Abraham’s Journey of Faith

Introduction

I set out to give the people an exposition of the twenty-third Psalm, which I had given before on three or four occasions. But this time I did not get further than the words, He leadeth me. Those words took hold of me as they had never done before, and I saw them in a significance and wondrous beauty of which I had never dreamed. It was the darkest hour of the Civil War. I did not refer to that fact, that is, I don’t think that I did, but I may subconsciously have led me to realize that God’s leadership is the one significant fact in human experience. That it makes no difference how we are led or whither we are led, so long as we are sure God is leading us.

Joseph H. Gilmore, 1862. The story goes that he wrote the song in just a few moments after services, the song that we just sang. One of those unique moments of inspiration. Songs typically aren’t written in just a few minutes, but Gilmore seems to have done that quickly with these thoughts in his mind as he was thinking about Psalm 23. And it’s hard for me not to think of the story of Abraham when I think about this concept or this idea of God leading. And I want us to look at Hebrews chapter 11 for just a moment this morning, read that text, which summarizes some of Abraham’s story. The story of Abraham, if you’re a reader, if you like novels, is as much like an epic. It doesn’t have the poetic flavor to it.

Modern epics don’t either, most of the time, but is this very brief story, actually, of Abraham and all his years, a summary. If it was an actual in-depth story, it’d be as big as this Bible, going into the depths of Abraham’s life. But we’re just given a small glimpse of some of the things that happened to Abraham and his family. But even in that small glimpse, we’re given great detail in some ways about what happened in his life. And in verse eight, we’re going to skip around just a little bit here in Hebrews chapter 11. In verse 8, it says, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

If you drop down to verse 17, where we’re going to spend some time in Genesis 22 a little bit later, it summarizes that story in this way.

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. We see Genesis 22, and it’s this powerful story of faith. Jacob, I don’t have the remote. I’m not sure what happened to it, so you’re going to have to advance for me this morning. This powerful story of faith. We come to Genesis 22, and many of us know this story well. He brings Isaac to Mount Moriah, and he’s going to offer his son there on the mountain, and of course the Lord stays his hand through the words of this angel. And from there, we have this covenant that’s made with Abraham. But we can’t really understand Genesis 22 well until we understand the things that come before it.

1. Abraham's Journey of Ups and Downs

And that’s what I want to spend some time working through this morning and thinking about really this journey of faith that Abraham started back in Genesis 12, at least as the story is told to us in the book of Genesis. His life is not one that was just this pinnacle of faith that from the beginning started high and just continued higher. That’s not the story of Abraham. And sometimes we may have it in our minds as we read some of these stories, we hit the highlights and we only think about the good things, and maybe we overlook some of the other aspects of Abraham’s life. That really, I think when a story is being told about a person in Scripture are meant to help us along the way.

Because Abraham is like us, just like David, and just like Peter, and just like others in Scripture. They’re humans, they’re men. And they have stories that are going to be much like our stories in a lot of ways. And now they are examples of faith, and we look to them in the way they acted and the way they lived by faith, and those are examples to us as well. But the point of these stories is not that you can never be like Abraham, or that you can never be like David or Peter or Paul. It’s in fact just the opposite that they are the kinds of people that we should be looking toward to emulate, and the way that we ought to live our life should be based on these types of accounts of these types of men.

And so when we look at this story of Abraham’s faith in this journey, I want us to understand that this is going to look a lot like ours. It’s going to look a lot like our story and our journey of faith. And if you imagine yourself, however old you are at this moment, you may not have this whole path before you that we see of Abraham here as he journeyed all the way to the end in Genesis 22, and the very next chapter is about Sarah’s death, and so we’re quite a ways away in his history of his life. You may be very early on, but it’s going to look a lot like this. It’s going to be this pattern of kind of ups and downs where we make good decisions and we make bad decisions along the way, and we’re struggling and we’re fighting and we’re trying to do the right things.

And while we highlight some of the stories of Abraham and the good choices that he made, he went when God called him in chapter 12. He believed in chapter 15 when God revealed his plan through him. But the reality is Abraham doubted too. Abraham lacked faith. He lied to Pharaoh in chapter 12. He went out from the Ur of Chaldis. He left his family. And he followed the will of God, even though he didn’t know where he was going. That’s where we started in Hebrews 11 and verse 8. He had no idea where he was headed, but he just went. That’s the kind of man he was. He was a man of faith. But then a little bit later in the story, right after that, he’s lying to Pharaoh about Sarah, saying it’s his sister.

He’s telling a half truth, which is nothing more than a lie.

And he hasn’t learned a whole lot in many ways. When you get to chapter 20, he’s still struggling along this path of faith, and he does it again with Abimelech. And the story ends a little bit differently there in chapter 20, a little bit more peacefully in chapter 20 with Abimelech. But again, he lies to Abimelech. He tells Sarah to tell everyone that it’s his sister and that Abraham is her brother. And Abimelech figures out what’s going on, and he makes a covenant with Abraham and they have peace. And so it works out a little bit better this time in chapter 20, but still Abraham is doing some things that are not right. And of course, Isaac picks up on this later, and he lies himself about his wife a little bit later on.

And so some of these sins, some of these errors in Abraham’s judgment not only rest with him, but they’re carried on to his family as they continue. And then Jacob and his twelve sons, Jacob is the deceiver, and his twelve sons also struggle with this idea of deceit and lying, as the brothers of Joseph throw him into a pit and sell him into slavery and then tell their father he’s been killed by a lion. And so you see the progression of how some of these negative and evil things work through families. He doubted God could provide an heir. In chapter 15, he looks at a servant in his house and says, Well, God, is this who’s going to inherit what I have? And God says, No, you’re going to have a son, and Abraham laughs, as Sarah did later on in chapter 18.

They both laugh at this idea that God is going to produce an heir from Sarah, as old as she is and as old as he is. And then Abraham allows Sarah to deal harshly with Hagar after what was essentially their error and trying to force God’s hand and his promises. Sarah gives Hagar to Abraham and says, You need to go into her, and she’ll produce the heir, and then Sarah gets angry when that happens. And so then Abraham allows Sarah to treat her harshly. It ends up in chapter 20 that then she’s sent away by Abraham. God says to do it, to do what Sarah told him to do. But this is the this kind of downward cycle of his life, or this moment of trial and difficulty.

2. Here Am I

And the point here is just recognizing these realities in the text. That not everything is wonderful and great for Abraham and his family throughout this story. There are some negatives, there are some things they have to work through, just like with any of us. We have to work through difficulties. We go through struggles. We have trials. Things are not good sometimes, but through faith and by our trust in God, we can come out the other side and grow and mature. And so we do see this in the story of Abraham. And that’s where we end up in chapter 22. And chapter 22, the text really hinges around the statement, Here am I. Three times Abraham says this in a text. Now I don’t intend to read the whole chapter this morning, but I do want us to have a concept of what’s going on here.

So we’re going to work through this text quickly, and then talk about some of the lessons that we learn from Abraham in his journey of faith, where we find him here in chapter 22, and how that can help us along the way. And so Abraham, as he encounters God in verse 1 of chapter 22, he begins this refrain, Here am I. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, he said, Here am I. This is a point in the story where it seems to me at least, and I’m going to do a little bit of speculating here based on the story preceding this and where things have come from, that Abraham is really at the pinnacle of his life right now. And he’s been waiting for years to receive the Son of Promise, and now finally Isaac has been born.

I think it would be hard to find a time in the story that would be better for Abraham than right now. And so God comes to him as God had done numerous times throughout his life and says, Abraham, here am I, Lord. I’m right here. And there’s this disappointing statement, it seems to me, from God to Abraham as he’s going to test him. Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I shall tell you. So many elements of this story. We’re not going to talk about all the connections to the story of Christ. There’s many of them in this story. That’s not the goal this morning.

But you hear that statement, your only son, as he’s going to utter this numerous times throughout the text. And then we have this reference in Romans 8 and verse 32 that connects to this story. Paul very clearly connects the story of Christ not being withheld by God the Father to the story of Genesis 22. And so there are many aspects of these stories that connect. That’s not what I want to pull out this morning, but I do want to make note of that, and you’ll hear it throughout the text as we look at it this morning. But notice this statement.

This is the first time the word love is mentioned in the Bible. He’s noting the significance of this relationship that Abraham has with Isaac. This is the son of promise, the son through whom all of these promises are going to be fulfilled. And now he’s telling him, take him and offer him as a burnt offering. The story, I think, reveals a man experienced in dealings with God at this point. He’s been through this for years. This is not the first time Abraham has counted encountered what seemed to be the impossible. That’s happened more than once. And so he acts with immediacy. He rises early in the morning. He gets his men together and they take off for this land again, which the Lord will tell him.

He doesn’t even know where he’s going. He’s going to show him the mountain he wants him to take him to. And so Abraham just accepts what’s going to happen. And without hesitation, he goes along with the plan that God has given him. I want to come back to some lessons later, but along the way, I just want to point out some things for us. There are times when things hit us hard. And we may not respond right away, especially the way Abraham does here. A man that has some more experience. We may struggle with how to respond to the things that happen to us in life, especially as we’re younger and we’re maturing in our faith. But there can be things that really take hold of us in ways we never would have imagined.

Maybe the death of a loved one or unexpected diagnosis or a job loss. Many of us here this morning have experienced those sorts of things, and they can be difficult to deal with. And so, like Abraham, maybe we’re asking why or wondering why this is happening in life. Why is this happening to me? And there’s questions that we can investigate and go further on in that way. But really, we need to learn to respond with faith, as Abraham is doing here, to get up, rise early in the morning and go about the things that need to be done. And so that’s where the story begins here in chapter 22. Then there is this crushing encounter with Isaac. As they are making their way toward the mountain, Isaac’s question in verse 7.

And fathers, you know what this situation is like when something you don’t really want to talk about is asked by one of your children. And then you’re forced to face the reality of what’s happening or the things that are going on. And so Isaac, as they’re going up the mountain, he says, My father. There’s always this address. God says, Abraham, and Abraham says, Here am I. Isaac says, My father. Here am I, my son. And he says, Behold the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Man, that is a moment of trial. What is Abraham going to say? Again, this is a man of experience, a man who has matured in his faith. And I love the way he answers Isaac in this moment.

He doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen. In fact, he doesn’t even know exactly where he’s going or how it’s all going to work out. But this is how he answers Isaac. God will provide for himself a lamb. That’s a statement of faith, of total faith. He doesn’t know how it’s going to work out. And of course, we looked at this morning, even in the Lord’s Supper, as we are considering that.

The text says. I love that statement. He is able. I just have to wonder if Abraham, as he’s considering all of the things of his life, that three-day journey would have given him quite a bit of time to consider all the events that had taken place in his life. As he’s walking there with Isaac and he knows what God has asked him to do, and he’s thinking about, as we tend to do, is this because of something I did?

And thinking about situations like lying to Pharaoh or Abimelech. Or maybe the men coming to him and saying that he’s going to have a son, and he laughs, and Sarah laughs. And then the Lord responds to him by saying, Nothing is too difficult for God. Maybe it is that this is in the mind of Abraham as he answers Isaac and said, God will provide for himself. Or as the Hebrew writer gives us the thoughts of Abraham’s mind, and he’s considering that God can even raise him from the dead, that God is able. He is able to do far more abundantly beyond all we can imagine, all that we can ask, all that we can think. And so Abraham is looking for some kind of answer here, but he knows that it’s possible.

And yet he’s completely prepared to offer Isaac, knowing that he is the son of promise. Knowing that God has given this promise to him that through Isaac, all nations of the earth will be blessed. This is the means by which this promise that was given so long ago is now going to be fulfilled. And then there is this second call. He’s raising the knife. This is how committed Abraham is to God’s plan. He’s raising the knife. He’s about to bring his arm down to execute the very thing that God asked him to do, even though it doesn’t make any sense to him. The angel of the Lord calls out to him, Abraham, stopping him. I can only imagine that his response here am I, is a statement of relief.

He’s been waiting this whole time, unsure of what’s going to happen. And now, right as he’s about to do God’s bidding, what God has asked him to do, an angel stops him. And so as the story hinges around the statement being made three times, it’s interesting how the nature of that statement likely changes throughout the story, where now we have this what seems to be a moment of relief, or the angel says, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God. He wasn’t aware of this being a test. Sometimes we aren’t aware of the tests that we face in life. Job’s a good example of that as well. He wasn’t aware of this test in his life, and Abraham’s not aware of it here.

But now it’s been made known to him. Now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And so in the text itself in Genesis 22, we see this concept being portrayed of Abraham’s readiness, this state of his faith that he’s reached. He’s gone through the highs and the lows, but he has reached this pinnacle now where he is accepting of whatever God tells him to do. He allows the Lord to lead him in the direction he needs to go. Even when it doesn’t make sense to him. And the result is that God confirms this covenant with him.

3. Walk With God Through the Unknown

He reaffirms to him what he told him in the past that through Isaac, through this son that he had not withheld, now he was going to fulfill all of these promises to him, and that his descendants will be as the stars of heaven, more than he can ever imagine, something he would never ultimately see, but yet he trusted in God that this would take place. And so as we cycle back and we think about Abraham’s life and this journey of faith and the ups and downs, let’s talk about some things that can help us as we think about this idea of allowing God to lead us. We think about Abraham and this early part of the story in Genesis chapter 12, where God appears to him and just says, I want you to leave.

I mean, you have brothers and sisters, you have parents, you have people who you’re close with, you have close friends, if suddenly you just had this revelation that you needed to leave and go somewhere else. And not only that, but you really had no explanation for anyone.

How do you think people would respond to that? I think what we need to understand about Abraham’s faith, and if we’re going to walk in the steps of faith of Abraham, our father, as Romans chapter 4 talks about, is that we have to be the kind of people who are willing to walk with God through the unknown. When we don’t know what things are going to be like, we don’t know where this is going to take us. We are unsure about where life is going to bring us as we face the realities of life by faith in God. We have to be the kind of people who are willing to do that no matter what. I just think Abraham’s family had to think he was crazy.

You know, he’s here in the Ear of Chaldees, and things seem to be pretty good. He’s certainly a wealthy man. He’s not struggling. I mean, when he leaves, he has all kinds of possessions, and he brings his wife, and Lot comes with him, and he’s got a lot of things that are going well in life, and now suddenly he’s just leaving town. And as the family is likely coming to him and saying, Hey, why are you doing this, Abraham? He really has no answer for him for them. He has no reason to give them other than God told me to leave. Now maybe they were really accepting of that. I have my doubts about that, and some of you I think probably do as well, as maybe you face something similar.

Maybe even you have a job, or you’re going to go to school somewhere. You’re doing something different in life, and it’s going to cause you to go somewhere else, and the people around you, family or friends, they don’t understand. Why would you do that? Abraham’s is even more cryptic than that. It’s just that God told him to leave.

The way they would have looked at him and what they would have thought. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Sometimes we have to take the journey into the unknown. To areas that we’re not sure what it’s going to be like or where exactly God is leading us. We don’t know what the results are going to be. And sometimes this finding of truth is really a mission of self-discovery. People talk about finding yourself and all that in our culture, but really it’s the idea of finding truth. And when we find truth, that’s where we discover who we really are. And what Abraham’s discovering throughout this journey of faith is who he actually is, that he is someone who’s going to rely on God through the ups and the downs and through the mistakes he makes through some of the sins that he commits, he still comes back to God and following the will of God.

He’s walking by faith, not by sight. Even in the story in Genesis 22, he tells him to take his son. He doesn’t understand what’s going to happen here. Your only son, whom you love, through whom all of these promises are made, he’s going to take him and offer him as a burnt offering.

Fathers in this room this morning, can you imagine having some revelation? You take your son and you go offer him as a burnt offering? Some of us were at a pig roast yesterday. And that was enjoyable. We liked the food. But I’ll tell you what, if you were going to take your son and do that, it’d be gruesome. It would not be the same result, would it? People would be thinking, you’ve lost your mind. What is he going to tell Sarah when he gets home? I mean, there’s all kinds of things that we can think about in terms of what’s happening here in the story, and yet he gets up early and he takes off. And he trusted God even when he didn’t see how it was all going to work out.

And it’s not just this story in Genesis 22. This is just kind of the pinnacle, as we noted. This is the end. Where we see it’s come to this culmination of Abraham’s faith and God’s testing to see how extreme Abraham will be in his obedience to him. And so in this story where he’s telling him to offer his only son as this offering, he still does it. Just showing how faithful he actually is. But all along the way, Abraham is demonstrating, even through some of the down periods, he’s still demonstrating the faith that he has in God. He doesn’t know how this is going to work out. He’s dwelling in tents. I mean, I can’t imagine that Abraham thought this is going to be how it is, right?

God tells him, okay, leave your family. I want you to, I’m going to bring you somewhere else. And so he’s go, he goes somewhere else, and he’s just dwelling in tents from place to place. He’s nomadic. Now sometimes we might have it in our mind that’s just how people were in ancient times. That’s not true. You know, they didn’t just travel around in tents all the time. There’s some people who did some of that. But I mean, he’s going from place to place. In fact, when there’s a famine, the reason he goes to Egypt and he encounters Pharaoh with his wife, Sarah, is because there’s famine, and he’s trying to get somewhere that’s offers some security, some safety. And so this is a lot like the story a little bit later on with Jacob’s sons, how they encounter Joseph again as they go to Egypt because of the famine.

This is what nomadic people do. They travel around, but when there’s danger, when there’s difficulty, they find security in the city. The same thing happens later on around Jerusalem when they’re facing some of the threats from surrounding nations, and they come in closer to Jerusalem. They’re trying to find protection in the city. There are people who are not nomadic. There are people who do dwell in cities and dwell in built houses that are firm and secure. But Abraham, God calls him out. Surely this is going to be a wonderful experience. No, he’s dwelling in tents. Ladies, how would you like to be Sarah? Having your husband drag you around from place to place, building a tent, living in that tent. Would that seem to be the hand of God?

God’s providence. Sometimes things don’t work out maybe the way we would imagine. Even when it is God’s providence. And so this scene as Abraham and Isaac ascend the mountain seems pretty dim. Even in that question, though he answers it well and answers it with faith.

He tells him the Lord will provide, and it became this motto. Even today it says the name of that place is the Lord will provide. On the mountain. Another connection to the story of Christ. But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how this is all going to work out. And so when we begin to fret over lack of vision given to us in God’s divine planning, we have to remember he leadeth me. Doesn’t necessarily matter where or how. But who? It’s God that’s leading. It’s God’s plan that we’re following. We don’t know exactly how that’s going to work out in our life and what things are going to go well and what things aren’t going to go well, but the important thing is to know that He is leading me beside the stillwaters.

4. Walk With God, Though the Cost Is Sometimes Great

He is leading me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. And even in all this in the Hebrew account, we learn that this is all by faith. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, they never see the fulfillment of some of these promises, but they still trust in God. They still put their faith in him and they follow his will, even though they never see the ultimate realities of what this was going to become. So we have to be the kind of people who are willing to walk with God even when we don’t understand. Even when it doesn’t make sense. Second, we have to walk with God, though the cost is sometimes great. I think maybe this stands out the most to us in this story.

We’ve already revisited the story to some degree in thinking about Isaac and Abraham taking him up on the mountain, this son of his love, this only, this unique son that he has, the son of promise. And now God is telling him to bring this son up onto the mountain to offer him, not just to kill him, but to offer him as a burnt offering. And that is a gruesome sort of exercise. He’s going to bring that knife down and kill that boy and then offer him fire on this altar that he built. Disobedience is easy.

And Abraham learned in this moment that anything really was possible for the Lord, as he stated in chapter 18 and verse 14. He learned as the angel stayed his hand and told him, Do not harm the boy, that God really will provide, that God really will come through this. But the reality is he would have never experienced that through disobedience. Sometimes our greatest lessons in faith are when we do go into the depths of the unknown and follow what God has asked us to do, even when the cost seems great, even when it doesn’t make sense to us, even when it seems like it’s not going to work out and it’s going to cost us too much, our friends or our family, whatever it might be.

But sometimes it’s in those moments we weren’t learn what the power of faith really is. So Abraham trusted God when he didn’t understand. And God was putting him to the test. The reality is our tests may come in different ways. Tony referred to this morning in the Bible class.

It could be financial problems, difficulties. It could be that our reputation takes a hit. Or maybe we lose our career because of the actions of someone else. And yet God still calls us to do what’s right.

He still asks us to live by faith and the walk by faith. Whatever the results may be. And if we’re in the practice of doing what’s easy or what’s comfortable or what’s convenient, sometimes we may think the cost is too much. It would have been so easy for Abraham to say, no, this is not what the Lord is really like. Surely he’s not truly asking me to do this. This is not the God I follow. I mean, he could have justified it any number of ways, if he chose to do so, but instead, he demonstrated that the depth of his faith, that when God called him to do this just as God had called him to do in any number of other things before, he said, I’ll go.

And he got up early in the morning and he went. So the story of Abraham ends much the way it began. The Lord calls and he goes.

5. Faith Brings Blessings; God Is the God of Life

And what we need to see in the end is that faith brings blessings. Sometimes the cost is great, but the reward is greater. Many psalm books don’t record the third verse that we sang this morning of He leadeth me. But it was in the one we sang this morning. It says, Lord, I would place my hand in thine, nor ever murmur nor repine. Content whatever lot I see, since ’tis my God that leadeth me. I love the thoughts of Paul and Philippians 4 that he can be content in whatever situation he finds himself in. That’s really the idea of I can do all things through him who strengthens me. It’s about contentment. That’s whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, we can be content in Christ. And this is the thought I want to leave you with this morning, and that is that God is the God of life, not death.

And I think Abraham knew some things about God as he went into this situation. I think it’s why the Hebrew writer reveals some of his thinking in Hebrews chapter 11. He knew God’s character. He knew God’s intentions. He knew that God loved him.

Loved him much like he loved his own son. And so God is the God of life. And none of this made sense to Abraham. They would ask him to kill his own son, and probably never fully made sense to him. We make a lot more sense of it now looking back from the New Testament and understanding what God did. But he knew God and he knew God’s nature, and he knew who God was through his life of experience and the faith that he had gained over time. And what we know is that though Jesus died on the cross, God raised him up. And though Jesus told us to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow him, to die to self and be alive to God.

Conclusion

Though God asks us to die in the waters of baptism, he raises us up in newness of life because he’s not a God of death. He’s a God of life. And if you are in death this morning, it’s time to truly live. If you’re part of the sons of disobedience who follow the spirit of the Prince of the power of the air, it’s time to get out of that. We talked about darkness in the Bible class this morning. That’s not where you want to be. Ignorance and darkness, not understanding that the true blessings of life. What Abraham experienced through the ups and the downs was the blessing of following God. And that’s what we want for you this morning. And if you’ve been living a life that is not a part of your claim to follow Christ, if you’re in one of those down moments, it’s time to get back on the upward trail.

And to begin again this life of faith, realizing the blessings that will come, if not in this life, in the life to come. Can we help you this morning? Why don’t you come now as we sing together?