Hold Nothing Back

Mary Scheer, Brewster Baptist Church

Genesis 22: 1-18 (2,800-2,900)

In my last few sermons I’ve been looking at things in our lives that can affect our relationships and our faith.  Today, being a week before Fathers Day, I want to look at the story of one of the Bible’s most historic fathers.

[powerpress]Some dads are known as dad, some as father, but Abraham is the father of all fathers, the father of many nations (Ro 4:18) and the father of the faithful (Ro. 4:12)

By looking at some of the challenges he faced we can learn more about how to relate to God.

Now Abraham (who was initially known as Abram before God changed his name), had a kind of slow start to becoming a dad.

He was born in Ur in the Tigris Euphrates Valley. God asked him to make a move, (Gen 12:1-3) so he and his family got up and moved and kept moving until they arrived in to Canaan (Israel).

And there God promised to bless him;

  • and make him into a great nation,
  • to bless those who blessed him and
  • to make him a father of fathers from which nations and kings would come.
  • and to bless all the people of the earth through him (Gen 12: 1-3)

However, in keeping with God’s sense of humor and seemingly slow timing, Abram was 75 years old with no children and more than a little passed traditional child bearing years when he received this promise from God.

But Abram and Sarai (as Sarah was called then) believed that God had a blessing in store for them…they just had to figure out how it was going to happen.

Ten years later, still childless and the clock ticking, they took matters into their own hands and Sarai gave Abram her maid Hagar as a second wife.  This was an acceptable option in those days.

As soon as Hagar knew she was expecting a child, she became arrogant, taunting and rubbing it in Sari’s face. (16:4)

Abram and Sarai were determined to have what they wanted, but it brought about some heartache.

Sarai complained to Abram who told her to handle it however she saw fit.  She was so harsh and abusive to Hagar that she ran away into the desert.

An angel found Hagar there in the wilderness and told her to go back to the camp and submit to Sarai.

Later that year, eleven years after God first talked to Abram, Hagar gave him a son which he named Ishmael, and that baby was loved.

I can’t imagine what the next decade was like for Abram or Sarai or Hagar!

Did they settle in as a family and assume that this must have been God’s plan all along?

Nothing miraculous happened before Ishmael’s birth and then nothing after, not a word from God.

Until one day, 13 years later, when Abraham was 99 years old, God showed up and said to him, “I am the Strong God, live entirely before me, and I’ll make a covenant between us and I’ll give you a huge family, in fact I’m changing your name to Abraham, and your wife’s to Sarah so you shall be called father and mother of many nations.”

God said, you and Sarah are going to have a baby and through him, all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and he sealed his promise with a covenant.

I can just picture them looking at him, then at each other, then at Ishmael…and not wanting to say anything, but oh the things they must have been thinking.

And then, the Bible says Abraham fell flat on his face and laughed thinking, “can a hundred year old man father a son?” And can Sarah, at ninety years, have a baby?”

Yes their dream was to have a child together, but that was decades ago and 25 years is a long time to wait for something.

How long can we go without any word from God before we stop believing and waiting for his answer?

Maybe they misunderstood God’s word and convinced themselves that his promise to give them a son had been fulfilled in Ishmael.

For 13 years they raised Ishmael perhaps thinking he was the one, God had meant for them.

So when God showed up again, Abraham’s response to his words of promise is not delight or relief, but almost a lament that we can empathize with.

He said, “Oh if only my son Ishmael might have your blessing!”

He is struggling.  Isn’t he my son? And he’s already here.  For 25 years God you’ve been promising me something that’s never happened.  Let Ishmael be the one through whom your blessing will come.

Those few words explain a lot.  They’re not waiting for the promise anymore. They had given up and substituted God’s promise for one of their own.

Have you ever wanted something, and prayed and prayed and waited and waited while nothing happened?

And finally you figured that God was waiting for you to do something…you know faith in action kind of thing?

ILLUSTRATION: One time, while I was still with my first husband and the girls were really little, we came to be in need of a car.  Well, I prayed and prayed.  I felt like I had confirmation through friends who agreed with me in prayer that God was going to bless us with a vehicle…but nothing happened.

Well, the waiting went on for some time and then I decided in my head that God must be waiting for me to do something, to take a step in faith…I mean after all, what was he going to do, drop a car out of the heavens into the driveway?

So, we went down to the dealership and selected the perfect minivan and walked around it 7 times praying (like Joshua did around the walls of Jericho).  And we prayed that the walls of debt and restriction would fall down and on and on….So, convinced we had done everything right, we signed the paperwork for a van we could not afford (you know because we were operating by faith and not by sight, so we ignored the fact that the paperwork in front of us told us we could not afford the van) and off we drove.

We believed that this step of faith would trigger God to bless us with the money to pay for it…not so, nothing happened and the money did not come in. what we thought was faith in action, was really presumption and we should have named that van Ishmael!

*“God visited Sarah exactly as he said he would; God did to Sarah what he promised: Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a son in his old age, and at the very time God had set. Abraham named him Isaac.” (Gen 21: 1-3 Message)

After everything they had been through…years of promise, the heartache of struggle between Isaac and Ishmael, Sarah and Hagar, Abraham finally had his son, the son of the promise, and then…

SCRIPTURE:  Genesis 22: 1-18 (NIV)

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “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 Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”  Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled 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 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 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 have 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.

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 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 their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

*It’s hard to read.  It’s difficult to comprehend how or why God would make such a request, such a test of faith. But Abraham’s love for his child was the one thing and perhaps the only thing that could rival his love for God.

After all the years of waiting and years of God renewing his promise and finally fulfilling it in the midst of impossible circumstances, now…after all that, God’s request feels unimaginable.

Abraham’s response, it’s astounding.  He didn’t procrastinate, or look for signs for God to confirm this difficult word, (which is what I would have done).

He didn’t protest, try to barter for some other sacrifice, no…he got up early the next morning and went!

For three days he walked toward the place God was leading him.  Three days to think and change his mind.

Did he have nightmares?  Did he rehearse how he would explain this to his wife and the rest of his family?

The only exchange between father and son that’s recorded during the three days is Isaac’s observation that they have everything for the burn offering except the lamb and Abraham assures him that God will provide.

And then he got everything ready, tied up his son and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

He took out his knife, reached up and was about to kill him when the angel of the Lord stopped him and said, “now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham demonstrated the kind of faith God wants, the kind that does not allow anything else no matter how good it is, even if it is a gift from God, to take his place in our heart.

Abraham had grown in his faith from years earlier when he got tired of trusting and waiting for God and took matters into his own hands, to this point where the book of Hebrews says that Abraham was able to do this because he reasoned that even if he killed Isaac, God could raise from the dead if he needed to in order to fulfill his promise. (He. 11:17-19)

His whole journey in life had been built around a promise and that promise hinged on this one child, so in his willingness to sacrifice his son, he showed he was willing to trust God with everything he had promised.

Is there anything in your life today, any dreams, any thing dearly loved that you would withhold from God if he asked you for it?

Even the good things that come from God can become idols in our hearts if we would put them ahead of God.

These could be things, dreams or relationships that we want control of.

We’re happy to let God be a part of them as long as he intends to bless them, but, we get uncomfortable thinking he could ask us to give them up.  These good gifts from God are the Isaacs in our life.

But there may be some Ishmael’s too.  These are the things that we want regardless of what God wants.  They are the product of our own will, desires, dreams and relationships that we’ve nurtured and raised and grown attached to.

When God came to Abraham to tell him he was going to give them a child, he didn’t say, “another child,” because Ishmael was not the promised child.

He was the child of Abraham’s will.  And at that point, Abraham was willing to take a pass on the blessing God had for him in the form of another child and asked God instead to bless the one he already had.

How often have we been unwilling to wait for the best of what God has for us and been tempted to settle.

How often have we prayed for something and when nothing happened, got tired of waiting and went ahead with our own plans.

Have you ever stood with your Ishmael before God begging him to bless the thing that you pursued out of your own will?

ILLUSTRATION: I have.  Earlier in the sermon, I mentioned my first husband.  We were married two weeks after I graduated high school.  Although there were clear indications that this marriage was not part of God’s will for us, we went ahead anyway.

I wish I could tell you that I honestly believed it was God’s will…but there was a little part of me that suspected it wasn’t.

But I hoped it would be ok, and that God would bless us, and in many ways he did.  But the marriage was one of my Ishmaels, the product of human will.

Even when I knew we probably shouldn’t get married, I, like Abraham, lifted that relationship and said this is the one I want, bless this.

C.S. Lewis said, “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.'”[1]

Thankfully the Lord is a redeeming God whose love and grace are unfailing.

ILLUSTRATION: On May 17, 2008, Christian recording artist Steven Curtis Chapman and his family suffered a devastating loss. Five-year-old adopted daughter, Maria, was struck and killed when Chapman’s seventeen-year-old son was backing his SUV out of the family’s driveway. After much prayer and counsel, Chapman returned to touring in promotion for a newly released album.

Elizabeth Diffin, a freelance reporter, attended one of Chapman’s concerts and wrote about the experience:

Chapman opened the concert with “Blessed Be Your Name” just two months after the death of his 5-year-old daughter.

“Blessed Be Your Name” was also the first song Chapman sang on May 21, the day of Maria’s death, when he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to sing again.

Inspired by the story of Job, at one point the lyrics repeat, “He gives and takes away.”

“As I sang this song … it wasn’t a song, it was a cry, a scream, a prayer,” Chapman explained to the audience of nearly 5,000. “I found an amazing comfort and peace that surpasses all understanding.”

Chapman also shared that after Maria’s death, he’d reconsidered the words to all his songs and whether he could still sing—and believe—them.

Instead…..losing his little girl brought the meaning of some of those songs into sharper focus.

One example was the song “Yours,” which addresses how everything in the world belongs to God.

“In this song…I had to come to a new realization,” he said. “There’s not an inch of creation that God doesn’t look at and say ‘all of that’s mine.'”

As a result of that realization in conjunction with Maria’s death, Chapman added a new verse to the song,

“I’ve walked the valley of death’s shadow so deep and dark that I could barely breath.  I’ve had to let go of more than I could bear and I’ve questioned everything that I believe. Still even here in this great darkness a comfort and a hope comes breaking through as I can say in life or death God we belong to you.”[2]

*In surrender, there is an acknowledgement that we belong to God, that everything we are, and have and desire and love, it all belongs to God.

And through surrender we step into that place where we can trust God with all the things that matter to us, and make peace with the thought that even if he doesn’t give me what I want I know that he loves me and I will be ok.

So often the story of Abraham focuses on his willingness to give God Isaac, but we have to be willing to give up our Ishmaels too.

The challenge for us as disciples is to surrender our hearts to God on a daily basis.  As we do that, our relationship with God will grow stronger and more intimate and we will grow in ability to trust him so completely that we, like Abraham, will hold nothing back from him.

And then, even as he did with Abraham, God will keep his promises and will provide in his own way and his own time.

LET’S PRAY:

Dear Lord, thank you for Abraham and letting us look at his journey in faith.  I pray for us that you will help us to look at our hearts and see if there is anything we have placed above you.  Lord you know our hearts desires, the dreams that we have and the energy we spend pursuing things that we want.  Help us to be able to release all the things that we love into your care.  Help us to grow in the ways we trust you with the plans you have for us and with our future. We want you to be able to say that you know that we love you because we hold nothing back from you.  And so we lift up our lives, our families, our relationships, our jobs, our health, all the things we can and can’t control and give them to you to handle as you choose.  We ask for your blessing and pray that in this act surrender we will experience your peace.

BLESSING: From James 4:7a; Ps 56: 3-5; Ps 40:3;

Submit yourselves to the Lord.  Praise God for what he has promised, trust him and do not be afraid.  For he has given us a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see what he has done and be amazed and they will put their trust in the Lord. May you go out from here filled with his peace.  Amen.

Go out fully surrendered, holding nothing back and blessed of the Lord.  Go in Peace.  Amen.


[1] Ted De Hass, Bedford, Iowa.  C.S. Lewis on God’s Will

[2] Elizabeth Diffin, “Still Blessing His Name,” Today’s-Christian.com. 2008.

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