1.  Perhaps the most fundamental figure of the New Testament is in the Old Testament – and he is not even a Jew but a Gentile. It is Abraham, the father of all who believe by faith. I say not a Jew because until he is almost 100 years old he is not circumcised and, as you know, that is the mark of a true Jew. So, this non-Jew is not only the father of all who come by faith but he is the father of all Jews.

There are several stories that illustrate Abraham’s faith and this morning we are going to look at the second. The first is in Genesis 15 where God appears to Abraham and responds to Abraham’s question of inheritance. He is afraid he will die without an heir and everything will pass to a servant in his household – Eliezer of Damascus. We all know God’s response. He showed him the stars in the sky and said, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed The Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. That is most of Paul’s argument in Romans and Galatians that those of us who come to Christ by faith are Abraham’s heirs just as surely as those who are his Jewish descendants. We are grafted on to the root but we are part of Abraham’s seed and inheritance. Abraham’s righteousness is ours – not by works but by faith. Abraham did nothing to show his faith. He simply believed.

Paul puts it this way in Romans 4. “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations. He did not waiver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised.”

Out of that faith of a Gentile comes the whole Jewish story and, ultimately, the Gospel. So, in a sense, the roots of our faith are as much Gentile as they are Jewish.

2.  There is another story that is even more familiar. In fact, it is easy to forget the promise of righteousness by faith is grounded in Genesis 15 instead of Genesis 22 because the test of faith is here. However, if this story is the source of Abraham’s faith then it is based on something he did and not something he received. So, this story is not about the origin of the faith of Abraham. It is about the test of that faith and righteousness.

Paul does not even mention this second story as evidence of faith. As horrible as the challenge of his faith is, it is not the story that Paul uses to make Abraham the father of all who believe. This is the test of faith and not the origin of faith.

The very first verse makes it clear that this is a test of Abraham’s faith. We don’t have to discern that on our own. God tests Abraham.

As horrible as this test will be, it is important not to see this as temptation or torture. There is a difference. A temptation is an attempt to take someone out of a relationship with God and a test is to see how deep that relationship is. A temptation comes at the beginning of a process to lead someone to make bad choices. A test comes at the end of the process of teaching. Think about when you had tests in school. Did they come at the beginning or at the end of the course? The purpose of a test is to see how successfully you have learned. The purpose of a temptation is to keep you from learning in the first place – to skip the learning entirely.

In graduate school I took several courses that had only one test – at the end of the course. There were no quizzes or mid-terms – just one test that measured everything. Not only were the assigned books part of the final but notes from class that you could only get from being there. In a real sense the test at the end helped you resist the temptation to skip class.

This is not a tribulation. Trials and tribulations come to all of us as a consequence of being alive.

It is not God teaching Abraham something but testing for what he had already believed. Is it real? Is it strong enough to endure not just for his lifetime but for generations into the future? The test comes toward the end of his life – not at the beginning. It is not God “teaching me something” but God is seeing what he has learned. Tests don’t teach. They examine…and often our biggest tests come later in life at the end of the course. It is not just God seeing what we’ve learned but our seeing it as well.

3.  It begins with Abraham responding to God just as you would expect from someone who had learned to trust God over the course of his life. When God called him to pick up and move without any information about where he was going he did that. His life had been one of following God into the unknown. So, when God calls him, Abraham responds with the word “heneni” which means: You have my undivided attention and I am ready to do whatever you say even before I hear what it is. “Heneni” means I am yours to command. It’s not just a statement of presence but a statement of intent. I am fully here. Fully ready. Fully yours. It is the way Stonewall Jackson signed his letters to Robert E. Lee: “Yours to count on”.

And then the awful command. Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.

Of course, the conflict is made even worse when Abraham responds in just the same way to Isaac with the exact same word. Yours to count on with God and yours to count on with Isaac. I am devoted to you both.

Do you remember how Abraham argued for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? He reasoned with God there – but not here. There is nothing but silence in the face of the incomprehensible. Everything God is asking contradicts everything I believe about you. There is no frame of reference for this. This is before the Law. There are no priests to consult. There are no books to read. There is no religious tradition or even other examples of faith to follow. There was no doctrine or systematic theology. This is everything pared down to only one thing – a relationship with God who has promised him a future through this child. The promised stars are gone and the sky is black.

For us, that would have been an unbearable night but there is nothing of that here in the passage. There is no dark night of the soul. No struggle. No crying out in protest. No anger or resentment. No wrestling with an angel. None of the agony of Gethsemane. It is just silence and then obedience. It is an act of the will in the face of a conflict so great that only God can resolve it.

Had this been written today the main emphasis would have been on Abraham’s struggle. It would have been about Abraham and Isaac and how they deal with an impossible choice. But, it’s not.

Everything in me says this is wrong and yet I know the voice of God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced a milder form of this in having to deny his pacifism and join in the plot against Hitler. Everything he believed about God’s love he was willing to risk. He was even willing to risk his eternal soul for it. This is not a rational problem to be solved. It’s not a theological Rubik’s cube. It is stepping out fully aware of the consequences.

Jewish survival is shaped by this story all through history. This is not a God we are prepared to meet. Our God is not capable of such a demand and we are not capable of such trust. We want the abundant life and a God who would ask for such a sacrifice could not love us.

Abraham could not know the outcome of his obedience but he knew it was necessary. In the same way, our obedience is not just about us – but about generations to come. Things that we cannot see are affected by the smallest acts of obedience on our part.

4.  “He looked up and saw the place in the distance.” In a sense, that is the mark of Abraham’s life. He could always see in the distance in spite of the present circumstances. He could see what no one else saw. That’s how he is described in Hebrews, isn’t it? He welcomed the future from a distance. He was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. He could see what no one else could at the time. There are people like that and our lives are enriched by them. They are not fortune tellers who predict the future. They are people who see things we cannot.

Steve Dement. Seeing the lights in the windows for a school that had not been built.

George Gilder. Belief in the unimaginable and the unpredictable happening all the time.

They are not merely optimists. They are visionaries.

Abraham looked through the present all the way to the unimaginable. What does he say to his servants? WE will worship and return. In spite of the seeming inevitability of the death of his son and his future and the promise of God, he saw something he could never have explained to the servants. What did he see? What does it say in Hebrews 11:19? “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead…” Some of us can see through a window, some through a veil but Abraham saw through the wall of China.

What Paul and Hebrews are saying about Abraham is NOT that Abraham believed God would spare his son but Abraham believed God would raise the dead. That’s a huge difference. Yes, we’ll see that God spared the son but that was not in Abraham’s mind. There was only one answer possible – the same God who could take life could give it back. He expected Isaac to die but he was not without hope. The pressure of an impossible situation reveals an impossible solution. He obeys and then he sees.

We all want hope but we want it to look like one of our options – not something impossible. Abraham had no options and that is why it says he hoped against hope.

It’s not optimism (believing the best) but faith (seeing the impossible) while it is still in the distance.

5.  I don’t believe Abraham’s test is necessarily ours just as I don’t believe the words of Jesus to the rich young ruler are true for everyone. Each of us has a different test in life. But the test is never on doctrine or orthodoxy. It is always the same. What is the one thing in life you trust more than any other. No, let me say it this way. Who do you trust because that is what God is ultimately asking of us. Do we know Him? Do we have the ability to hear His voice and to obey?

However, I do believe there are some applications for our own lives this morning.

First, are we caught between two obligations – between God and someone we love? Oswald Chambers warns us about becoming a “little deity” in the lives of friends and family in our wanting to protect them. We want to spare them from the pain that God may intend for them and in doing so we step between them and God and His purpose for them. “You are an answer to prayer” may be the worst thing that could happen in our relationship with people. Only God can be an answer to prayer.

Second, are we willing to obey in the smallest things or are we waiting for the grand moment. I think it was Henry Kissinger who said that a crisis does not build character. It only reveals it. The obedience in the crisis is only possible because of obedience in the little daily things. God is not interested in heroics or in our choosing to be martyrs. He gives us daily quizzes of obedience. Have we been kind? Have we been trustworthy? Have we been honorable? Have we been a sign that points others to God? Those are what build character over many years.

Third, is he calling us to let go of a blessing? We want to hold on, don’t we? I think Abraham was willing to start from zero again. We all know “The Lord giveth and The Lord taketh away” but it is hard to imagine God taking everything away. It’s one thing to lose it all but quite another to think of God taking it all away intentionally. I have become accustomed to my blessings. But, as my father used to say, “Stay loose to things”. This does not mean we live in fear of losing what we’ve been given. But, it does mean coming to understand what Paul means by being content no matter what – whether little or much. We are not guilty with much or crushed by little. God is more interested in His purposes than my comfort. “God is working in us to reach His highest goals until His purpose and our purpose become one.”

Fourth, are we open to being certain even though we do not see or are we more like Sarah who laughed because God’s promise defied her experience? There’s no doubt why Abraham did not consult with Sarah before setting off early in the morning with the two servants and Isaac. She would have never let him go, would she? She would have argued him out of it just as she did when she made him believe God was never going to give him an heir through her but through Hagar. Paul said it in Galatians when he said he did not confer with “flesh and blood” before going into the wilderness. There are times to get counsel and advice and then there are times to act alone. I don’t think that is to be common…but there are times when common sense is not the same thing as the reason of God. There are times we are called to obey even against the experience of others.

Finally, there is something even more serious here. Do not glibly ask to see God unless you are prepared for the consequences. Seeing God exacts an awful price. Seeing God means you are drawn into the suffering as well as the joy. That is part of the lesson here this morning. Faith is tested and great faith is tested greatly. Don’t ask to see God without realizing that, like Jacob, you will be marked for the rest of your life. Like Paul, you will be afflicted. Like Moses, you will be saddled with burdens and responsibilities you would not have chosen for yourself. Like Job, you will realize what it means to have heard about Him but to see Him is not without suffering.

We treat it too lightly. Seeing God is dangerous and we should not ask if we are not clear about the consequences. We want the experience of glory but not the sharing in His sufferings. We want a little peek into the majesty of God but without our lives being affected in ways we would not choose. We don’t choose suffering. We don’t choose martyrdom or affliction but that is always the way.

Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” It’s the only way to see God and live. Purity of heart is the choice to rely on nothing but a relationship with the personal God. Purity of heart is not happiness in this life but it is sharing in the extraordinary experience of those who were living by faith when they died. It is believing the promise if only from a distance. It is those who are content to live as aliens and strangers on earth knowing that there is a better country which God has prepared and that we can be certain of what we do not see. It is trusting one we cannot fully understand who calls us to a life of small obediences and giving our lives over to a larger purpose we cannot yet see. We are not our own. We are not volunteers. We are His to do with as He pleases.

Let me close with this. We have all heard of “moles” or those people who are hidden in a country to live ordinary and unremarkable lives until they are activated. They should never forget their purpose is more than living normal lives and they can never forget that someday the call will come when they get up, leave everything and do what they’ve been prepared to do. We are, in a sense, God’s moles. We are here to be ready to leave everything should it be necessary and follow God’s purpose – even at the risk of our own.