The Tests of Faith
Alright, good morning. Happy Groundhog Day. We appreciate Colby toughing out for us this morning. He's not feeling great, and so we appreciate him toughing out, and hopefully he'll be feeling better when he gets home and takes, hopefully a long nap. But anyhow, yeah, Happy Groundhog Day. Because my son will well for many years when I get up to go to 830 service, I'm the only one in my house, kind of waking up early first. And then my son, though, is wakes up before I do even. And my youngest son and I was in the bathroom getting ready, and he came in this morning said, Happy Groundhog Day. And I said, Happy Groundhog Day. He was all excited about Groundhog Day, and all about about the groundhog was going to see his shadow. And so when I got out, I checked my weather app to see what the temperature would be, and it said, click this link to see if Phil saw his shadow. So I clicked it, and it said that he, in fact, indeed, he saw his shadow, so six more weeks of winter. So I came in or so I told Johnny. I said, Well, you know, he saw his shadow today, so six more weeks of winter. And Johnny said, Oh, no, I was hoping for an early spring. Word for order. What he said, but you know, where he learned that? But anyhow, I was not saying words like that when I was six, but anyhow, he I told him it wouldn't be as bad, because where we live shouldn't be that bad. But I think he thinks that everything's been pushed back six weeks because he said he was looking forward to playing soccer in March, and so I think we need to make sure he understands that the calendar stays the same. He's trying to figure that out. I was hoping to play soccer in March. Well, you still are going to do that anyway, but in honor of Groundhog Day being today last night, I don't do this often, but I made my older children watch the great movie starring bull Murray, Groundhog Day with me last one of my favorite movies. And if you've if you've never seen it, it's about a weatherman who travels to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the Groundhog Day ceremony. He doesn't want to be there. He does the weather report that day in the town, and he gets stuck in a blizzard so he can't leave the town to go back to Pittsburgh. And the irony is, as the weather man, he assured everyone that the Blizzard would miss them, but the Blizzard actually hits them. And he has all these people telling him, don't you know about the blizzard coming. And he's the weather man, of course, but the story is that he wakes up the next day and it's Groundhog Day again, and the next day, it's Groundhog Day again. And it just he lives the same day over and over again. So now, when someone makes a joke, they say, that's not Groundhog Day. They get it from that movie. It's where it comes from. Now, what he doesn't realize is, he's being tested and knock on if you haven't seen the movie yet, not gonna spoil it for you all. That's like 30 years old if you had plenty time to see it. But what he doesn't realize is is he's being tested. And as some people have tried to do the math on how long it takes him to learn certain skills, which he did during these days, he probably was reliving the same day 1000s of days, if not years, the same day over and over again, and eventually, after maybe even 1000 years or so, he passes the test, and the cycle is broken. I'm not going to tell you what caused him to pass the test, because I would ruin the movie, but test does end. Now, I never had a day like that, but hopefully you haven't either, and I don't think it's possible to but, you know, I've never had a day like that, but I have had a recurring dream. Have you ever had a recurring dream before? Usually they're nightmares that recur. You know, in mine used to be this one. It was always the same, same plot, but, but plot was different, but the ending was the ending was the same. And I had it up until recently, and I'm in college, and I've overslept for a test, a big exam, big test, and I can't get to the class somehow, like I can't find my shoes, or I can't find my clothes, or I can't figure out how to get to the class. And I just, I just, I missed the test, you know, I've overslept or something like that. And then another one's kind of similar to it, where I'm in college, and, you know, it's like March or April, the spring semester, and everything's what happened through the semester. And then it just dawns on me that I haven't been to one class in like two months, like, and no one has just, whoa, I have a class I have a class I haven't been to in like two months. I'm going to fail that class, and so that's the fear is, that I'll fail the class and fail out and that kind of thing. Now, I did graduate college with help from my wife. She helped me on some in some ways, and help from my parents. And I did get the. My master's degree, and I did get my doctorate. So I didn't this dream did not happen. But I asked a co worker years ago, when I was in Columbia, about this dream, and they told me, that sounds like a classic guilt dream, like, like you're guilty about something. So I thought about it's like, well, maybe I do feel guilty about not taking college seriously and squandering some things there. So I asked the Lord to forgive me of that. And I don't really have that dream much anymore. I have had a dream. I will tell you this that I missed 830 service. I do get that sometimes, where, where I it's like, nine o'clock. I'm like, Oh man, I gotta preach. I'm just getting out of bed. What are they going to do? I have had that a few times, so that's a dude. I don't think that's a guilt dream. I think that's a real fear, but I do have that sometimes, but, but the dream is ultimately not about the fear. The dream is about failing the test or missing the test altogether. Maybe you can relate to that. Maybe you have a dream of failing a test or not passing something that brings us to this question, if tests cause us so much stress, they pop up in our dreams, why does God test us? Why does he put all kind of tests in our lives now, challenges and tests they can help us grow as we know as people. They help us build resilience. We can learn lessons from them. They certainly teach. Teach us patience. They teach us to rely on God for strength. They teach us the importance of perseverance in what we're doing and when, by God's grace, we overcome these obstacles. That it makes us stronger and we can have confidence in Christ to handle future tests. So we are in Genesis 22 I'm just going to read the first eight verses. So we're in week five looking at the life of Abraham. Next week will be the last week, as we finish Abraham, and we're moving into a series on Jacob. Verse One says this, after these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here I am. And he said, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you so, Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey, I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. And 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 they went, both of them together, and Isaac said to his father, Abraham, Father, he said, Here I am my son. He said, Behold the fire in the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son. So they went, both of them together, Heavenly Father. We thank you that you provided the lamb of sacrifice for us through Jesus on the cross. We thank you that this story is a foreshadowing of the sacrifice that your only son, Jesus made for us. And so Lord, as we look at this passage, that which has these gospel implications, help us understand them, but also help us understand this idea of tests and why you give them to us and what we can do about them. Lord, Lord, I pray that my words today reflect your heart. I pray that the Holy Spirit speaks through me, and it's in this congregation today receiving your word, we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. I want to give you today three aspects of the tests that God gives us three elements of a test that God gives. Number one, God decides the test. God decides the test. We don't get to decide what test to take, or when we're ready for the test, or if we're not, we take it or not. The test is coming whether we want it or not, and we don't get to decide what test it is. God does. Verse one says that he calls him. Verse two says, Take your son and offer him as a burnt offering. Now. Until this point, Abraham had faced all sorts of tests and trials. His life was like most people's lives. There was grief, there was anguish, there was happiness and joy. But this next test, this next trial, would be the most difficult one that he would face. Now this wasn't just about being asked to sacrifice his son, as strange as that sounded to do first in the time the biblical time period, ritual child sacrifice was common among the other people, the unknown believers, and they would do this to appease their false gods. So this was something that happened among the other cultures, and it was socially acceptable even even if we know it's morally wrong. So for God to ask Abraham to do this wouldn't have been unusual culturally or even for the religions of the day, but it would be unusual for God to ask him to do it, because it was evil and sinful, and it was not of God, but culturally it was normal. So to appease the gods, the belief was that you had to sacrifice something of value, and obviously children were of great value. So I'm sure Abraham was confused, as his God had never asked him to do any sort of thing like that. But it's also confusing. It's confusing because of the promises God made to Abraham about his son Isaac. See, God had spoken to Abraham, as we've covered. He initiated a covenant with him. He instructed him to make a huge sacrifice, to leave his country and go to a foreign country. And the promise was, if you leave and go somewhere else, though, I'll show you, I'll bless you through your lineage, and you'll be a blessing to others. I'll make you a great nation. And at this point, when he first was told this, he had no offspring, he was 75 years old and childless, and so he felt that he would never have offspring. So this was a great promise for him. And throughout the story, we see God consistently reinforcing and expanding this promise. And finally, after some twists and turns, Isaac is born, and now God tells him to do this, to sacrifice him. Isaac's not married. He hasn't had children yet. He's a teenager, probably he tells them to go to Moriah three days journey. So as they're walking there, imagine it gave Abraham and Isaac a chance to think about what's happening in Hebrews sheds some light on this. Look at Hebrews 11 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he had received and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom, it was said through Isaac, shall your offspring be named in verse 19 of Hebrews tells us this is very important. It says he considered that God was able to even raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. So it tells us where Abraham was at as we get to the story that he didn't understand it. But Abraham knew that even if he went through with this, that God could still even do that to bring his promise about Abraham knew that Isaac was the seed that would eventually bless all nations through the nation of Israel and Jesus Christ. So even though God's command meant certain death for Isaac, God's promise would come to pass. So Abraham fully expected God to raise Isaac from the dead following the sacrifice. Verse three says that He rose in the morning, he saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him, and his son, Isaac, and he cut the wood and went to the place. Verse four says on the third day he went and verse five says, Stay here with a donkey. I And the boy will go over there in worship. Now, sacrificing animals was how worship was done during this time period. Worship in general is sacrifice. Now, because of Jesus, we come to worship and with no sacrifice, we don't have to sacrifice anything, because Jesus provided one for us, but there still is an element of sacrifice in worship. Have you viewed worship this way? We worship God for saving us and because. See his Lord. But there are many sacrifices that take us to worship Him, sacrifice our money, sacrifice our time, many times, our family connections, our Sunday mornings, even, there's a lot of things that we give up to follow Jesus. And so what makes this test even harder to complete is while his son is laying on the sticks of wood as he's about to sacrifice his son, God says, Worship me. Worship Me, right when you're getting ready to make a sacrifice of the promise. Look at verse six, Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, laid it on. Isaac, his son, and he took his hand, the fire, the knife, and they went together. And in verse seven, he looks for him, and he says, Dad, there's the fire in the wood. Where's the animal? And Abraham says this, God will provide for himself the lamb for offering my son. Now, Hebrews tells us that he realized that if he went through, God would raise from the death. But I think part of Abraham is thinking also, God's going to make a way there will be a lamb. Isaac, as the teenager carrying the wood, understood that there had to be a sacrifice. God's test doesn't always make sense to us. You think this made sense to Abraham, certainly not for many, many reasons, but he still gives them to us for a purpose. So we see, God decides the test. Secondly, God also ends the test, which say, Amen. But depending on how well we do, the test might take longer. We're talking about braces. The other day with my family. I only had braces for a year and a half. You know how long the doctor told me I'd have to wear braces a year and a half, and my sister was supposed to wear hers for a year and a half. She had hers for five you know why I'm telling all my sister, but she don't live here, so we're good, because she didn't do what the doctor told her to do. It took her longer to have her braces off because she wouldn't follow the instructions. Sometimes the test doesn't end because God hasn't ended it for us because we haven't passed it. Look at Verse nine when it came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Now I have a teenage son that's probably, you know, all teenagers about the same size. Okay, imagine wrapping up your teenage son. He knows what's happening. He wouldn't be oblivious to it. Verse 10, and Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. And as he was in the air, you can just imagine verse 11, but the angel of the Lord called him for heaven, said Abraham. And I imagine Abraham said, as quickly as possible, here I am. Please. Yes, I'm here. I'm here. Verse 12, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. Now we know he had Ishmael, but this was the son of the promise, the only son of the promise from me. And then Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him there was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, and Abraham went and took that RAM and slaughtered it as fast as he could. That's not what the Bible says. That's what I say. You know, he went and got that RAM so fast and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place, The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, on the Mount of Lord, it shall be provided Abraham went about as far as one could go in obeying the Lord. And even though what God was asking Abraham to do didn't make sense. He did it anyway. God provided a sacrifice, and it wasn't Isaac, it was a ram. God ended the test right then, what can we learn from our test when they're ended? Few things. Number one is that God is faithful. God is faithful. When God ends a test, it demonstrates his faithfulness to His promises to care for his people. Some of you are saying, God end it now. I'm ready for this test to be over now, but God ends it. It shows us his faithfulness. Second. Eight, God is timely. God ends our tests at the perfect time, according to His timing and his wisdom. Look at Psalm 2714, wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. When we have these tests, we're called, we're commanded to wait for God, wait for him. Isaiah, 4031, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Interesting. We wait for the Lord. God renews our strength. We will run and not be tired. Was the last time he ran and wasn't tired. Been a long time for some of us. But when we wait on the Lord, He gives us that grace. He gives us that supernatural energy to not be, not grow tired in the waiting. God is timely. Third, God provides when, when our test is over, we see that God has provided, just as God provided a ram for Abraham in the time of testing, he provides for our needs, and he brings about a resolution to our tests that we may not expect. Abraham was hoping, in faith that there was another way he did through the tests we face, God allows us to grow in our faith. We learn where our faith is good. We learn about our character and where it needs work. We learn about our resilience, and we end the tests we can reflect on what we've learned and how that's brought us closer to him. And fifth, we learn about God. When God ends the test again, it strengthens our trust. It strengthens our dependence on him. It reminds us of just how sovereign he is in our lives. So we see that God ends the test. And then finally, number three, God blesses the test. God blesses the test. Verse 15, and the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself, I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed? Because it wasn't necessarily necessary, if you can say those words back together, back to back, wasn't necessary for God, I don't think he knows the future. He knows what Abraham is going to do. I think was necessary for Abraham, for Abraham to know and to reinforce just who God is, just who God is, how God is going to bless him through his obedience, there's always blessing. Now, God blesses us because, just in general, because he's a good God, we're children on the promise, but there's always blessing when we obey God. It may not be the way we see it, but there's blessing, whether it's just peace, whether it's just contentment, whether it's just joy and obedience, we have that satisfaction so quickly as we close, how does God bless us win our test over how did you bless us? First, again, spiritual growth, going through and passing tests strengthens our faith. It helps our character and our relationship with God. Helps us grow and deepen our trust in Him. Secondly, increased faith. When we get through the test, we see how God got us through and increases our faith. Third, we do get rewards and blessings, whether it's peace, whether it's joy, whether it's provision, whether it's protection, whether it's just the joy of seeing answered prayers, we see the rewards and the blessings. Fourth, we get knowledge. We get wisdom through these, these tests and trials. We often gain these, these insights. We understand more about how God works. We can help others with that knowledge and wisdom and explain to them and show them how God worked in our lives. And then, fifth, it prepared. Cares us for the future. We think about those things that lie ahead. Now I'm going to say something that's not in the Bible, and usually when a pastor says something, you'd be worried about this. Okay, I don't think it's heretical, but it's not. I can't find a scripture for it, but if you have a test and God gives you and you don't pass it, you might not spend 1000s of years reliving the same day, but that test is going to keep coming back, and it might not end. It might just keep coming back. There's been times in ministry, there's been times my life where I've known there's been a test and I've had to go, Alright, I gotta get this done, or that's gonna keep coming back at me. I gotta take care of this in God's power, or it'll never go away. And every time I've done that, it's gone away and I've dealt with something and I had to deal with it again. The test is over, but we must have the courage to go through those tests and take them, or God will continue giving them to us, or we'll just be stuck in them for 1000s of years, like like Phil, if you know what I mean, it helps us prepare for the future. Now, in the story of Abraham and Isaac, we also see how Isaac is a form of Jesus, just as God provided a lamb to take the place of Isaac on the altar, God provided a lamb to take our place on the cross Isaac's essential resurrection from the grave foreshadows Jesus's little resurrection from the grave. And just as Isaac brought hope to all nations through his life, Jesus brings hope to all nations through His death. And as just as Abraham was willing to give his only son to God. So God was willing to give his only son to us. Amen, it is the gospel. So we see the gospel through this test. So Abraham went through this test also for our benefit, so that we could see what type of God, God is, and your test also has gospel implications. You see where God is calling you to die to your sins, where he's calling you to live in faith in Him, because of the gospel that has saved you, and what if you fail? Well, because God's gracious. He keeps giving them to us. Keeps giving them to us. I'll close with a short story. When I was in eighth grade or ninth grade, maybe I was never good at algebra, because algebra is not math. Sorry, it's not something else. I don't know some kind of science. I don't know where it is. I can do math. Algebra. I was doing bad in it, and so I had to have a tutor. So I went back to a teacher, friend of my mom. She tutored me for a while, and I hated doing it, but I finally understood it, and then I took a test after being tutored for a while, and I took a test with my teacher, and I remember watching her grade it. She was checking every time I made one right, and she was getting excited. The more I better, the more I got right, because I was about to pass it. And then at the end, I remember I got a 93 on algebra test, and she was more excited than I was. I was relieved. She was like, way to go, look at you. 93 she was excited for me. And when we pass the test God puts in our lives, I feel like he's excited. He wants to bless us. He wants to love us. He wants us to say, Well done, well done, good and faithful servant. I knew you could do it. Put your faith in me. I'll be your strength. I'll help you pass the test. Heavenly Father, as we close our time together today, we thank you that you're a gracious God, that you give us these tests and you you keep giving them to us. You don't fail us and say, well, you're all done. I'm done with you now. You keep giving them to us because you love us and you want us to pass, and you want us to get to a place where we need to be in our lives, Lord, in our journey. We're all in different areas. We all different challenges. We all have different struggles. A test for one person might be easy and it might be hard for the other, depending on what it is. So Lord, we thank you that you're a God that loves us so much. Not only have you saved us, but you've saved us to grow us more into your image, to be made more like you. So, Lord, as we close our time together today, if there's one in here that's never placed their faith in you that today, they would, they would believe in the gospel, the work of Christ, that through His death, burial and resurrection, he has purchased salvation for all those who would believe. He's made right us with a loving God, for those of us, Lord, as we live here today, let us recognize when the tests come, and no matter how hard it might seem to be for us to think about those or go through it, that we would rely on you, knowing that you'll get us through if we have faith in you, but we thank you so much for the blessing of tests you give in our lives, so we know that on the other side of them, we're better for it. We ask these things in Jesus name, amen, amen.
