Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
We are in this series of Genesis called Faith Begins, and I know
we're recognizing Mother's Day. It's an official holiday.
But what I want to know is if you celebrated what happened on
January 9th this year, January 9th is maybe not an official
holiday, but I want to know if you celebrated it.
It's called Quitters Day. Anybody ever heard of it?
Quitter's Day. It's not really an official
holiday, but the sad news is that there's so much statistical
evidence to what we do with our New Year's resolutions that data
analytics and therefore marketing has moved towards
calling January 9th Quitter's Day.
Because one out of 10, that's all that it is.
One out of 10 people that sets a New Year's resolution, actually
sees it through. And by January 9th, we already
know that stepping out is hard. And I, I believe when we step
out, whether it's New Year's resolutions or it's answering
the call of God like Abram, who we're going to be talking about
today, don't be confused if you hear Abram or Abraham.
It's the same man Pastor Tim introduced us to Abram last week
and we're going to pick up in his story.
But the reality is whether it's Quitters Day and New Year's
resolutions or it's Abraham stepping out in faith, it's not
always just the first step. That's hard.
How many agree with that? It's the subsequent steps that
are just as hard as the first leap.
And so today, what we're going to be talking about are the
steps that follow stepping out. And today's message is entitled
Faith as sight. But today, even though we're
talking about stepping out, we're not going to be talking
about your feet. We're going to be talking about
our eyes. And so as we pick up right where
Pastor Tim left off, we're going to pick up with the man named
Abraham. And in order to do that, you're
going to need your Bible. So if you've got your Bible, go
ahead and get it ready and turn to Genesis 22.
Genesis 22 if you need a Bible, you already heard me say this
house is built upon this word of God.
If you don't have one, we want to put one in your hands.
Raise your hand right now. And our ushers are going to
bring you a Bible, and it can be your very own.
It can be yours to take. It can be yours to use.
Today we want you to have the Word of God in your hands when
you receive it. Go ahead and open the very first
book of the Bible, Genesis, Mark, Genesis 22.
We got one more right here in the middle.
What we're going to do today is cover a lot of chapters in
Genesis, but the first ten that we're going to cover is going to
be like 30,000 feet flying in an airplane.
So I'm going to point out a few things along the way.
And we're going to land in Genesis 22 together.
We're going to read verses one through 14 so you can hold that
spot, Genesis 22, and you will be ready when we get there.
Everybody ready? Lord, we ask you to do what only
you you can do, which is to take your living, active Word of God,
highlight, illuminate, activate your word in us, your personal
revelatory word to every person. You amaze us.
We adore you and we want to hear from you today.
So take over my mouth, use my body.
You made it, it's yours, delivered to us by your Spirit
in Jesus name, Amen. So in Genesis 12, one we hear
the beginning of Abraham's story.
God says you're going to leave your father, your nation, your
land. And he says go and Abraham goes,
which is really incredible. But just like us with our goals
on January 1st, we're going to have to see did Abraham make it
past Quitters Day? Right.
As we're going to see in Abraham, we also see in
ourselves what happens between the encounters with God that get
our feet moving can sometimes cause us to detour from the
plan. Can I get an Amen?
So what happens when we step out and it doesn't go the way that
we expect? If you were here last week,
Pastor Tim showed us a map. I think we can get it put up
about Abraham and his journey. And you see steps 1-2 and three
are Abraham following God. But by the time we get to step
#4 Abraham's got some problems. There's a famine in the land.
And nowhere in Scripture does it tell us that God sent Abram to
Egypt. But Abram saw a problem, a
physical famine, and he said, I think I'm going to go to Egypt
and get some help. So what we need to know is #4 on
this map is actually Egypt was a detour due to doubt.
And I am so glad, I think you would agree that my every faith
step and my every doubt detour is not published for all of you
to read for perpetuity, right? So as we're reading Genesis,
we're going to see Abram take a lot of faith steps.
We're also going to see him take a lot of detours.
And as we read these, you have to keep in mind that we're
covering it. We could probably read, if you
sat down and dedicated the time, you could read all the chapters
about Abram in the Bible in about 45 minutes, but it's
covering 175 years of his life. So in order to get this and to
really understand the richness of the word of God, we've got a
timeline together that we're going to work with today.
It's going to help us follow along and figure out what
happens between the encounters and the doubts for Abraham and
how does it relate to us. So in this timeline, you see,
Abram didn't even step out until he was 75.
Is this good news for anyone here wondering if you're too
old, if you've missed your purpose, if you've missed the
call of God on your life? Definitively, the answer is no.
So at 75, Abram steps out, and we already said that at around
77 he's taking his first detour on the way to Egypt.
But at around 82, we see Abram encountering God again.
So what happened between the detour and the encounter?
What is God up to in Abram's life that we can learn from?
I believe God did two things here and again and again for
Abram and for us to get us back on track #1 he restored his
sight. He did not tell him move your
feet. He didn't say go and keep going.
He restored his sight. And #2 he revealed more of the
promise to keep Abraham moving on the journey of faith that God
called him to do. He restored his sight and he
revealed more of the promise. We see this in Genesis 13 verses
14 through 17. Listen to the language of God's
conversation with Abraham. Now lift up your eyes and look
from the place where you are, northward and southward,
eastward and westward, for all the land which you see.
I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.
And we're going to get some clues about how big this promise
is. In verse 16, I will make your
descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can
number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also
be numbered. How many have ever tried to hold
sand and count it or dust in your hand?
What is God saying here? He is saying what I am revealing
to you in this promise is bigger than you can imagine, and it's
going to be more impactful than you could ever dream or
understand. He's showing him sight with his
eyes and he's revealing more of the promise.
And then he says, arise, walk about the land through its
length and breadth, for I will give it to you.
God is training Abram's sight to the promise, and because of his
journey to this point, because he said yes at #1 two and three
and came back from the detour, he's now physically, I mean,
geographically close enough for God to say, look at that land.
So sometimes our next step cannot come until we take 2-3
and four. And as he's standing there, God
says, look at that land. And he tells them within this
promise, there are two important things.
It's going to involve land and it's going to involve
descendants. Amazing.
But there's a problem. Abram has no land and he has no
children. So we immediately have a big
problem for Abram, but it's not a problem for God.
Isn't that good news? So if we go back to our timeline
in Genesis 15 five, we are going to see there at 82 that God is
restoring the promise. So what does he do?
He restores his sight and he reminds him of the promise.
Genesis 15 five says this time God took him outside and said,
now look, is it about his feet? Say no.
Is it about his eyes? Yes, God said.
Now look toward the heavens this time and count the stars if
you're able to count them. And he said to him, so shall
your descendants be. God is up to something big, and
he is training Abraham's eyes to the right sight.
The promise is clear. But guess what?
Sarai is still barren. There's still no children.
And so the problem is persisting.
And this is where we have to get real with ourselves.
What do we do when the promise is clear?
What if the Word of God is clear, but the problems we face
persist? Have you ever felt like you've
heard Jesus said, My yoke is easy and my burden is light, and
I came to give you abundant life.
And you look at your life and you say, but I feel heavy,
burdened, broken, lonely, lost. It's not abundant.
The promise is there, but the problem is there too.
What about this promise? God says you are a new creation.
The old is gone, the new has come.
But I'm living out my life and I realize I got the same mouth and
my motives are still really off. So I see the promise, but I also
know the problems. What about when you read Psalm
23 and you read that God is your shepherd?
Jesus causes you to lie down and rest.
How do you rest? Because your provision is
completely in him. That's the promise.
But we look at the problem and we say, well, God's not doing it
fast enough. So I'm going to work and I'm
going to strive and I'm going to do and I'm going to provide, and
all of a sudden there is no rest.
What do we do when the promise is clear but the problem
persists? Sarah and Abram, you know what
they did, They took a detour. If we go back to our timeline,
we're going to see that Sarah and Abram said God, you're
taking too long. And in Genesis 16, one it says
Sarah Abrams wife had borne him no children.
That's a big problem. And she had an Egyptian maid
whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram.
Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing
children, so please go into my maid.
Perhaps I will have a child through her.
There's a detour going on, right?
The promise is clear, but the problem gets too big, and so
Abram and Sarai decide to take it into their own hands.
Sarah and Abram did what I call the Hagard it.
Now I know it's not a verb, but the more the Word of God lives
in me, the more it activates in my life.
That if I'm going about something and I realize I am
waiting on God, that I have to be sensitive to the fact that I
could easily detour, right? I could Hagar it, I could do it
my own way, but that is not what God had in mind.
So when the problem got too big, too real, Abram and Sarai
detoured from the promise. Why do we do this?
Why do we wrestle out of God's hand, or try to wrestle out of
God's hand the very promise that our covenant keeping God has
already provided for? It's human nature, right?
When we're living of our own understanding, we believe that
to produce what we believe is necessary for life and success,
we have to take things our own way.
And we try to bypass God's process, His timing, and His
provision. We let the problems eclipse the
promise, and this is exactly what happened to Abram.
If we go back to our timeline, we see that at 86 years old,
there's a big detour. There is a sun born, but it's
not the sun born through Sarah. It's Ishmael, the sun born
outside the promise. So what was it that Abram and
Sarai were seeing? Where were their eyes looking?
They saw their aging bodies. Did I tell you that?
They were in their 80s, right? They're looking at their aging
body and they're saying the window of opportunity is
closing, and now they have a whole new problem.
Through Ishmael an entire rival nation and rival son is born.
Through the detour we cause way more problems that then we have
to deal with. Can I get an Amen?
So what was it that God was promising?
He was promising descendants. And what did God see?
He saw a divine setup. If we go back to our timeline we
can go from 86 to 99 years old. How many people think 13 years
is a long time? Come on y'all, are you there?
13 years is a long time and in that waiting what happened to
Abram? Well at 99 he had an encounter
with God and the Lord does 2 things.
You know what they are. He restored his sight and he
adds to the promise. Genesis 1715 It says then God
said to Abraham, As for Sarah your wife, you shall not call
her Sarah, but Sarah shall be her name and I will bless her,
and indeed I will give you a son by her.
Then I will bless her and she will be a mother of nations,
kings of peoples will come from her.
So the first part of the promise is your descendants are like the
dust. There are as many as the count
of the stars in the sky. And this time he's saying not
only is it you, Abraham, it's Sarah.
And I'm going to make her a mother of nations and kings are
going to come from her. How many kids do you have to
have in order for that to come true?
A lot. How many kids does Sarah have at
this point? Say it loud.
OK. Is anybody ready to blame
Abraham and Sarah at this point for staring at their 90 plus
year old body and having some doubts?
Is anybody feeling like Abraham and Sarah got nothing to worry
about? No, but if we look at this
timeline, if we look at it again, you see all of the
encounters and the detours, The encounters and the detours, The
encounters and the detours. Isn't that just like us in the
waiting seasons? Aren't we so prone to detour?
But do you think it's possible that God could change something
so that we could move from encounter to encounter to
encounter to encounter on this
faith filled journey and skip the detours all together?
If that were possible, would you want it?
How many people have lived the pain of detour enough that you
don't want to do the detours anymore?
If you believe that, raise your hand because the rest of the
promise is about to unfold. Because beyond the aging body
and the impossible situation that is going on for Abraham and
Sarah, there is a giant arrow over all of this story pointing
all of creation to the coming Messiah.
An anointed time. There is an announced time for
this child to be born and there is an appointed time.
Does this sound familiar? There's a specific mother.
It has to come through Sarah, and it has to come in a
miraculous way. Why?
Because the giant arrow on Abraham and Sarah's life is
pointing to another miraculous birth and another appointed
mother, Mary, the mother of Jesus and her cousin Elizabeth.
If you remember anything about Elizabeth, Elizabeth was also
well along in her years beyond childbearing years.
And there's another miraculous birth.
There's another mother, another method, and another way that is
pointing to the miraculous way of Jesus.
And when Mary received her news about what would come in her
body, that would require more faith than any human had ever
been required. She need to look only to her
cousin Elizabeth who was in her 90s bearing pregnant body signs
with a baby moving inside of her.
Because God was pointing from Abraham and Sarah to Mary and
Elizabeth to the Messiah Jesus. And So what do we learn if God
could solve the biggest problem, the chasm of us separated from
God due to sin through Jesus Christ, What problem can He not
solve in your life? God is a God who solves big
problems, and we're going to see this ultimately in Jesus.
And for right now, let's go back to Abraham and his promise.
Let's go back to our timeline. We're picking up now and we have
Abraham at 100 years old and at 100 years old we see God come
through in Genesis 21 one. Then the Lord took note of Sarah
as he had promised, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had
promised. Are we getting the message?
So, as he had promised, God came through in every way.
Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had
spoken to him, and Abraham called the name of his son who
was born to him, whom Sarah born to him.
Do you love the intentionality of Scripture?
Do you love the intentionality of Scripture inspired by the
Holy Spirit? It doesn't just say Abraham got
the right son. It says it was Sarah that did
it. It was the promise of God that
did it. Let us not miss this miracle.
In fact, I don't know why you're not rejoicing right now.
You should be standing to your feet.
I'm asking you right now, let's stand to your feet.
We're actually going to have a dance break.
Come on. You can do this.
You can do it. You can do it.
Come on. 100 years, 100. Come on.
You're not dancing. I don't know what this is, but
do it. Yeah.
Let's just praise the Lord. Right arm, left arm, Father.
Yeah, OK, that was fun, wasn't it?
That's a shameless plug for VBS. You can serve on the team.
You can bring your kids. You can invite your neighbors.
But in all seriousness, you might know that song because
someone taught it to you as a child, right?
The truth and the richness of the word of God is in that song,
that God fulfilled his promise. And I hope you love that song
because it's going to be stuck in your head like for a while.
But I also love that it's timeless.
I also love that it transcends cultures.
I love that God is building a multicultural family here.
And I hope you heard something in your own language today, if
English is not your first language.
Because we celebrate what God is doing.
We celebrate because this is a long-awaited son of promise.
And if we go back to our timeline, let's take a look at
Abraham's life. You see all the encounters and
you see all the detours. Most of what I'm going to say is
not even filled in to the detail that what I'm about to say.
But you need to listen and watch that timeline.
Because Abraham, the same man that detoured to Egypt away from
the targeted destination in the land of Canaan that lied about
his wife 2 times saying she was his sister because he was
afraid. The same man that birthed an
illegitimate air, that birthed A rival nation, who tried to
accomplish the mission his own way, is the same man who left
when God told him to go, who fell on his face and asked God
to redirect him, who returned to the altar where he had met with
God. He is the same man that knew
God's holiness, that carried by faith through all generations
the redemption to our Messiah. This is the same man, and all
along we see God. Don't you see God revealing,
restoring, reminding, redirecting, getting Abraham
back on course? So when we look at the sum total
of the Bible, what does the Bible record about Abraham?
In Genesis 15-6 we read these treasured words.
Abram believed the Lord and it was credited to him as
righteousness, the righteousness that we enjoy now because we
know about Jesus. Abram enjoyed because of his
faith that Jesus would come. Galatians 39 says though.
So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham.
And look at these last two words.
The believer. Does Scripture record a
remembrance of the up and down journeys of Abraham?
No, it says Abraham was the believer.
Isn't this great news for all of us stepping out in faith and
following Jesus? The sum total of Abraham's life
wasn't his failures, it was his faith.
And this is this is the same good news that we have.
But Abraham is about to face the biggest test of his life.
So if the 100 years and the waiting between 75 and 100 were
not a challenge enough, we're about to land in our tarmac
place today in Scripture, in Genesis 22.
If you have your Bibles open, will you join me there?
We're going to read verses one through 14 together and we're
going to walk with Abraham through this test verse one.
It says now it came about after these things that God tested
Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am.
And God said, take now your son, your only son whom you love,
Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a
burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell
you. Do you hear the like record
screeching off the track? This is the sun that I waited 25
years to have. This is the son of which the
promise is coming through. And maybe you're here today
meeting God, and you're very early on in your relationship,
and you're like, could someone please notify me if this God
we're following requires human sacrifice, Right?
That's a genuine question. If you read this passage in
isolation, you might question the character of God.
It's why we have to read the whole.
Because when you read the whole Bible, you see that God detests
any child, adult human sacrifice.
In fact, he spends so much time talking about how wrong it is,
how detestable it is, and tries to eliminate it.
So no, this is not a normal situation.
Something else is going on here. You also need to know at this
point, Isaac's not a little kid. Scholars estimate it's a big
range, but somewhere between 15 and 37 years old.
So it's not like he's a little boy that's just along for the
ride. This is a man, I've got a 13
year old, he could take me. And Abraham is 115 years old.
So keep that in mind as we read, picking up in verse 3.
So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey,
took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son, and he
split wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to
the place of which God had told him.
At this point we should be asking ourselves, how in the
world is Abraham doing this? How is he obeying in this
direction? I believe that Abraham is now
flexing a muscle that God has been developing in him all of
these years. All the detours, all the
encounters, all the miracles that God has fulfilled have been
developing in Abraham an ability to see anew.
And I would say it this way, his sight has changed.
On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes.
Do you hear the language? But this time it's not God
telling him to look. It's Abraham doing it on his
own. He raised his eyes and he saw
the place from a distance. He saw the problem, right.
There's a mountain climb. I've got to do something I don't
understand. He saw the problem.
But in verse 5, we learned that Abraham said to his young men,
stay here with the donkey and I and the lad will go over there.
We will worship and return to you.
Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on
Isaac, his son. And he took in his hand the fire
and the knife. And so the two of them walked on
together. Verse 7, Isaac spoke to Abraham
his father, and said, my father. And he said, here I am my son.
And he said, behold the fire and the wood.
But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
If you're a parent, you know kids ask some hard questions,
right? Where do babies come from?
Oh, I'd love to answer that one. My personal favorite.
Every day from about 8:00 AM through about 5:00 PM.
What's for dinner, What's for dinner, What's for dinner,
What's for dinner, What's for dinner?
Did I tell you I have a 13 year old?
He eats 5 dinners between 4:00 and 10:00.
So it's what's for dinner now what's for 2nd dinner?
What's for 3rd dinner? Right.
And the tried and tested true. Why why, why, why, why?
Kids ask us some hard questions, but I don't think anything I've
ever been asked has compared to what Isaac is now asking
Abraham. Dad, I see what's going on.
I know what's supposed to happen up there.
I see the fire and I see the knife, but where's the lamb?
Parenting questions, verse 8. Abraham said God will provide
for himself the lamb, for the burnt offering, my son.
So the two of them walked on together.
You see, the confidence that Abraham gives Isaac in the way
that he's leading him to the top of the mountain is not
deception, it's faith. He says, we will go up and we
will come down, and God will provide.
Verse 9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him,
and Abraham built the altar there, arranged the wood, and
bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.
Abraham stretched out his hand, took the knife to slay his son,
But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said,
Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here I am, He said,
do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing
to him for now. I know that you fear God, since
you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.
Then Abraham raised his eyes. Here it is again.
It's all about his sight. He raised his eyes, and you know
what he saw when he looked? He saw a ram caught in a thicket
by his thorns horns, and Abraham went and took the ram, offered
him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son, and
Abraham called the name of the that place the Lord will
provide, as it is said to this day.
In the mount of the Lord, it will be provided.
If you've ever heard someone say Jehovah Jireh or heard someone
sing the song called Jehovah Jireh, my provider, this is
where that name of God comes from.
You know, there are some names that God says, this is who I am.
And then there are some names where people have a real living
encounter with God and they say, this is who you are.
Do you understand the depths of those words?
Jehovah Jireh, You are my provider as the knife was raised
over his Son, God provided. If you don't believe, God can
provide in the very most critical moments.
Let this speak to you. Jehovah Jireh is who met Abraham
on that day, and there was an act of faith and obedience
required by Abraham to choose to see by faith what his natural
eyes could not see. But the good news is that God
had been training him, developing him all along.
And here's the training. And this is for us today.
We have to move from this posture.
I fit my circumstances together to form my understanding of God.
This is Abram. When there's a famine.
Oh, God's not coming through. I better go over here, right?
God's not providing. He's not good.
But where we see Abram on the mount of Moriah is that he has
learned instead this I agree with who God says he is and what
he says he will do. And from there, I understand my
circumstances. So we move from all of this.
Yuck informs who God is to God is unchanging, everlasting.
I can count on him. He's my provider, He's my
healer, my savior, He's my rescuer.
So no matter what's going on down here, I've got to see this
above this, right? Because what we believe directs
our actions. And the truth about this test is
that this test is both for Abraham and it's for us.
For Abraham, he was tested to let what is truly in him come to
full strength. It's like when you're weight
lifting and you're lifting maybe 80 lbs again and again and
again, and somebody says, what's your Max Rep?
You can't do 100 and 1550 times if you can only do 80 once,
right? But a Max Rep, this is what's
tested inside of Abraham's face. All of the things he had been
doing leading up till now is now being applied to this incredibly
impossible task. And on verse 4, we see that
Abraham, remember he raised his eyes and he saw the place from a
distance. And when he looked up with his
natural eyes, he saw the spot, the climb and the destination.
But only with this spiritual sight could he say, we will go
up, we will come down. And not only that, but get this,
he says to Isaac, whatever takes place up on that, that mountain
is going to be an act of worship.
He says whatever God is going to do up there is going to be an
act of worship. This is faith as sight to see.
What we can't actually see, we see it by faith.
And this act of faith, remember I said there was a giant arrow
pointing to Jesus? We're about to unpack that
because there are three and there's probably more.
Three. We're going to highlight today 3
intentional things God is doing in this moment, thousands of
years before Jesus comes on the scene.
And part of this is to point us to the validity of Jesus when he
actually shows up #1 the location God said go to Mount
Moriah. At that time there was nothing
there other than mountain, but today that's the site of the
Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the sacrificial system was
carried out in the Temple period of the Jews.
The very site that Abraham took Isaac on the Mount of Moriah is
where now the Dome of the Rock on top of the Jerusalem Temple
where all the sacrifices took place.
That's incredible #2 the method. Isaac carries the wood, just
like Jesus. Isaac is said again and again,
the one and only Son, just like who say loud.
So the location, the method, there's no coincidence here.
And finally #3 the provision. God provides the atoning
sacrifice via the ram caught in the thicket of thorns, just like
the crown of thorns that will be placed on Jesus head.
God did provide, we know it. He provided his one and only son
and when it came to Jesus, there wasn't anyone else that could
stand in his place. He fulfilled, God fulfilled the
once and for all sacrifice for the salvation of our souls to
restore us to relationship with God.
So if I could tell you one thing that we learned from Abraham in
all of this, it's this. All of our lives, all of your
life, is intended to build your faith.
Train your muscles so that the life you live points people
directly to the gospel of Jesus. Your entire life, every test,
every encounter, even every detour and correction, every
faith building, it is for your life to be lived in such a way
that your life points directly to the gospel of Jesus.
That's what Abraham did on the Mount of Moriah.
So how did he do this? Because this is what we've got
to learn as we close today. If you'll turn to Hebrews
Chapter 11, if you've got your Bible, we're going to go to
Hebrews Chapter 11. This chapter of Hebrews is
called the Hall of Faith. Everybody say Hall of Faith, and
what you read, if you read this chapter in entirety, is you read
by faith. So and so did this, by faith so
and so did this by faith So and so did this.
And it's like this visual retelling that the baton of
faith must have passed through all of these people in order to
keep it going. And the end of Hebrews Chapter
11 says everything that everybody's been waiting on that
promise. It's not going to be fulfilled
until we're all together. You know, Abraham didn't see the
land and the descendants. He didn't.
He was part of the promise. He wasn't the fulfillment, but
God is saving for us when we all come together, the final
fulfillment of all of his promises.
But in Hebrews Chapter 11, we learn how Abraham did this.
And if we start in verse 8, it says by faith, Abraham, when
called to go to a place he would later receive as his
inheritance, he obeyed and went, even though he did not know
where he was going. By faith he made us home in the
promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.
He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with
him of the same promise. And here is the site, verse 10.
For he was looking forward to the city with foundations whose
architect and builder is God. What city is he talking about?
Is he talking about Jerusalem? No, he's not any longer talking
about an earthly geographical city.
He's talking about what Abraham could see was the Kingdom of
heaven coming to earth, and he was able to fit everything he
was doing under the truth of God and not the other way around.
By faith. This is what Abraham did.
Abraham learned to fix his eyes on whatever God was building.
He no longer saw the problems. He had learned to see the
promise. The same happened for Sarah
verse 11. By faith even Sarah herself
received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of
life, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good, as
dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of
heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is
by the seashore. You know all those descendants?
That's us. Did you know you're the sand,
you're the stars, you're the recipient?
If you're following Jesus and He's your Savior, you've been
grafted in to the family tree. You are a child of Father
Abraham. This is good news.
So my question to you today is, what are you looking at and
saying that's as good as dead? What promise are you discounting
giving up on? Detouring and saying no, that's
dead. Healing joy, I'll never have
that again. Financial freedom, I'll never
have that again. I don't think God could save me
or love me. You don't know what I've done.
What are you calling as good as dead that God is saying let me
resurrect it because by faith. Verse 17 says when Abraham was
tested, he offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises
was offering up his only begotten son.
Does that sound familiar? It was he to whom it was said in
Isaac your descendant shall be called.
And verse 19 gives us the key. Abraham considered that God is
able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also
received him back as a type. When Abraham went to the top of
the mountain willing to sacrifice his son, he believed
that the promise had to come through Isaac.
So if God was going to require him to die, he must be about to
resurrect him because the promise is coming through him,
because the promise was bigger than the problem.
He reasoned under the banner of God's complete reliability and
goodness. And here's the message for us
today. As you sit here today, we've all
got promises and we've all got problems.
Amen. But whatever part gets more
attention is up to us. We have constant choices every
day to see it this way. The promise is bigger than the
problem. Or we can see it this way, the
problems. We're bigger than the promise,
but it's up to us. Because you see, faith starts
when we step out, but it's sustained as we abide.
And the advantage that we have over Abraham is we don't go from
86 to 99 to have an encounter with God.
You have the indwelling power and presence of the Holy Spirit,
and this is what God is offering you.
He wants to close the gaps in your encounters with Him and
leave no room for doubt. Let me say that again.
He wants to close the gaps by living a day-to-day relationship
with you in such a way that you're encountering him.
And the thing that we call that here at Illuminate Church is
called lifesteps. Everybody say lifesteps in life
steps. We don't invite you to love the
church. We teach you how to follow Jesus
in a way that your steps get synced up every day.
Your steps get synced up with the Spirit.
It's what Galatians said in 525. Since we live by the Spirit, let
us keep in step with the Spirit. If you're going to step out with
God, you can do it on your own, or you can sync up with the
Spirit, close the gaps, leave no room for doubt, and live a faith
filled encounter to encounter. Encounter him in the Word.
Encounter Him in worship. Encounter him here on Sunday.
Encounter Him at home. Encounter Him around your dining
table. Encounter Him on a walk in
creation. Encounter Him with the Word
living inside of you. Because what we're inviting you
to do is to transform whatever relationship you've got right
now to a day-to-day relationship that transforms you to take the
mountain climb in obedience instead of the detour.
The kind of faith building relationship that comes from
constant nearness to God that actually becomes what Isaiah 41,
eight says about God and Abraham.
At the end of Isaiah 41 and verse 8 it says that Israel is a
descendant of Abraham. But the important part of the
last two words, will you say it was it say my friend, did you
know God is not a legalistic distant, follow the rules or
don't hang out with me God. I used to believe that I used to
literally get offended when we were on the worship team about
20 years ago in our church in Ocala.
I got offended when we sang a song that called us the friend
of God. And I thought how in the world
that's so offensive, we're nowhere near worthy to be
friends with God until God transformed my legalistic
performance based heart and said, hey, would you be my
friend? It's pretty enjoyable.
And once I started experiencing it, now all I want to do is make
sure you have it because Abraham had a friendship with God.
And here is how I would love to close.
By the time Abraham boldly marches up to the mountaintop in
faith, did you notice he was able to lead his son there?
That's what we mean in life steps when we say you meet with
God, you discover who you are in Christ, you become like Him, and
you lead others to do the same. Abram took the first step in
faith, but then he passed the baton to Isaac, who passed the
baton to Jacob, who passed the baton to you and to me.
And today we are the people of faith and we have a race to run.
In Hebrews chapter 12, we read these closing verses.
The admonition is to say, therefore, since we have such a
great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay
aside every encumbrance, the sin that so easily entangles us.
Those are the detours, and here's the invitation to you and
to me. Let us run with endurance the
race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the
Author and Perfector of faith, who for the joy set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame, has sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God. And consider Him who has endured
such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you and
I will not grow weary and detour and lose heart.
We have a race to run. We have a friendship with God.
And so the two invitations I have for you today as we close
is, if you don't know Him yet as Savior, why wait another day?
If you've believed the pain has been at the hand of a God that
you can't trust, I want you to see if the Holy Spirit would
introduce you to the true heart of the Father.
It doesn't mean your pain isn't real.
It means God is. Thanks for joining us today.
We hope God is speaking to your heart through this message.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can text connect to
407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot church.
Have a great week.