend on myself I know I'd be happier I know that I mean I just know that Yet the word of God tells me something Completely contradictory to that And the question is Who am I going to trust What I think I know For what the word of God says That's the challenge The challenge of faith Obey Risk yourself Now my intuition says The way I'm going to be happy Is I'm going to let other people pour themselves into me God says the way you find happiness Is you want to find your life lose it Pour out yourself for the kingdom of God Which you're going to trust The word of God Or your own intuition The challenge of faith Is to trust God Well at least in the third point The third point is the joy of faith The joy of faith For Abraham This joy came in God's provision Let's read again Beginning with verse 10 Isaac is on the altar Verse 10 Then he that is Abraham reached out his hand And took the knife to slay his son But the angel 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 have not withheld for me your son Your only son Abraham looked up and there in the thickety saw a ram caught by its horns He went over and took the ram And sacrificed it as a burnt offering Instead of his son So Abraham called the place The Lord will provide And to this day it is said On the mountain of the Lord It will be provided And here's the climax of the story Just as Abraham is about to take the life of his son His only son the son that he loved God shall sell from heaven and says stop Don't do it Don't do it Because now I know that you trust me Instead God provides a ram As a substitute for Isaac Now I'm going to tell you this is a problem I have with the story And it's a problem that we always gloss over in church And here's the problem Why was God asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in the first place Was it just merely a test kind of like a cruel joke Okay Abraham sacrifice his son Just kidding you don't have to do that Is that all there was? If it was that was that was mean and malicious Did God ever write to ask Abraham to sacrifice his son And if he didn't have her if God there was not I mean God said that he must sacrifice his wrong There are people all around the nation of Israel who are sacrificing their babies to God And God said that was wrong And yet here God is telling Abraham If he wants to have fellowship with God If he wants to be right with God He's got to sacrifice his son How can God do that Does God require human sacrifice Well actually he does He does require human sacrifice God Abraham like we are Was a sinner And he needed someone to die for his sin The point is the ram could not pay for Abraham's sin The ram that was the substitute for Isaac Was just a foreshadow of a lamb that was become The book of Hebrews chapter 10 verse 4 Said that animals cannot atone for the sins of people They cannot work A goat a ram a lamb Those sacrifices do not actually make payment for anyone's sin This ram that we read about Did not pay for Abraham's sins Or his son's Isaac's sins The pay for the sins of a person A person has to die The pay for the sins of those in the family of Abraham A child of Abraham had to die That was true then and is still true now Well you know how the story really ends 2000 years after this happened God said his son His only son The son that he loved A child of Abraham And this son came And instead of being on an altar of stone Was laid upon an altar of the cross And this son died For the sins of Abraham Isaac And all who had the fate of Abraham and Isaac God provided for Abraham not just in the ram But the true provision of God Was in Jesus Christ You even see this in the word of Abraham He doesn't call it say This is God who provided He said God will Provide And then the Mountain was called by the Israelites They said the mountain was not called the mountain where God provided But the mountain where God will provide This is the mountain where God will provide It has a future look and in their perspective The cross was still in the future God provided for them through Jesus Christ And God is provided for us through Jesus Christ Now how are you to respond to this Two things quickly since I'm Beyond my time Two things we respond Well Praise When we respond in praise in two different ways Praise number one for gratitude When we look at how God is provided for us Through Jesus Christ It ought to stir up our hearts Incredible emotions are gratitude You know, Presbyterians aren't emotional It's time we got emotional Because God is provided for us so abundantly And not just there And then you look at your life And you see how God's provided over And over And over Again And so we praise God For what he has done But secondly We praise God for what he will do Hope Hope Because we look We see how God provided a sacrifice for us Through Jesus Christ Then we know that God will provide for us Whatever we need The Apostle Paul puts it this way In Romans chapter 8 He says And he says If God is for us Then who can be against us He who did not spare his own son But gave him up for us all How will he not also Along with him Graciously give us all things If God gave his son Jesus Christ for us Do you think he's going to let you down now Do you think he's going to drop you now If he's invested this much in you so far Do you think he's just going to say You're on your own You're an orphan now Not at all Not at all And that's what gives us hope Because we know Because what God has done in the past We can trust in the future He is the God who provided And he is God who will provide He is our provider And that gives us hope And so for the next 30 days Starting last Sunday Actually we're in the middle of it We invite you For 30 days of praise And we invite you to begin spending 30 days every day Get up Praise God for what he has done in the past First of all for his son And then for everything else Praise God for what he's done in our church That's what that sheet is about To help you praise God For all that he has done in our church And then we also Look as we praise God We praise God for what he will do And we say God we know You're the provider We know you're going to give us Everything we need For doing your will We know you're going to Eventually give us everything we need For our joy For our pleasure And so Lord we trust you Because we know That you are God the provider The God who provided the ram for Abraham God our provider Let's pray Our Father we do thank you And we praise you For all that you have done We praise you First Lord for sending your Son Jesus Christ That while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Father where we could not Make a sacrifice for sins Where the blood of lambs And the puts would not do You shed the blood of your own Son And we thank you for that And Lord we pray that every day We would get up and live our lives At a gratitude for what you have done And Lord at the same time We pray that every day We would get up with great joy Because we are not a people without hope We have great hope And no matter how difficult our life may be At any given point We have the hope that you are God the provider Then no matter what our needs are No matter how deep our crisis may be No matter how dark the pit we are in At this time is We know that you are going to provide Because you are God the provider And we praise you In Christ name Amen