Our reading today from God's Word is from the book of Hebrews chapter 11. We will be starting at verse 11 to verse 19. So let's listen to the words of our everlasting Heavenly King. By faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive Cede, and she bore a child when she was just past the age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, in Isaac your seed shall be called. Concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. You may be seated. So let us pray to our great God. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me. For the creature gets to speak to the Creator. Father, we come to you through the blood of the everlasting covenant shed for sinners by Jesus Christ. Praying that the mighty power that was wrought in Christ when you raised him from the dead and seated him with your own right hand in heavenly places We pray that power will fill our hearts with joy, unspeakable and full of glory. For the righteousness of God has been revealed. Salvation of grace has appeared. The judge of all the earth has become our savior. By grace, you have been saved. and that not of yourselves. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. May it be so for each one abounding your presence. And we pray that the rebirth of a sinner may be found in this place this day. Thank you, Lord. Amen. The title of the sermon this morning, A Father's Sacrifice of His Son. In this portion of scripture of Hebrews chapter 11, we see the development of the opening verse of what faith is like, saving faith. It says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. And verse 6 made it clear in the same chapter that without faith, it is impossible to please God. And so after example after example out of the Old Testament, coming to the New, we see how that is fleshed out in life, how that causes or motivates people to move, and the way it colors their lives, and how we handle the tests that are put before us. And so this morning, We have, first of all, a childless couple, Abraham and Sarah, who are promised a son. A childless couple promised a son in verses 11 and 12. And we see it opening up with Sarah. By faith, Sarah herself receives strength. You know, it helps for us to know something of the time frame that we're talking about here when we try to put these things in perspective. It says, receive strength to conceive. By the time Sarah conceived, she was 89 years old. That helps us put it in perspective, does it not? And Abraham was 99 years old. Now that wasn't when the promise had been given however. The promise was given 25 years before the gift of birth of Isaac. And so as we consider this in talking about Sarah, it says that God strengthened her, enabling her to do this. And she bore a child. She conceived and she bore a child when she was past the age. In other words, menopause had already set in. She was unable to conceive, unable to bear a child in a normal way prior to this. And so when we think of her and this idea, it uses the word strengthen or power as a word dunamis. There are two words that we translate as power many times, so we're not confused. Exousia, we get our word executive from, means authority. It's not that word. It's the other word, dunamis. We get our word dynamite from that. It means having the strength. It means having the physical ability. It means all of those things you would normally think that are gone from her frail body, now strengthened in order that she might conceive and bear a child, bring him to term, and to nurse him, and to be there for him. the work, the hand of God, but the hand of God fulfilling a promise that he gave 25 years, a quarter of a century prior to the event. And when you think of verse 12 along with it, and we must look at both, therefore by one man, and him as good as dead, was born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. When you think of life, understand that life is created in the womb. In the sermon yesterday, I mentioned the fact that Psalm 139, that God is the one who weaves into the womb. He's the one who knit us together in the lowest parts. Has written in his book the days ordained for us. When the Lord called Jeremiah, And he said, before I formed you in the womb, now get the wording, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And so when we're thinking about you and about me, about your children, your grandchildren, great-grandchildren, think of the wonder of that and the wonder of life. And so that's what we're looking at here, the wonder of this life that was created within the womb. of a dear lady who had waited a long time. And God miraculously, you could say, caused her to have a child. And Job, you know, knew this when he was, you know, talking to the Lord and talking about, Lord, you're the one who made me in the womb and made me this way and put me together and that sort of thing. So in all of these texts, that's 31.5 of Job, in all of these texts, you see that it is God who is at work actively to cause life to be. It's not just the result of biological processes. Yes, God uses means, but the point is there will not be life unless God decrees there would be life. And He determines what we shall be. And so, beloved, the wonder of it all. But as we look at this, there is the idea of the name of the child and the way that it came about. It's a bit of a long story, so I won't go through all the all the nooks and crannies, let me just say this. In that 25 years, God gave the promise in Genesis 15 to Abraham. He said, you see the stars? He took him outside. You see the stars? Your offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Because Abraham talked to the Lord. You know, the Lord said, I am your shield and buckler. I am your exceeding great reward. And immediately Abraham retorted to the Lord. He said, what will you give me seeing I have no heir? And the heir is a man who is a servant born in my household. That's when the Lord said, you see the stars? The very next chapter, yes, there's a passage of some time, but not that much. In the very next chapter, chapter 16 of Genesis, Abraham and Sarah are tired of waiting. And they said, Sarah, I can't have a child, but we're going to do it the world's way. We're going to have a surrogate mother. And so she gets Hagar, her servant, and she says, here, I want you to have a child with Hagar, the servant. That's not the way God ordained it to be so. Adam and Eve, one man, one woman, till death do us part. And those are the ones that God would bless, or if God should say no, either way, it's in the hands of the Lord. And so when you're looking at this, it's not that that faith was always strong. I want you to get that. And so there was Ishmael born to this union. You know what the results were? They did it their way. They did it the world's way. They did it an ungodly way. And so what you ended up with was a young man, Ishmael, who was one who ran around in the wilderness and was a bowman and a horseman and one who was wild as a wilderness he inhabited and was godless. So we learn to do things God's way. And so there was faith when God made the promise that included Sarah there in Genesis 18, 1. And you read all the way through. I'm not going to have you turn there because of the brevity of time. You know this account. where the angel of the Lord and two angels came with him, and there's Abraham under the oaks of Mamre, and there he sees them coming, and he goes and falls down before him, and he says, please come into my tent today, and let me kill the fatted calf. And he says, let me, my wife will make you some bread and we'll have water, and you'll dine with me today. Okay, the Lord says, go make it. So the Lord's there sitting with the pre-incarnate Christ, we would say, probably. I don't know how else you'd look at it. And so the Lord's there, and you have this whole scene, and these three are there, and the Lord is talking to Abraham, and he says, this time next year. Now understand, it's a tent they're living in. We saw this last week, right? And on the other side of the tent is Sarah. And she's the one who's made the bread, put it all together and cooked it. And she's listening to this conversation and the Lord says, this time next year I'll come back and Sarah will have a son. And she's laughing on the other side. In her heart, it says in the text. And the Lord responds, why did you laugh, Sarah? And she says, I didn't laugh. Now she was laughing, not in faith, but scoffing at the whole thing. In her heart, thinking, shall, and that's what she says, shall I, in my old age, bear a child to my Lord Abraham? Remember the Lord renamed him, by the way, from Abram to Abraham, a father of many nations. And he renamed Sarah, it's Sarai. And he renames her Sarah, princess. For she shall bring forth kings that will be from her. So anyway, that's the scene. A year from now, you're gonna have a child. Turn with me, if you would, to Genesis 21. Next time we do this, we'll have a sword drill. Let's see who's quickest. Genesis chapter 21. 1 through 7, listen. This is later on. And it says, the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. Remember what I just related to you. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him from Sarah, born to him Yitzhak, or Isaac. You know what it means? Laughter. Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, and God commanded him. Now Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him, and Sarah said, God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me. Now what kind of laughter is it? A laughter filled with joyful faith. You see, what had happened is God had worked in developing, and we talked in Sunday school this morning about how God delights in teaching us, and in guiding us, and in shepherding us in life. And we grow in grace. That's why we come out born naturally, right? We don't come fully developed and fully grown and have everything taught to us from the womb. No, we grow, we mature, we develop, and so it is in the Christian life, spiritually. And you see it in the life developed in both Abraham and Sarah. And here the joy of, I'm a mom at 90, and dad's 100. The joyful faith fulfilled. Remember, the Lord said, I will return here a year from now and you'll have a son. And here we see a year from now, welcome Isaac. into the world. Joy filled her life. 25 years waiting to fulfill that promise. God hadn't forgotten, God wasn't weakened, God wasn't one who turned his back on her and was angry with her or anything like that, but in the perfect timing of God, the promise he made most certainly fulfilled. We need to remember that, too, as we think of faith and we think of the promises of God. When you think assurance of things hoped for, what is the hope about? Hope is stuff that portrays into the future. Hope is that which is the opposite of despair. Hope is that which is rooted in the promises of God. And so when we talk about faith is assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen, I have the absolute certitude Even though I don't see it, I know it's true. How do I know it? God promised. That's the kind of faith. We're learning here in this text that God would have you and me to live by, to demonstrate. Just as a note in the timing of these things, in God's perfect timing, The joy came in the fulfillment of His promise. But look at the time that passed after that. It's implied in verse 12. It has to be the passage of time. We're back in Hebrews, of course, 11 verse 12. And as we read there in verse 12, at the end of it, And it says, born as many as the stars of the sky, a multitude innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. from this son, Isaac. Remember, God narrowed down the covenant line to make sure that it's through this particular line. Remember, there was Ishmael. Later on, you've got Abraham with five children by Keturah that are mentioned and that kind of thing. But here's Isaac, the son of promise. This was the one who was promised. God wanted to make sure there was no mistaking he was the one who gave Isaac. And so in this, He fulfilled the covenant promise, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That was the line that God promised. Covenant, remember, is God binding himself by his own sovereign condescension to fulfill. And he did. And since that time, these thousands of years that have passed, some 4,000 since that time, how many millions upon millions have descended from this one child. God keeps His promises. But secondly, just a note in passing because we developed this last week, as we see beginning here in verse 13, these all died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them afar off. Remember it talks about earlier on in verse 10, it says that Abraham left, remember earlier on we saw in the text that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, that he went out not knowing where he was going, and that God led him to the land, and even in the land it wasn't what he expected, and so he lived in a tent the whole time. But remember what it said about Abraham's faith, he looked for a city with foundations, whose builder and maker was God. You know Philippians chapter 3 verse 20 talks about you and me. And it says, our citizenship is in that heavenly city. And we are looking for Christ, it says in that verse, to return and to take us there. And so, as we know, absent from the body, present with the Lord, we go there in anticipation. But we look at the city that is the everlasting city and an everlasting creation. That's when we are made whole again. So a lifelong trust, that's what this is, a lifelong trust. That's what these verses are driving home in summary, verses 13 through 16. Belief in God's promises, that means until our last breath, believing in God's promises. Verses 14 and 15, it says, they had opportunity to go back to their original place, but they did not turn back. So no retreat. By the way, that means in your mind and in our heart and in our soul, no coveting for the past either. No regretting this Christian pilgrimage upon which God has led us or through which God has led us. But we crucify the flesh and forget those things which are behind. We press towards the mark for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. So set your hearts, set our hearts on Christ. That's where the next chapter takes us. It opens up that chapter. And it says, set our eyes on Him, on Christ. And so verse 16 is one of those poignant verses we must touch. And it talks about us not being those that the Lord would be ashamed of. It says, but now they desire a better country that is a heavenly country, therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God and has prepared a city for them. Those, we've talked about this book, addresses apostasy a lot. It addresses those who drift, who are indifferent and become those who have to be taught all over again in chapter 5. And even those who actually apostatize, even though they've drunken and tasted all these marvelous gifts of God here on earth, that they turn back and away from Him. But it says, We who persevere in the faith and trust Him and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, these are they of whom the Lord is not ashamed to be called their God. Think of that, being ashamed to be called our God. Not ashamed. We remind ourselves of 11.6, without faith, it is impossible to please God. But I come to my third point. In verse 17, all on the altar. In verses 17 through 19, it talks about the test of Abraham and Sarah, you could say. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. You know the thing that God told Abraham, he said, I want you now to take Isaac. I want you to take him and go to this mountain I'll show you, and I want you to sacrifice him to me. We just got through a little bit of a summary of here. Here he was 75 years old when he arrived in Canaan, and 25 years awaiting the promise of God to be fulfilled, to have a son. And here we have it, you know, years later, a few years anyway, I want you to sacrifice him to me. First of all, does he believe God? God gave him to him. He's mine now, and you want him back. And you want me to kill him and offer him to you in a burnt sacrifice. We read of no negotiation. Remember when In chapter 18, at the end of that, where you see Abraham negotiating with God for Lot and Sodom, remember that? And he said, surely you won't destroy Sodom for 50 righteous. And he works his way down to 10. And the Lord said, I won't destroy it for 10. Of course, they weren't 10 righteous. But there was no negotiation here. You read in the text describing this event in Genesis 22, that immediately he rose up early and he took Isaac, his son and some servants, and they wrote off to obey. Now, he was thinking, first of all, he had learned the lessons of faith by now. God's promise is unbreakable. It's based on his character, remember? And we saw that in chapter 6. Because he couldn't swear by one greater, God swore by his own character. He cannot lie. He's holy. And furthermore, he cannot change. We saw that, remember? And so he learned God's promise is unbreakable. Furthermore, he learned, as I've just stated, God's unchangeable. And thirdly, that it's within God's power to do anything he says. I reiterate that God has the power to perform what he promises. I don't always have that. I'm going to make you all healthy, wealthy, and wise. You say, thanks for your well wishes. But that's all it is. I don't have the power to make it happen. But God does. Infinite, eternal, unchangeable, and omnipotent. And we could go on. And fourthly, all that's accomplished here and the outcome, whether Abraham had tried to take Isaac and run, later on we learn about a prophet named Jonah. How did that work out? He knew it all depended upon God. And so as he puts it together, he obeys. Well, we know what happened, and I'll develop that in a moment. But just some notes I wanted to bring out as we think of this. When you look at the faith of all of these people we've dealt with here, and especially thinking of Abraham at this point, and look at our faith, it's not that his faith never faltered. It's not that their faith didn't develop over time in God's work in their lives. But it came to a point where the faith, and here Abraham's faith, was an utter complete faith. God absolutely, unquestionably, if he says it, it is so. You know, the Bible talks about childlike faith. Jesus said that. A lot of things involved there, but I've equated that to something like a little child, like a baby in one's arms. There is no qualification or fine print or anything like that. When a baby looks into the eyes of mom, there is absolute trust. I remember with my son, and now he's 48, but I mean when he was a little guy, we had this habit. He loved to jump off of things and me catch it. He loved it. I was frantic at times. I remember a few times where I had my back to him. And I could just, you know, try to radar home in where he was when he said, Dad, catch me. You know, and I've turned around quickly and here he is jumping off a higher and higher, he kept getting higher, higher and higher stuff till finally I caught him, you know. Why would he do such a thing? Is he nuts? No, despite the fact he's my son, he's not. He trusted me. Dad will catch me. A child's faith. That's the faith. That quality we need more of, don't we? Of trusting him that way. But it was also a loyal faith. A devoted faith. A faith that's not just devoted to what he promises, what can I get from him, but to him. That kind of faith. So God, dealing with his people, his children. But it also, our faith affects other people. Think of here what's going on with Abraham being tested to put the child to death. Remember the laughter of joy and faith and joy in Sarah. The baby she had waited for, this son, for 90 years, you could say. This would affect her, would it not? Not only that, it would affect Isaac. I mean, he's the one being put on the altar, right? And the servants that were with him, that waited at the bottom of the hill. We must think of that in our faith as well. Also, we see the test of patience. We've already talked about that, the time frame of everything that's gone through until this finally happened. And furthermore, that greater blessing, the dreams fulfilled, that God calls us to give up sometimes. This is what God was saying, give it up, give it to me, that which you value most highly in all the world. And Isaac was surely that. Give it to me. Give it up. And finally, even though we get more mature, greater in age, we think, well, we're going to coast from here on out. The tests just get greater. That's the way God works until we're home. And so let me look at Christ foreshadowed in Abraham's offering of Isaac. Now I'm going to summarize and I'm going to go off of Genesis 22. You can look at Genesis 22 as I say these few things together before we close. I think many of you know the account well enough that it'll ring a bell as it is, but Genesis 22, open it up and follow. First of all, the journey There had to be a journey from where they were camped to Mount Moriah. It was a journey with determined purpose. Think of that. Here they were on their camels or donkeys or whatever they were upon, and they had determined purpose. Remember, he immediately got up and he was headed for where God had called him, told him to go. He believed, he acted, determined purpose. That was the journey. What a difficult journey that must have been. Secondly, it was a destination. Destination Moriah. Mount Moriah. That's where it would be. And thirdly, when they got there, Abraham told his servants, you wait here. And he puts the wood on the back of Isaac to carry up the hill and the fire Abraham has a knife. And we see father and son walking up Mount Moriah together to the altar of sacrifice, father and son. Finally, when we get up there, we see Abraham binding Isaac to the altar, bound him and there laid on the altar, was Isaac to be sacrificed. And finally, it was the highest cost, the most costly sacrifice he could put there. Now, so far you can see the scriptures, can't you? Everywhere there, with regard to Christ. You read Isaiah 53 and it talks about, you know, it pleased the God to bruise him. He laid on him the iniquity of us all. And we see all of those things where there Mount Moriah is Calvary. And so his father and son went up the hill. It is the father who bruised him. But I'm getting ahead of myself, I guess. Remember when they got up there, just as Abraham was about to murder his own son. And we get an insight here of what it says. It wasn't murder, it was sacrifice because it was according to the command of God, the one who holds life and death in his hands. And so if he commands it, it is right. And so as he brings a knife up to kill Isaac, remember the angel of the Lord stopped it. He says, wait a minute. There's a ram caught in the thicket right over here. And so we see at the very last moment, God provided the sacrifice. And so I can just imagine, here's Abraham quickly taking his son off that altar, probably holding him to himself, taking him off and getting the ram slaughtering the ram, and the ram taking Isaac's place. And so the blood of the ram was a substitute for Isaac. And so for that reason, the holy requirements were fulfilled. You see, the lamb was slain and there the atonement was made, a vicarious or substitutionary atonement is made. And satisfaction of the justice of God is here pictured. And then finally he receives, it says there in your text, that he received him alive again. In other words, it's a picture, a type, a symbol, a foreshadowing of the resurrection from the dead. It was Jesus Christ who all his life said, for this reason came I into the world, righteously, sinlessly journeyed through this life with a cross ahead of him, a determined purpose. The destination was always Moriah, or we could say Calvary, the father It was pleased the Father to bruise him, to crush him. He laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was the one that was attached to the altar of the cross. He was the one who was the most precious sacrifice possible to be made. God provided the sacrifice. He was a substitutionary atonement, not just for one, but for all his redeemed of all time. A substitutionary atonement means he is the one who sinlessly stepped into our place. We all know the passages of scripture. We all know he made him who knew no sin to become sin in our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. says he has laid on him the iniquity of us all, and therefore he shall see his seed. Remember he made his tomb with those who were rich. He was identified in death with the criminals because he became a curse for us. But he will see his seed. He was raised from the dead. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, it would have just been a martyr, a martyr's death. But he rose, and God said, accepted, sinless, perfect, paid in full. In Colossians chapter 1 verse 14, it says there that all the commandments and statutes that are against us that we've broken in thought and word and deed. It says all of this was a certificate of debt. And it says that Christ nailed the certificate of debt to his cross. And it says, paid in full. So that you and I, beloved, are righteous, declared righteous forevermore in Christ Jesus. Because a father sacrificed his son for us. You see, beloved, faith rests, trusts, has the conviction of things not seen, and knows God keeps his promises. May God bless his word to us this day. Amen. Let's pray together. The scriptures say, holy, Holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of your glory, Father. It says in your scripture, Father, that your eyes are too pure to gaze upon iniquity, that your light and in you dwells no darkness at all. As we consider the picture that you gave us in time and space, in the lives of these, we see Christ portrayed. And we see the payment that was required, the only begotten Son. And so, Father, we take heart. Every single believer here must take heart at this. For Christ has redeemed us, set us free, paid the ransom price from the curse of the law having become a curse for us. We greatly rejoice in our beloved, as scripture says, for the Lord has clothed us with the garments of salvation and with the robes of righteousness. And so, Father, we glory in your name, at your great grace, whereby you've made us accepted in the beloved one. And so there is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So, Lord, we offer unto you our feeble praise and our gratitude, but also, Lord, may we offer unto you a childlike faith every day that sees your truth, your promises as real, unbreakable, and certain. And as Scripture says, like in 1 Peter 1, verse 8, Jesus Christ, whom we've not seen yet, we love. May that truly be the case. Father, may this cause us to be those who hate sin and flee from it. And so desire you, Lord, that no matter what you call us to do, we shall follow. May you give us the grace for it. Amen. Now receive the benediction of the Lord. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.