Oh, crossing family, it is so good to be with you this
weekend. I want to welcome those of you
joining at our campuses, those of you watching online and
inside. Quick reminder, next weekend,
many of our locations are going to be having additional weekend
services, which means that it might affect your normal service
times. So make sure you find out when
those are. And as we always do, make sure
you're bringing somebody, you're parking far away, and if
possible, try to avoid the services that are going to be
packed at your location. For more insight into that, our
campus pastors will be able to inform you where they think the
the biggest group of people is going to be.
And if there's any way for you to continue to be evangelistic
to your friends and invite them and make usage of our other
services, we would greatly appreciate it.
Between all of our campuses, we're going to have 44 physical
services with six additional services online for a total of
50 weekend experience, which is crazy.
It's going to be a long 1 and I'm praying that this will be
the largest opportunity in the history of our church for people
to hear the life changing gospel of Jesus Christ.
I specifically if you want to join me, I've been praying that
over 16,000 people in our region will join us next weekend.
And so if you want to add that to your prayer list, I would
love it. Well, if you have, you have made
it officially to the not so official last weekend of the
sermon series. Next week, kind of for those who
will be joining our church for the first time or the first time
in a long time for our Easter services, it'll feel like an
elevated Easter weekend. I'm incredibly excited about the
sermon that I get to share with each and every single one of you
and what it'll mean for them. But this is kind of like some
inside information for you, which is why I'm so glad you're
here. For the last couple of years,
last three, I've been attacking Easter from the edges.
I did one on Zacchaeus which is an Easter E message.
We did the Power of the story Easter E message.
Then we did a real weird one if you remember the chasing shades
one where everything was yellow and I couldn't see for a week.
This year I am doing a full on up the middle Easter message
that will be a perfect message for everybody to hear no matter
where they are on their spiritual journey.
And for those of you who have gone through this sermon series
with us on Easter, it will feel like a culmination of absolutely
everything we've learned through this series.
And so I'm incredibly excited to preach it.
I wrote it a couple weeks back, and I've just got to preach all
these other sermons to get to the next one that I'm fired up
about. But today's message, today's
message dovetails very closely with where we left off from last
week's message. So if you missed last week's
message, I try to remind you guys this as often as I can.
There's all kinds of places that our team puts the sermon when
we, you know, after the weekend. And so if you miss and you
didn't catch it or you weren't watching online, you can go to
wherever those, you know, you can go to.
Yeah, whatever those are places are, you can go there and it'll,
you know, go to either of those three.
OK, let's stay off of Facebook, you crazy people.
All right, now, quick recap. God has made a promise multiple
times to Abraham and Sarah, this couple, that they would be the
father and mother of a nation, that their offspring would be as
numerous as the sands on the earth and the stars in the sky.
And there's only two problems. The 1st is that Sarah is barren.
She has had no children. And the second problem is that
they are old. How old?
Well, Abraham is 100, Sarah is 90.
Not a lot of pregnant people in that demographic.
And what I want to do today, before we jump any further into
the message, is I actually want to do something kind of special.
We want to find and honor a very incredible man and woman at our
church this weekend. So here's one way you do.
Stop listening to me for just a little bit.
Pull out your phone. Can't believe I'm saying this.
I want you to open up your crossing app.
And the very first message that you should find is for you to
tell us your birthday. I want you to go ahead, open it
up. This is for everybody.
Enter your birthday because there's a church.
We want to celebrate you every time it's your birthday, whether
you're young or not young. But more importantly, let me
tell you what my target on the wall is.
We want to find the oldest male and the oldest female in
attendance at the crossing this weekend.
Just like Abraham and Sarah made huge sacrifices for the
generations that would come after them, your commitment to
being a part of our church is probably the most beautiful
expression of one of our core values.
One of our core values as a church is downward.
For those of you who don't know what that is, is we will gladly
give up the things we love for a generation we love even more.
And by being a part of this church, you are modeling this
core value for the rest of us. And so we want to celebrate the
oldest male in attendance and the oldest female in attendance.
And here's our gift to you. You will get to walk right past
the line at your location to the very front.
And you will get a free drink from the coffee every week for
the rest of 2026 at our church. But you got to go through the
channels, all right? And then what our staff would
like to do at whatever location wins, they would like to make a
social media post with you and celebrate you because you mean
so much to the future of this church.
And so we want to honor you. So everybody young and old,
enter your birthday. And then if you need to help
those around you who might be less tech savvy, because I don't
want some 42 year old person to be the one who wins.
OK, so I'm trying to say, OK. And if you if you, if you're a
person who you haven't figured it out and it's a bit of a hill,
but you're going, I'm pretty sure I could be the winner.
Make sure you swing by our next step booth and they will help
you out if if you're having some tech problems.
All right, now back to Abraham and Sarah.
He's 100, she's 90. And from their perspective, God
was taking way too much time between when He made the promise
and when He kept the promise, from when He said the promise
and when He made good on the promise.
And so last week we learned that they took matters into their own
hands and in doing so made a mess of it.
However, eventually their long-awaited dreams came true
and Sarah gave birth to a son and she gave him the name Isaac.
For just a second. Feel the weight of this.
Decades of hoping, decades of waiting, decades of prayers,
decades of pain. Nobody has ever waited longer
for a child than Sarah waited for Isaac.
And in a moment it is all laid to rest as they hold the
fulfillment of that promise in their arms, their long-awaited
son. That's where we pick up in the
story Genesis 22 verse one. Sometime later, God tested
Abraham. He said to him, Abraham, here I
am, Abraham replied, Now this is messy because you just read that
and you went, hold on a second. God tests us.
Yeah, he does. Now, I don't want you to confuse
tempting and testing. Tempting occurs when Satan or
our flesh prompt us to sin. Testing occurs when God prompts
us to trust. Let me drill down on this for a
little bit. Scripture actually speaks to
this. If you were to go to the book of
James, later when you get home, there's James chapter 1 verses 2
and four, and James chapter 1, verses 13 and 15, and they
actually push this out. Let's look at it together.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever
you face trials of many kinds because you know that the
testing of your faith produces perseverance.
Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and
complete, not lacking anything. That is what testing does.
This is what tempting does. When tempted.
No one should say God is tempting me, for God cannot be
tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.
But each person that's you and me is tempted.
How when they are dragged away by their own evil desires and
enticed, then after desire has conceived it gives birth to sin,
and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death.
Testing leads to growth. Temptation leads to death.
Testing is from God, temptation is from Satan and from our
flesh. So what is this test for
Abraham? What do you think it's going to
be? Let me help prepare you.
I want you for just a second to think what is the thing that you
love the most, desire the most, cherish the most?
The thing the person that matters to you the most in the
whole world. This is not a time for you to
fake it and come up with some weak, silly Sunday school
answer. Be honest with yourself.
What is this thing? Because if you are honest about
what this thing is, this sermon will be an incredible blessing.
If you're not honest about what this thing is in your life, you
might miss the power of the moment we're on right now.
Maybe it's your marriage, or maybe it was your marriage and
you're like, Nope, not anymore. It's my kids.
Maybe it's your success. Maybe it's your reputation.
What's your thing? What do you think Abraham and
Sarah would have said if they were asked this question?
I think you know the answer. They would have said Isaac.
And in some ways that's not a bad answer, but it's the wrong
1. You see, for many of us, the
thing that you said is probably a good thing.
The thing that you thought of is probably a good thing.
Your marriage should matter. Your kids should matter.
Your reputation should matter. But if the thing you have is not
in the right place or in the right order, the good thing can
become a bad thing. So God tests Abraham Genesis
chapter 22 verse 2. Then God said take your son,
your only son whom you love. These words are highlighted
differently than all the rest. All impact that in a little bit
whom you love. Isaac, go to the region of
Moriah, sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain.
I will show you. I want you to hold on to those
words because it'll all make sense later on in the message.
They're Easter eggs. Well, yeah, they're Easter eggs
both figuratively and literally. Just hold on to those words.
Now, that being said, some of your going, Clayton, that verse
is a lot to take in. Yeah.
Did did God just tell Abraham to go and sacrifice his son?
Yeah. Did God just tell Abraham to
kill his son? Yeah.
And no. You got to wait till the end of
the sermon. It'll make more sense.
Here's what I mean. Yes.
And the fact that God is checking to see where God stands
in Abraham's life. Am I the thing that you hold on
to the most? Am I the most important thing,
or is it the thing that I've given you?
This is a test. And at the same time, as you'll
see by the end of the story, God was not asking him to kill his
son because as you'll see, God never had any intention of
Abraham to do this, as you'll see when the story unfolds.
In fact, you'll learn something about Abraham in this story that
will hopefully forever shape you and mold you as you grow in your
relationship with Jesus Christ. This is the test.
Do you love me more than your son?
God is asking Abraham the question, Am I first?
It's one thing to say that God's first in your life.
It's an altogether different thing to live like He is first
in your life. God has repeatedly commanded and
called His people to keep Him in the first place in their lives.
And as we said earlier, good things placed in the wrong spot
can become bad things or bad places for them to be.
Is God #1 in your life? Was He the answer to your
question that I asked at the beginning?
Is he number one in your life when it comes to your
priorities? Does he come first in your work
life, your home life, your parenting, your finances?
And if God is not first, the Bible says that we are
committing idolatry. That means that we are
worshipping something or someone other than God.
And when you're not worshipping God, bad things happen.
And so Abraham has just heard a hard thing from God.
And how does he respond? The very next verse, Genesis 22,
verse 3, 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. This is the very next verse.
Can I be honest with you? If we weren't reading about
Abraham and we were worried about Clayton, there'd be a lot
of verses between when God said for me to do something and me
getting around to doing it. Chapters books like who, how,
when is he ever going to do the thing that God asked him to do?
But look at all the activity in Abraham's life.
The very next verse, he got up early the next day, loaded the
donkey, cut the wood, took the servants and set out for the
place that God directed. One of the ways that you can
measure your spiritual maturity is how long does it take you
from God saying it to you doing it?
Because what that is an indicator of is your faith.
You see, the currency of the Kingdom of God is faith, and
faith is what happens when what you believe in your mind makes
it into your heart and manifests in your feet.
And a lot of Christians, quotation marks never get around
to their feet. And a faith that does not move
you does not save you. That's why when we do our
Discovery Bible studies as a church, we end with something to
do. Jesus is the one who says that
we are to not simply be hearers of the Word.
Hearers of the word is good, but we are to be doers of the Word.
What kind of comfort is it to your wife for you to go?
You know, listen, adultery is bad.
It is not ideal. I'm going to keep doing it.
Well, baby, that's does. I don't think you know what it's
not a good thing means. What good is it to your boss for
you to look at him and go? Listen, I need you to be honest.
I need you to know that me stealing is bad.
I also need you to know I'm going to keep doing it.
You'd go, that's a problem. That's a real problem.
And Jesus looks at us and goes, Hey, you, you want to understand
what faith is. Faith is not just saying that
you trust Jesus. Faith is actually trusting
Jesus. Faith is not finished until it
it's made its way to your feet, until you start doing the things
of God. And can we pause for just a
moment? There are some of you who have
been allowing too many verses about your life to be written
between when God said it and you started doing it.
There's some of you who know that for a while now God has
been calling you to make a decision for him, but you
haven't made it. My hope is that today you will
make the move that is long overdue.
Let's keep reading verses 4 through 5.
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 we will come back to you.
Right here we get a little bit of an insight, a snapshot into
the faith of Abraham. He believes something about God.
We are going to worship. I am going to be obedient to the
thing that God has called me to do, and we will come back to
you. For those of you who are nerds,
this is the first time worship actually shows up in all of
Scripture. A man going up a mountain to
sacrifice his son to be obedient to God.
And Abraham as he is going up this mountain says we will
worship and we will come back. And you and I know, but you're
going to do the sacrifice thing. Hold that for just a moment in
your spirit while we keep reading verses 6 through 8.
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and he placed it
on his son Isaac and Abraham himself carried the fire and the
knife. As the two of them went on
together, Isaac spoke up, said to his father Abraham.
Father yes, 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, Turn
to your neighbors, say provide the lamb for the burnt offering.
My son and the two of them went on together.
Isaac is no small boy. He is probably between the age
of 15 and 25. His father is between 115 and
125. And Isaac isn't doing algebra,
but he can do math. He's going up the mountain.
He's like the woods on my back. You have the fire, you have the
knife. But we are missing an important
part. We are missing a sacrifice, and
some of you who are Bible nerds and I, you're going to love this
sermon. If you're a Bible nerd, you're
already ahead of me. The sacrifice is the one
carrying the wood up the hill. Genesis 22, verse 9.
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. Pay close attention here.
Isaac is strong enough to carry the wood.
His father is not strong enough to overpower him.
So Isaac allows himself to be tied so he will not resist his
father's will. He is trusting his father in the
highest way possible. Verse 10 through 12 Then Abraham
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, Abraham replied.
Do not lay a hand on the boy, the Angel said.
Do not do anything to him now. I know that you fear God because
you have not withheld your son from or withheld from me, your
son, your only son. Remember when I said that God
had no plans for Isaac to die? He was testing Abraham to see if
Abraham had faith and Abraham passed the test.
Abraham was willing to let go of everything so he could
completely take hold of God. And you might be asking how did
Abraham do this? I'll tell you because Abraham
had faith. If you go all the way to the New
Testament, to the book of Hebrews, it gives us insight
into Abraham's faith. Hebrews Chapter 11, verses 17
through 19. 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 that your offspring will be reckoned.
Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead.
And so in a manner of speaking, he did receive Isaac back from
death. Abraham reasoned in his mind,
and it made its way to his feet. Abraham was willing to sacrifice
his son. You ready for this?
Because he believed that God could raise him back.
Why did Abraham believe that God could raise him back?
Because he had seen a barren womb that was dead come alive
again with his son. Why was he able to do this?
Hear me? Because faith is a muscle.
The more you use it, the stronger it becomes.
And what you will notice is that if you can trust God anywhere,
you can trust him everywhere. That's what happens with
Abraham. He realized that God could do on
a mighty amazing work in a dead, barren womb, and then it would
become alive again with a child. So he reasoned that even if he
were to sacrifice his son to that same God, that that same
God could bring his dead son back to life.
And some of you, that's where you're at today.
You need to connect some dots. You've seen God move in a way,
maybe it was in your life or the life of of a friend or somebody
close to you and you've seen God move there.
And what you need to realize, if you can trust God in that
situation, you can trust him in every situation.
Now this is where the story gets really, really good.
Verses 13 through 14 when Abraham looked up there in a
thicket, he saw a ram caught by its horns.
He went over, 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 mountain is Mount Moriah and there on Mount Moriah the Lord
will be will provide. And here we get another name, a
title for God, Jehovah Jireh. What it means is not just that
the Lord will provide, it carries with this, this idea
that God will see to it, turn to your neighbor and say God will
see to it. After church on the weekends, I
asked Jennifer, what are we going to have for our meal?
She's like, I'm on it. That means she's seeing to it.
And that means that I'm probably driving through somewhere.
That's what that actually means. That's I'm going, yeah.
Anyhow, I just want you to see the beauty of your God.
While Abraham was walking up one side of the mountain, God was
walking a ram up the other side. While Isaac was being bound, a
ram was being caught in the thicket.
The Lord, the Lord saw to it that there was a sacrifice.
And today you might be struggling to trust God, and I
just need you to hear me say this.
God will see to it that you have the necessary strength to
survive the struggle. Today you might be wondering, is
there enough grace to wash away your sins?
Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide.
He will see to it. You might be wondering if there
is enough forgiveness for your past.
Jehovah Jireh, the Lord, will see to it that everything that
you need for your sins to be forgiven will be there for you.
And how do I know this? How do I know this to be true?
OK, got to zoom in or you'll miss this.
If you go to Second Chronicles chapter 3.
Do you remember all those words that I said are highlighted
differently through this entire story?
Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem.
And where did he choose to build it?
On Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father
David. And it was on those very
foundation stones in Jerusalem that Jesus walked into that
temple, the temple where the sacrifices were made for the
sins of the people. It was there that the one and
only Son took the wood of the cross on his back, and the
sacrifice carried the wood. And on that day there was no ram
in the thicket, and there was no Angel that stopped the pain of
death, and he died, and he was the sacrifice that our sins
deserved. And on that mountain it is said
of the Lord Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide.
And what did he provide? All the grace and mercy that you
and I could ever want. And that is why this series is
called the same name, because it is the same God with the same
power, offering the same promise.
If you will receive it, and I hope you will, we're moving to a
time of decision. To those of you here today or
watching online that don't know Jesus, I need you to hear me say
this. God has provided a way for you
today. He has seen to it the doors are
open, the difference makers are in place, the water is warm, the
towels are folded, the clothes you need to change into are
labeled according to size, and the invitation is being made.
He has seen to it that there is no barrier, there is no excuse
for you to get right with him today and God is ready to
provide you with the forgiveness of your sins, the power of his
Holy Spirit, new life in him if you will receive it.
One of my all time favorite verses.
I have to be careful how often I use it because I mean, if I was
going to get a chest tap, this is it.
It would be it would be it would be hard to read because of how
God formed me, but it would be there if and if you and if
you're relatively new here you you, this is for you.
Romans 5/8. It is a Mount Rushmore verse.
This is what it says. But God demonstrates his own
love for us in this that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us. To put that in this story, while
your sin was walking up the mountain, so was his love.
That's how good he is. And listen, my wife loves me, my
kid loves. My kids love me, my friends love
me. Most of you love me.
But I have never experienced love like that.
Most of you love me because because I'm kind of nice,
because I'm kind of funny, because the sermon was kind of
good. It wasn't too long.
There's an awful lot of because's.
He is the only one who knows me at my worst and chose to be at
his best on my behalf. While my sin was walking up the
mountain, Jehovah Jireh was carrying the cross.
When I was at my worst, he was at my best.
And it is bananas to me that people could hear that week
after week at this church and walk out rejecting it.
But I will die proclaiming it. And if you get tired of hearing
it, you are getting tired of the gospel, because that should
shape everything about you. And so if you are here today and
you have never said yes to Jesus, don't wait till next
week. Today's a good day to get saved.
To the rest of you in here who have yet or who already have an
intimate personal relationship with Jesus, let me just put
three things in front of you for you to consider.
Is there a good thing in your life that's in a bad place?
Jehovah Gyra will provide you with the strength to reorder
your life. If there's a good thing in the
wrong place that needs to be moved so that God can be where
he was supposed to be, where he used to be in your life.
Today's a good day and the Lord will see to it.
He will answer that prayer. Maybe today you're a person who
there are too many verses being written between when God says it
and you get around to doing it. In fact, every single week at
this time, in every single service, you feel the exact same
tug to do the exact same thing. And you wonder why God doesn't
say anything different, why you keep feeling the same prompting,
why you keep having the same burden.
I'll tell you because God is not a woman who doesn't know what
she wants for dinner. God is very clear about what He
wants in your life, and so He is not going to change His mind.
He's not going to adjust what He has proclaimed over you.
And so He has said it and He will keep saying it and He will
keep revealing it and He will keep prompting it because He
knows it is for your good. How many verses, how many
chapters between when He says it and you get around to doing it?
And what I want to tell you is you might be scared about doing
that thing, but the Lord Jehovah Jireh will provide you with
everything you need to accomplish the thing He has
called you to accomplish. Would you stand with me?
Heavenly Father, You are abundantly good, and our hearts
cannot fully contain. How wonderful you have been on
our behalf. And so, Heavenly Father, would
you use this moment to strengthen us, to shape us, to
change us. In your name, I pray.
Amen.