“Held His Hands” (Gen. 22:10-12).

S-1102 3/01/09 1SIL/3B Hymns: (O) #262; (S) #142; (C) # 400

Texts Genesis 22:1-18; James 1:12-18; Mark 1:9-15

Theme: “Held His Hands” (Gen. 22:10-12).

Question: “How do you use your hands?”

SOLI DEO GLORIA

“Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ ¹²He said, ‘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’” (Gen. 22:10-12).

Children of God, I want you to do me a favor right now. Stop what you are doing, empty your hands of everything and just study them closely. What do you see in those hands? What story do they tell? What images do you grasp?

Someone asked a young lady of 93 at a nursing home, why she was looking at her hands? Here is her response: "Stop and think for a moment about the hands you have, how they have served you well throughout your years. These hands though wrinkled shriveled and weak have been the tools I have used all my life to reach out and grab and embrace life. They braced and caught my fall when as a toddler I crashed upon the floor. They put food in my mouth and clothes on my back. As a child, my mother taught me to fold them in prayer. They tied my shoes and pulled on my boots. They held my husband and wiped my tears when he went off to war. They have been dirty, scraped and raw, swollen and bent. They were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold my newborn son. Decorated with my wedding band they showed the world that I was married and loved someone special. They wrote my letters to him and trembled and shook when I buried my parents and spouse. They have held my children and grandchildren, consoled neighbors, and shook in fists of anger when I didn't understand. They have covered my face, combed my hair, and washed and cleansed the rest of my body. They have been sticky and wet, bent and broken, dried and raw. And to this day when not much of anything else of me works real well these hands hold me up, lay me down, and again continue to fold in prayer. These hands are the mark of where I’ve been and the ruggedness of life. But more importantly it will be these hands that God will reach out and take when he leads me home. And by His hands He will lift me to His side and there I will use these hands to touch the face of Christ.”

Hands are very special, because they permit us to do the things we need to get along in life. In the text before us today, God asks Abraham to do the unthinkable and unimaginable with his hands. God puts Abraham to the test, saying: “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” (Gen. 22:2). Can you believe what God is asking Abraham to do with his hands? I certainly can’t fathom that request from a loving God. Yet Moses in this Chapter tells us that is precisely what God asked of Abraham—to use his hands to sacrifice his son, his only son as an offering to his God.

And in our reading we see the obedient Patriarch going with God’s request to the mountain. He takes his son, saddles him with the wood for the burnt offering and heads up the mountain to sacrifice him. PAUSE.

What if God asked you to give the most important thing in your life to Him? What if He asked you to sacrifice your job, your position, your house, your car, or the life of your children, would you be willing to carry it out? We have to admit this kind of testing challenges us to the core. It challenges us to acknowledge who hold the first place in our heart. It challenges us to put God first. As the Lord Himself taught us in the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me”. God doesn’t want us to have anything or anyone to take His place. But this is what God asked of Abraham. And we know that Abraham heard the call, and headed to the mountain to carry out God’s command. PAUSE.

Before you get too far ahead of me to the Ram that is caught in the thicket, consider with me the emotions, the pain, the anguish that father Abraham is facing. He is to give up his only son, the son of Promise for whom he waited 25 years. And now that he is blessed with this gift from God in his old age, God wants Abraham to give him up. Oh, how his heart was bleeding from the inside. Oh, how his heart was aching for what he was about to do. Oh, how his heart was screaming for a way out.

Yet, without hesitation, Abraham marches up the mountain, lays his son on the altar he built and draws his knife to sacrifice his son as a sweet offering to the God he worships. But before he could cut his son’s throat, he hears the voice of God saying, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘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’”

God held Abraham’s hands from hurting or harming Isaac. God held Abraham’s hands before the knife would slit Isaac’s heart. God’s angel intervened and wouldn’t permit Abraham to carry out the death order. Instead, God provides a substitute—a ram. The ram in the thicket dies and Isaac lives.

What God wouldn’t permit Abraham to do, He did Himself. He sent His Son, His only Son, the One He loves, the Son of Promise to earth to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. God sent His Son to the appointed mountain—Calvary to be offered as a sweet smelling offering for the sins of the world. God held His hands back from reaching out and stopping the soldiers from beating His Only Son. God held His hands back from stopping the nails to go into His Son’s flesh. God held His hands back from stopping the thorns to be implanted into His Son’s head.

There on the altar of the cross God held His hands back from reaching out to save His only Son, from the knife that would put Him to death. God held His hands back and turned away His face from His only Son, when He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” God for the first time in history didn’t come to the aid of the One who cried out to Him for deliverance—He held His hands back, and let His Son die our death. Bound to the wood of the cross in place of Isaac, Abraham and all, Jesus is the answer to the saying “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Think with me please what it was that God endured to secure your salvation? Consider the emotions, the pain, and the anguish that God was enduring. He couldn’t look at His Son because His only Son became the worst sinner in the world. God shut His ears to Jesus’ cries. God held His hands back from helping Jesus in the hour of need. Oh, how his heart was bleeding from the inside. Oh, how his heart was aching for what He was doing. Oh, how his heart was screaming for a way out. But there was none—the sentence needed to be carried out. The promise needed to be fulfilled. Sin had to be taken care of. So, God Held His hands back and let His Son be put to death on the altar of the cross. God Held His hands back as they lowered Him from the cross and carried Him to the tomb. Our loving God gave up His only Son, so that you and I may be sons and daughters of our awesome God.

I can’t fathom that. I can’t understand that. I even have a hard time believing that God would love me enough to exchange my sins with His Son’s righteousness. But it is true. What an Amazing God we have. His Words are true. His promises are sure, and He fulfills them as He uses His hands to bless us.

Study the Scriptures and you will see the mighty hands of God at work for the benefit of His Sons and daughters. In Psalm 145 we read these words: “The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing” (vv. 15-16). In His powerful hands the fish sandwiches grew into enough to feed the crowd. By His hands life is given, sickness is removed, sight is restored and forgiveness offered. God’s hands are at work among us.

Saints in Christ, take another look at your hands and ask yourself this question. How will I use my hands for the glory of God and His kingdom? Will you use them to lead a young child to the house of the Lord? Will you use your hands to open the Bible and read it to others? Will you use your hands to open your wallet to further the kingdom of God? Will you use your hands to embrace the hurting and help the needy? I pray that we will use our hands for the benefits of our neighbor and for the glory of God.

But more importantly know how Your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ extended His hands to save you and deliver you. Remember faithful saints that Jesus means “Savior.” As the Savior of the world He permitted the hands of the enemy to nail His hands to the cross of Calvary, and by these pierced hands He opened heaven’s paradise for us. During this Lenten Season, I pray that the readings of the Passion History, hymns and sermons, YOU will see Jesus and His incredible hands of mercy at work in your lives more clearly. And I hope you hear again God’s call in your life as Abraham did and said, “Here am I Lord.”

Amen.

Now the peace…

Theme: “A Construction Man” (Gen. 12:7, 8)

S-1031 2/17/08 2SIL/3A. Hymns: (O)#473; (S)#467 (C) #32 S.O.D.

Texts: Genesis 12:1-9; Romans 4:1-8, 13-17; John 3:1-17Matthew 4-1-11

Theme: “A Construction Man” (Gen. 12:7, 8)

Armour, SD. SOLI DEO GLORIA

(This sermon will be done in a first person narrative. Abraham will come out during the last stanza of the sermon hymn. He will be dressed in a Mesopotamia’s garments. He will sit on the steps by the Altar). (Gen. 12:7, 8)

Abraham comes out slowly looks at the congregation and sits down. Lifting his head upward begins to speak:

I am an old man now and have seen much in my 75 years upon the earth. I need to sit, because I am very tired from my travel. I would like you to know that I come from a long line of godly men—Construction men in my family. My 10th generation grandfather Noah, is well known to you. He is known to you as the builder of an arch that floated on the flood water for 150 days. But you probably didn’t know that he also built an Altar to the God of the Universe and the Maker of heaven and earth after the Lord delivered him and his family from the flood waters.

This same God, the God of all Grace, the one who made heaven and earth out of nothing came to me and spoke to me. This God who is unlike any of the other gods that many of my country men had in their homes and bowed too, came to me with a promise that I shall never forget.

Here is what He said to me:

“Abram, Leave your country, your people and your father’ household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

As I said before, I come from a family of construction men. My brother Nahor was busy building a city that he named after himself. But God came to me so that He might build a nation out of my seed. Out of my own body a nation would be raised to be the chosen people that speak of the God of all Grace.

It is hard for me to grasp this kindness, this grace, this love that God poured on me. As a way of thanking my gracious God, I built an altar to worship Him. That was my way to declare that God was the number one in my life and in my heart. As I picked each stone, I thought of what the altar upon which I would offer a sacrifice to praise Him meant.

This altar was used by my whole family. It was dedicated to the God of all Grace, the God of Noah, by whose Spirits I got to know Him. I didn’t worship by this altar alone, but all who came with me from Haran. I would teach these people about the God who has power and who has made Himself known to me and showed me kindness. In the new land we would worship the God of might and power, the God of goodness and grace, the God who called me out of all the men of my country.

Can you believe those promises? Me, Abram who am childless, would one day, have children as numerous as the sand of the sea shore and the stars in the skies. That wasn’t easy for me to believe. How can that be? I am just one man with a lovely wife and old man at that and my wife is past her childbearing years. Yet the promises of God entailed details that were beyond my understanding.

What if God spoke with you and told you these things? Would you have believed them? Would you have taken them to heart? But for me there was something in that voice. The voice of the One of all Grace who brought the world and everything that is in it out of nothing.

Oh, I should tell you that this was not the only time I constructed an Altar. Years later after these promises had been fulfilled and God gave me my own son—in my old age—the son whom I loved and named Isaac—meaning laughter, God came to me again. This time He asked me to do the impossible. PAUSE.

He said to me, “Abraham!” (by now my name has been changed from Abram to Abraham meaning the father of many nation).

“Here I am,” I replied.

Then God said [to me], “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.”

Did I hear what God said? Was it true that He asked me to sacrifice my son or did I imagine it? God couldn’t! He wouldn’t! He can’t do this! Isaac is my son, he is the promised seed. He is the one who would be the line that would be the source of all nations. If I sacrifice my son, how will I be the father of many nations?

Yet, in my ears I heard the words, but they were hard to swallow. But in obedience, I knew I needed to follow the will of God. I had been walking and constructing altars for him for over 25 years. Even if I put my son to the death, I BELIEVED, God could and would raise Him from the dead.

And so, in obedience to the will and command of God, I took my son, the one I love and headed to the mountain that the Lord directed me to. As we reached the mountain, I asked my servants to wait for us, while Isaac and I would continue to the mountain to worship the God of all Grace.

As we were walking, with Isaac carrying the wood for the burnt offering; he said, “Father, we have the wood, and the fire but with the lamb?” I looked at him with tender eyes and said, “My son the Lord will provide.”

Off to the mountain we went. One step after another and with each step, my hands began to sweat, my throat began to dry and tears began to well up within. I knew what lay ahead, but I kept hearing the voice of God, “Abraham, take your son, your only son Isaac the one you love…”

{Abraham gets up from the stairs and goes to the middle of the sanctuary}

Slowly (as if to drag the inevitable) I took the stones as Isaac brought them to me and piled them high, until at last the construction project was done—the altar for the sacrifice was complete.

Then, I had Isaac stretch out his hands and I tied them. I bent down and tied his legs, and picked him up and laid him on the altar (demonstrate) PAUSE.

I had hoped that I had forgotten the knife, but no it was right were it always has been by my side. I picked up the knife. I took a deep breath, and the smell of smoke burned within my lungs as I was about to torch the wood which was upon the altar, which held my son, my only son Isaac the one I love.

My hands now wet from sweat lost its grip on the hand of the knife. So I tightened my fist harder against the knife. My eyes met my son’s eyes as he lay on the wood looking up. I attempted to say sorry son, but this is what God had commanded me to do. It was a test of faith for me and also my son’s test—a test of obedience.

I looked down. I looked at my hand. I looked at the altar, the wood and living body on it. This doesn’t make sense I said. I spoke tender saying, “I love you Isaac” with tears coming down my eyes. And I heard my son say, “Father, I love you too.” Would you tell mother that I love her too? She is a great mother.” Chocking now for words, as tears shadowed my eyes, I spoke softly, and you will tell her son”

I held the knife tighter, raised it higher (lift the knife high) and it glistened against the fire. I took a deep breath for as long as I could and began to lower my shaking hands to slice Isaac’s throat. And then, out of nowhere, the voice vibrated in my ears as an earthquake, “STOP!” The knife came to a halt. In the split of a second before the execution God provided a solution. God spoke again, “Abraham, Abraham, I know that you fear Me, your son will not die” In an instant the knife fell to the ground and I bowed down and embraced my son in my arms and unloosed him from the wood and the altar. As I lifted him up, there not far from us was a ram stuck in the thicket. Isaac and I took the ram and sacrificed it at the altar in thankgiving to the Lord for what He has done. That day God constructed a nation.

But this is not the entire story. I speak to you today; I look from beyond the Jordan, the everlasting life of eternity. Remember what I said to my son the day he asked, “Where is the sacrifice?” I responded, “God will provide.” Indeed, God did. He sacrificed a lamb—His very own son for the sins of the world.

I, Abraham the father of the Nation that God would raise up from as good as dead man, wouldn’t be permitted to offer my son as a sacrifice, yet He who is the Father of all nations, offered the greatest and most precious gift—His beloved son—the LAMB of God. God in love and mercy and grace provided a solution for humanity. And He constructed an altar for the sacrifice. It was mot made out of stone or brick, but out of wood. On the same hill of Moriah, God gave His son’s life for me, Isaac and all people.

This is the God who in Grace gave me a son to fill my heart with joy, is here today to assure you of the gift of His Son that not only fills our hearts with joy, but more importantly removes every stain of sin and give us eternal life. I share this story with you because it needs to be told. When you see others tell them you met the Construction man.

(Abraham exits without saying a word).