Scripture: Genesis 22:1-14
Today’s sermon is Part 3 of our new series, “The Gospel According to the Old Testament. It has three points. Number One: Faith Says “Yes.” Fear Says “But”… Number Two: Is God Enough?… Number Three: God Will Provide the Lamb.
But first, number one… Faith Says “Yes.” Fear Says “But”
Singer-songwriter and Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan wrote a song back in the ’60s called “Highway 61 Revisited.” Jimi Hendrix also covered it. The first verse refers to today’s scripture when he sings,
God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe said, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God said, “No.” Abe said, “What?”
God said, “You can do what you want, Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you’d better run”
So in the song, Abraham responds to God’s command to sacrifice his only son Isaac by saying,“Man, you must be putting me on!”
Sometimes, in the Bible, when God calls people to do difficult things, that is their response… in so many words.
Take Ananias, for instance… If you have your Bibles—and you should—please turn to Acts chapter 9. This chapter includes the dramatic conversion of a man named Saul of Tarsus, whose name would soon be changed to Paul, the apostle commissioned by the resurrected Lord Jesus to bring his gospel to the Gentile world.
You may recall that Saul has been given official authority by the high priest in Jerusalem to go to Damascus to persecute, arrest, and imprison Jews who had converted to Christianity. Then a funny thing happened on his way to Damascus: Saul encountered Jesus—who blinded him temporarily and sent him to someone’s house in Damascus.
And then the Lord appeared in a vision to a Christian living nearby named Ananias. Verses 10 through 12:
The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.”
First notice verse 10: “And he [Ananias] said, ‘Here I am, Lord.’”
Ananias, in other words, doesn’t doubt for a moment that he is speaking to the Lord Jesus. So it stands to reason that what the Lord is about to tell him is nothing less than God’s Word to Ananias… because Jesus is God. And indeed, Jesus’ word to Ananias literally becomes God’s Word in holy scripture—because the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to write it down for us in the Book of Acts.
With this in mind, no matter what the Lord tells Ananias to do, we know exactly how Ananias ought to respond: He ought to say, “Here am I! Send me! Whatever you say, Lord, whatever you ask… I’ll do it.”
But is that how Ananias responds?
Hardly! In so many words, like the Dylan song, Ananias says, “Man, you must be putting me on!” Or more reverently he would say, “Lord, you must be putting me on!” Verse 13: “But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem.’”
Verse 13 contains three troubling words… You know what they are? But Ananias answered…
To say the least, so long as we’re confident about what the Lord is telling us to do, there should be no “but.” When we say or imply the word “but” when God speaks to us, what we really mean is, “I know better than you, Lord… Perhaps, Lord, you haven’t considered all the pertinent facts… Perhaps, Lord, you haven’t heard about this person or this situation that may cause me great harm… Perhaps, Lord, you don’t know how powerful this particular enemy is!”
That’s a funny response to God’s Word when you think about it.
How presumptuous of us to offer any objections to God when God speaks his Word to us, right?
I mean, who knows better—us or God?
Yet heroes of the Bible—not to mention God’s people today—do this all the time!
“Lord, you must be putting me on!”
And I’m not any better! I do the same thing!
After all, how often do I say, like the great Reformer Martin Luther, “I stand on the Word of God… Here I stand, I can do no other.” But who am I kidding? Time and again, I fail to have the faith to put into action what God clearly tells me to do in his Word! Otherwise, why the heck am I often so angry in my life? Why do I often covet what others have? How many times do I fail to guard my tongue? How often do I judge others? How often do I fail to tell the whole truth and nothing but… because… after all… how will other people judge me? How many times do I feel afraid? How many times do I worry? How many times do I… Dot, dot, dot?
But especially worry… Good heavens! How many times does God’s Word tell us, “Don’t do it”? How many times does Jesus tell us, “Don’t do it!”?
And yet… we do it.
No… I should not feel morally superior to Ananias or anyone else because it’s unlikely that I could pass the test that Abraham passes with flying colors in today’s scripture!
Because… as much as I love Bob Dylan—and, dear friends, I have loved and followed Bob Dylan for 41 years of my life—he’s completely wrong about Abraham. Because unlike Ananias, Abraham doesn’t say, “Lord, you must be putting me on”… not even close.
Ananias says it… And earlier in the Bible, Abraham’s wife Sarah says it… Moses says it… Gideon says it… Jeremiah says it… Jonah says it… I say it… Others say it… But not Abraham. Not this time, at least. That’s what’s so astonishing about this episode in Abraham’s life. The Lord calls him to do something that seems impossible. And he simply does it… He says “yes”… No arguing… No buts…
And that’s Point Number One: Faith Says “Yes.” Fear says “But.”
Remember where we are in history: about 40 years before today’s scripture, God called Abraham and his wife Sarah to embark on a special mission: to leave their home and family and native country and go to a land that God would show them. God said that he would make of them a great nation and that through their descendants the whole world would be blessed—a blessing of salvation that was ultimately fulfilled through Jesus Christ.
But if God were going to make a great nation of Abraham and Sarah’s descendants, they would first have to have at least one child. And they were childless and infertile when God first made this promise—and already long past the point of having children anyway. Finally, after 25 years of trying to get pregnant—with a lot of trouble and heartache in between—Sarah gets pregnant, at age 90, and they have the promised son, Isaac. Then a few years after that, after some more trouble and heartache, they have a place to call home—on a small piece of the Promised Land that would later belong to Israel.
Abraham answered the call and did everything God asked of him—not perfectly, not without sin or doubt—but he did it. If there was anyone who no longer needed to have their faith tested, surely it was Abraham. If there was anyone who had nothing left to prove—to God or to anyone else—surely it was Abraham, right?
Wrong! God knows best… And God thought Abraham still had at least one thing left to prove. What could it be?
That brings us to the heart of the test in today’s scripture…
… and to Point Number Two: Is God Enough?
Consider this question:
While it’s true that for about forty years at this point, Abraham had sacrificed and suffered in response to God’s call, what if Abraham did so in order to get something from God in return… in order to receive God’s promised son… in order to receive God’s many promised blessings? “Do this for me,” God told Abraham repeatedly, “and I’ll give you a promised son, and I’ll give you land, and I’ll give you descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I’ll make your name great, and I’ll make of you a great nation.”
Those are some good promises… you gotta admit!
This reminds me of Satan’s accusation against Job back in Job chapter 1: “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.”[1] In other words, “You treat Job so well, God, and have blessed him with so many children, so much land, so much livestock, so many possessions, no wonder he serves you! If you remove all of these blessings from him, he’ll curse you to your face!”[2]
So maybe the test in today’s scripture is similar: Is Abraham still willing to serve God if doing so means losing what he holds most dear—his beloved son Isaac—and with the death of Isaac, all the promises that go with him?
Will Abraham still love God, in other words, if all he gets in return is… God?
Another way of describing the test is this: Is God enough for Abraham? And for that matter, is God enough for me? Is God enough for you?
I believe that’s the nature of Abraham’s test. And I think God constantly tests all of us with that question!
In the wake of Robin Williams’s suicide several years ago, I read an earlier interview with this gifted actor and comedian. In the course of his career, Williams won an Academy Award, multiple Golden Globes, Grammys, Emmys; he had a number one prime-time TV show; he starred in some of the most financially successful and critically acclaimed movies ever made; he lived in mansions; he dated supermodels; he was beloved by millions.
And do you know what Williams said about all this success?
He said, no matter what dizzying heights of fame and fortune you achieve, he said, “You bottom out… People say, ‘You have an Academy Award.’ The Academy Award lasted about a week, then one week later people are going, ‘Hey, Mork.’”[3] Referring to his old show Mork and Mindy.
In other words, none of these tokens of success was enough to satisfy him… None of these things was enough to make him happy or contented or at peace in life—and I don’t think it’s just because he was clinically depressed… although that certainly made everything worse.
No, here’s the truth: If any of us are counting on people, or possessions, or popularity, or money, or family, or fame, or awards, or recognition, or any kind of material or worldly success to bring us happiness, we are going to be sorely disappointed. We often think that worldly treasure is going to be enough, but it never is! Worldly treasure promises lasting happiness and joy. But it never delivers and it never lasts. It lets us down over and over again.
We keep thinking it won’t… but it does.
Years ago, comedian Jerry Seinfeld made this same point in an acceptance speech when he won a Clio Award. A Clio is the equivalent of winning an Oscar—except for TV commercials! And Seinfeld won this Clio and gave an acceptance speech that surely made the advertising executives in the room squirm. He said this:
I love advertising because I love lying. In advertising, everything is the way you wish it was. I don’t care that it won’t be like that when I actually get the product being advertised because in between seeing the commercial and owning the thing, I’m happy, and that’s all I want… We know the product is going to stink. We know that. Because we live in the world and we know that everything stinks. We all believe, ‘Hey, maybe this one won’t stink.’ We are a hopeful species. Stupid but hopeful.[4]
What if there was something that didn’t ultimately stink. Even Jerry Seinfeld would want that!
If we could have it, how much would we pay for it?
Remember the parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”[5]
Then in his joy…
Joy—which is a kind of lasting happiness that doesn’t depend on circumstances—is something that literally every sane person in the world wants more than they want anything else. They’ll pay whatever it takes to get it.
Jesus says that this kind of happiness is freely available only through a relationship with him. God’s Word tells us that this joy is produced within us as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, who lives inside of us from the moment we surrender our lives to Christ in repentance and faith.
But acquiring this joy involves really difficult stuff, Jesus says, like taking up our cross daily and following Jesus.[6] A cross is an instrument of torture and death, please remember. That sounds hard… and it is!
But it’s not only hard: It’s also the only path to true and lasting happiness. If you want something that doesn’t ultimately stink, “Go this way,” Jesus says. “Follow me.”
See… Being a Christian is not choosing between finding joy in worldly treasures, on the one hand, or having a relationship with Christ on the other. Rather, it’s choosing between a vain, unfulfilling pursuit of joy in worldly treasures and actually possessing joy in a relationship with Christ.
Which one do you want? I promise you, when I was called into ministry, I thought I would have to sacrifice some joy; I now see that that is crazy. Lisa and I have given up a lot of comfort or whatever to pursue this ministry, that’s for sure…
But we haven’t sacrificed a thing… Are you kidding? I’ve got a whole lot more of Jesus now than I had twenty years ago… Totally worth it!
I have found that joy for myself, and I want everyone to know about it. How about you?
Point Number Three: God Will Provide the Lamb.
Today’s scripture, like all the scriptures in this series, is at least as much about Jesus and his gospel as it is anything else.
Abraham himself understood this. God is giving Abraham a glimpse of Jesus Christ and the cross. Jesus himself said so when he told some Pharisees, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”[7]Abraham was seeing the “day of Christ,” the day of salvation, in today’s scripture.
See verse 8: “Abraham said, ‘God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’”
These words flash forward to the tenth and final plague in the Exodus story. God sends an angel of death to kill all the firstborn sons in Egypt. But that’s not quite right: He actually sends the angel to kill all firstborn sons—including Israelite sons. Why would God kill the Israelites? They’re the “good guys.” No. Even God’s people Israel are sinners who alsodeserve God’s judgment, wrath, and hell on account of their sins. And since God uses firstborn sons, symbolically, to represent an entire family, it’s as if the judgment for sin that falls on the firstborn falls on the entire family.
But God does something special for the Israelites that he doesn’t do for Egyptians: he offers them a way, by his grace, to save their firstborn sons. If the Israelites will sprinkle the blood of a lamb on their doorposts, the angel will “pass over” their homes and their firstborn sons will be spared. Otherwise, the firstborn sons of Israel also would have died along with the Egyptian firstborn.
So this is what’s going on in the background of today’s scripture: Abraham knows, first of all, that no matter how costly the sacrifice, what God is asking of Abraham is the just punishment for his sin. God is holy; we are sinners; we all deserve the death penalty.
But Abraham knows something else, too: He knows about God’s grace. He knows, as he tells Isaac, that God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering. And God does—literally. The lamb is a substitute for Isaac. The lamb dies for the sins of Abraham and his family. The lamb dies, literally, as a substitute for Isaac. iThe lamb is sacrificed in order to save Isaac’s life.
Is this starting to sound familiar?
Remember the words of John the Baptist to his own disciples, when he first sees Jesus from a distance? John 1:29: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Jesus is like the lamb, whom God provides, who dies as a substitute in place of everyone else.
Jesus is like the lamb…
And Jesus is like the son, Isaac… because, like Isaac, Jesus literally carries the wood for his own sacrifice—the wood of the cross—up a hill called Golgotha and willingly offers himself as a sacrifice. Unlike Isaac, Jesus actually does sacrifice himself.
Finally, God the Father is also like the father in today’s scripture—Father Abraham—who did not withhold his son, his only son, as the angel says in Genesis 22:12. In fact, the apostle Paul refers back to this verse in Romans 8, where he says, “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?”[8]
This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, right here in Genesis 22!
Genesis 22 is all about Jesus!
Abraham looked forward and said, “God will provide the lamb.”
We look back and say, “God already has.”
And that Lamb—God’s Son Jesus—was given for you and me… to give us forgiveness of sins, to give eternal life, to give us adoption into God’s family as his beloved sons and daughters, to give us the Holy Spirit…
And that is good news… That is the gospel.
Amen.
[1] Job 1:9-10 ESV
[2] Paraphrase of Job 1:9-11
[3] Josh Rottenberg, Amy Kaufman, Lee Romney, “Robin Williams’ Friends Saw Signs He Was Succumbing to Depression,” latimes.com. Accessed 5 July 2023.
[4] Jerry Seinfeld, “Jerry Seinfeld’s Clio Acceptance Speech,” youtube.com. Accessed 29 January 2026.
[5] Matthew 13:44 ESV
[6] Luke 9:23
[7] John 8:56
[8] Romans 8:31-32 NIV