Letting Go of Isaac
Sermon notes from Pastor Bryan Loritts at One Community Church on Genesis 22, a faith that shows up, and surrendering the gifts we are tempted to trust more than the Giver.
Letting Go of Isaac
Pastor Bryan Loritts
One Community Church
We are talking about a faith that shows up.
2 “Take your son,” God said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”
3 So Abraham got up early the next morning, saddled his donkey, and took along two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had designated.
10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
11 Just then the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him,” said the angel, “for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me. ”
13 Then Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram in a thicket, caught by its horns. So he went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.
14 And Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. So to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
Speak to us
Father, we bless you for what you are doing in and through this church. We have spoken to you in worship, but we dare not leave having only spoken to you. We need you to speak to us from your Word.
Stand in my body, think with my mind, and speak with my tongue the things you would have us know, say, and do. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Let go of the branch
A man hiking through the woods falls over a cliff and catches a branch. Suspended above the ground, he cries out for help.
A voice asks whether he believes it can help him and whether he will do whatever it says. He answers yes.
The voice says, “Then let go of the branch.” After an awkward silence, the man asks, “Is anyone else out there?”
Faith is fun to read about and sing about until you actually have to do it.
We all have an Isaac
The saints of old described faith as “let go and let God.” It means letting go of the things we look to for a false sense of comfort, safety, and security.
In the language of our text, faith means letting go of Isaac.
You have an Isaac. I have an Isaac. All God’s children have an Isaac.
A story to deepen our faith
Genesis 22 is one of the most famous stories in the Bible and in ancient literature. Centuries later, the writer of Hebrews returns to this scene.
Loritts describes Moses writing for Israel as they journeyed through the wilderness, depending on God for daily manna. This story was not given merely to interest them. It was given to deepen their faith and teach them the value of letting go of Isaac.
“Here I am”
God calls Abraham, and Abraham responds, “Here I am.” Later, when the angel of the Lord calls, Abraham gives the same answer.
Loritts identifies the angel of the Lord in this scene as the pre-incarnate Christ. He explains Abraham’s response as attentiveness and a posture of availability: whatever you ask me to do, I am available.
The only words Abraham speaks to deity in this account are words of availability.
“What?” or “Yes”?
Growing up, Loritts was taught to answer his parents with “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am,” not “What?”
“What?” can communicate, “I have an agenda, and you are intruding on it.” “Yes” communicates, “I may have an agenda, but your agenda is bigger than mine.”
When God calls, do we treat him as an interruption, or do we answer, “Here I am”?
Faith presupposes risk
The posture of the believer’s life is a posture of faith. Drawing near to God begins with believing him and making ourselves available.
“If it don’t have a little crazy to it, it ain’t faith.”
Faith will not always feel safe or comfortable.
15 To one he gave five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent—each according to his own ability. And he went on his journey.
16 The servant who had received the five talents went at once and put them to work and gained five more.
17 Likewise, the one with the two talents gained two more.
18 But the servant who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money.
19 After a long time the master of those servants returned to settle accounts with them.
20 The servant who had received the five talents came and presented five more. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’
21 His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master!’
22 The servant who had received the two talents also came and said, ‘Master, you entrusted me with two talents. See, I have gained two more.’
23 His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master!’
24 Finally, the servant who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Master, I knew that you are a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.
25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what belongs to you.’
26 ‘You wicked, lazy servant!’ replied his master. ‘You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.
27 Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received it back with interest.
28 Therefore take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents.
29 For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.
30 And throw that worthless servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The danger of playing it safe
In Jesus’ parable, the servants entrusted with five talents and two talents invest what they receive and double it. Both hear their master’s approval.
The servant entrusted with one talent buries it because he is afraid. The one who plays it safe is the one rebuked.
Loritts draws this warning from the parable: the greatest threat to faith is safety and comfort.
You cannot arrange away your need for God
Savings, retirement accounts, and insurance are responsible provisions. The issue is not having them. The issue is a mindset that tries to arrange life so every risk is covered and God is no longer needed.
God loves you too much to let you structure your life in a way that makes him unnecessary.
There will always be a gap between God’s call and your capacity. The bridge connecting them is faith.
A test, not a temptation
The narrator tells us something Abraham does not hear: God is testing him.
Temptation sets someone up for failure. God does not tempt us to evil. A test reveals what is really there.
When one hardship follows another, it can feel as though God is against you. In those seasons, take hold of his Word and remind yourself that God is for you.
A stress test for the heart
A doctor may use a stress test to see what is happening in your heart. Genesis 22 is a stress test.
Prosperity does not reveal everything about what is in us. How do we respond when the bottom falls out?
Abraham had waited until he was one hundred years old for the child of promise. Now God’s test would expose what place that child held in his heart.
2 I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you. ”
4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.
5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and people they had acquired in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the Oak of Moreh at Shechem. And at that time the Canaanites were in the land.
7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring. ” So Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8 From there Abram moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the LORD, and he called on the name of the LORD.
9 And Abram journeyed on toward the Negev.
10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.
11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman,
12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live.
13 Please say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake, and on account of you my life will be spared.”
14 So when Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
15 When Pharaoh’s officials saw Sarai, they commended her to him, and she was taken into the palace of Pharaoh.
16 He treated Abram well on her account, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.
17 The LORD, however, afflicted Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues because of Abram’s wife Sarai.
18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram and asked, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?
19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her as my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!”
20 Then Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning Abram, and they sent him away with his wife and all his possessions.
2 So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised.
3 And Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him.
4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him.
5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Then Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears of this will laugh with me.”
7 She added, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8 So the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.
9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking her son,
10 and she said to Abraham, “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!”
11 Now this matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son Ishmael.
12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.
13 But I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he is your offspring.”
14 Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.
16 Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.
17 Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies.
18 Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up and settled in the wilderness and became a great archer.
21 And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
22 At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do.
23 Now, therefore, swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or descendants. Show to me and to the country in which you reside the same kindness that I have shown to you.”
24 And Abraham replied, “I swear it.”
25 But when Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized,
26 Abimelech replied, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, so I have not heard about it until today.”
27 So Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant.
28 Abraham separated seven ewe lambs from the flock,
29 and Abimelech asked him, “Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?”
30 He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand as my witness that I dug this well.”
31 So that place was called Beersheba, because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.
32 After they had made the covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
33 And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal God.
34 And Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.
The gift and the Giver
God had promised to make Abraham a father of many. Even after Abraham and Sarah’s attempt to obtain a child through Hagar, God remained faithful. Isaac was born, and Ishmael was sent away.
Now the test presses a question: do you love the gift more than the Giver? Has a good blessing become an idol?
Are you following God because you love him, or only for the benefits?
“Give me your future”
In Abraham’s world, a son carried a family’s inheritance, lineage, and legacy. Isaac represented Abraham’s hopes and dreams.
When God asked for Isaac, he was asking Abraham to entrust his future to him.
What is your Isaac?
Your Isaac is your “this”
Your Isaac may be your career, your child, your money, your status, what you drive, or where you live.
A career can hold all your hopes. A child can become someone you try to control because your happiness rests on their success. Loritts urges parents to release that control and entrust their children to God.
Your Isaac is the thing you say God can have everything except.
“God, you can have that and that and that, but not this.”
You cannot ride the fence
Loritts tells of Michael Jordan visiting his friend Fred Whitfield, whom he had supplied with Nike gear for years. Looking for a jacket, Jordan discovered clothing from competing brands.
Jordan gathered the clothes and told his friend to have his Nike representative replace them. The point: you cannot ride the fence.
Loritts applies the picture to belonging to Christ while holding on to rival loyalties. Taking a knife to “Isaac” is a metaphor for surrender, not an instruction to harm a person.
God speaks. Abraham moves.
Abraham rises early, saddles his donkey, gathers the wood, and sets out with Isaac. The account records no bargaining or negotiation.
Obedience is not just doing what you are told. It is doing what you are told, when you are told, with a happy heart.
What has God told you to do that you have not acted on yet?
18 even though God had said to him, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.”
19 Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and in a sense, he did receive Isaac back from death.
The object of Abraham’s faith
How could Abraham move toward such a difficult act of obedience?
He knew Isaac was the child of promise. God had said his offspring would be named through Isaac, and God does not lie. Abraham reasoned that God could even raise Isaac from the dead.
His faith was not in himself or even in Isaac. His faith was in the God who keeps his promises.
Who is flying the plane?
A pastor friend prepared for a fighter-jet flight by researching its speed, close formations, sharp maneuvers, and emergency procedures. Everything he learned gave him reasons to be afraid.
But he also researched the pilot, whose extensive flying record gave him confidence. He boarded while still afraid because his trust was in the one flying the plane.
God has a record of faithfulness: delivering Israel, parting the sea, preserving the men in the furnace, shutting lions’ mouths, and raising Jesus.
When will we stop merely talking about boarding and actually trust him?
8 Abraham answered, “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two walked on together.
God will provide
As they climb the mountain, Isaac sees what they have brought for the sacrifice, but asks where the lamb is.
Abraham answers in faith that God will provide.
He builds the altar, binds Isaac, and reaches for the knife. Then the angel of the Lord calls, “Abraham, Abraham,” and stops him. A ram is provided in Isaac’s place.
“Now I know”
Why would the all-knowing Lord say, “Now I know”?
Loritts explains this as knowledge gained through experience: God already knew Abraham’s faith, but now that faith had been expressed in action.
The test gave Abraham an opportunity for his faith to show up.
Love experienced under pressure
Loritts tells of Mark and Mary, celebrating forty years of marriage on an Alaskan cruise. When another passenger angrily confronted Mary, Mark stepped in to defend her, despite recently having knee surgery.
The misunderstanding was resolved without a fight. Later Mary told him, “Now I know you love me.”
She had known and heard his love before. Under pressure, she experienced it again.
Every test is an opportunity for our faith to become something lived, not merely something said.
21 Uz the firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel (the father of Aram),
22 Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.”
23 And Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. Milcah bore these eight sons to Abraham’s brother Nahor.
24 Moreover, Nahor’s concubine, whose name was Reumah, bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
Why end with a genealogy?
After the rescue on the mountain, the chapter turns to a family record. It can feel like an unexpected ending until we notice one line: Bethuel fathered Rebekah.
Two chapters later, Abraham’s servant finds Rebekah as a wife for Isaac.
Abraham entrusts his future to God, and the account ends with God already moving to secure that future.
2 So Abraham instructed the chief servant of his household, who managed all he owned, “Place your hand under my thigh,
3 and I will have you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I am dwelling,
4 but will go to my country and my kindred to take a wife for my son Isaac.”
5 The servant asked him, “What if the woman is unwilling to follow me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the land from which you came?”
6 Abraham replied, “Make sure that you do not take my son back there.
7 The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me from my father’s house and my native land, who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’—He will send His angel before you so that you can take a wife for my son from there.
8 And if the woman is unwilling to follow you, then you are released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there.”
9 So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter.
10 Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed with all manner of good things from his master in hand. And he set out for Nahor’s hometown in Aram-naharaim.
11 As evening approached, he made the camels kneel down near the well outside the town at the time when the women went out to draw water.
12 “O LORD, God of my master Abraham,” he prayed, “please grant me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham.
13 Here I am, standing beside the spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water.
14 Now may it happen that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who responds, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels as well’—let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. By this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.”
15 Before the servant had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor.
16 Now the girl was very beautiful, a virgin who had not had relations with any man. She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up again.
17 So the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please let me have a little water from your jar.”
18 “Drink, my lord,” she replied, and she quickly lowered her jar to her hands and gave him a drink.
19 After she had given him a drink, she said, “I will also draw water for your camels, until they have had enough to drink.”
20 And she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran back to the well to draw water, until she had drawn water for all his camels.
21 Meanwhile, the man watched her silently to see whether or not the LORD had made his journey a success.
22 And after the camels had finished drinking, he took out a gold ring weighing a beka, and two gold bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels.
23 “Whose daughter are you?” he asked. “Please tell me, is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”
24 She replied, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son that Milcah bore to Nahor.”
25 Then she added, “We have plenty of straw and feed, as well as a place for you to spend the night.”
26 Then the man bowed down and worshiped the LORD,
27 saying, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld His kindness and faithfulness from my master. As for me, the LORD has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.”
28 The girl ran and told her mother’s household about these things.
29 Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, and he rushed out to the man at the spring.
30 As soon as he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and heard Rebekah’s words, “The man said this to me,” he went and found the man standing by the camels near the spring.
31 “Come, you who are blessed by the LORD,” said Laban. “Why are you standing out here? I have prepared the house and a place for the camels.”
32 So the man came to the house, and the camels were unloaded. Straw and feed were brought to the camels, and water to wash his feet and the feet of his companions.
33 Then a meal was set before the man, but he said, “I will not eat until I have told you what I came to say.” So Laban said, “Please speak.”
34 “I am Abraham’s servant,” he replied.
35 “The LORD has greatly blessed my master, and he has become rich. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, camels and donkeys.
36 My master’s wife Sarah has borne him a son in her old age, and my master has given him everything he owns.
37 My master made me swear an oath and said, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I dwell,
38 but you shall go to my father’s house and to my kindred to take a wife for my son.’
39 Then I asked my master, ‘What if the woman will not come back with me?’
40 And he told me, ‘The LORD, before whom I have walked, will send His angel with you and make your journey a success, so that you may take a wife for my son from my kindred and from my father’s house.
41 And when you go to my kindred, if they refuse to give her to you, then you will be released from my oath.’
42 So when I came to the spring today, I prayed: O LORD, God of my master Abraham, if only You would make my journey a success!
43 Here I am, standing beside this spring. Now if a maiden comes out to draw water and I say to her, ‘Please let me drink a little water from your jar,’
44 and she replies, ‘Drink, and I will draw water for your camels as well,’ may she be the woman the LORD has appointed for my master’s son.
45 And before I had finished praying in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her jar on her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew water. So I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’
46 She quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels as well.’ So I drank, and she also watered the camels.
47 Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She replied, ‘The daughter of Bethuel son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her wrists.
48 Then I bowed down and worshiped the LORD; and I blessed the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who led me on the right road to take the granddaughter of my master’s brother for his son.
49 Now if you will show kindness and faithfulness to my master, tell me; but if not, let me know, so that I may go elsewhere.”
50 Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is from the LORD; we have no choice in the matter.
51 Rebekah is here before you. Take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, just as the LORD has decreed.”
52 When Abraham’s servant heard their words, he bowed down to the ground before the LORD.
53 Then he brought out jewels of silver and gold, and articles of clothing, and he gave them to Rebekah. He also gave precious gifts to her brother and her mother.
54 Then he and the men with him ate and drank and spent the night there. When they got up the next morning, he said, “Send me on my way to my master.”
55 But her brother and mother said, “Let the girl remain with us ten days or so. After that, she may go.”
56 But he replied, “Do not delay me, since the LORD has made my journey a success. Send me on my way so that I may go to my master.”
57 So they said, “We will call the girl and ask her opinion.”
58 They called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?” “I will go,” she replied.
59 So they sent their sister Rebekah on her way, along with her nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men.
60 And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, “Our sister, may you become the mother of thousands upon thousands. May your offspring possess the gates of their enemies.”
61 Then Rebekah and her servant girls got ready, mounted the camels, and followed the man. So the servant took Rebekah and left.
62 Now Isaac had just returned from Beer-lahai-roi, for he was living in the Negev.
63 Early in the evening, Isaac went out to the field to meditate, and looking up, he saw the camels approaching.
64 And when Rebekah looked up and saw Isaac, she got down from her camel
65 and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?” “It is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself.
66 Then the servant told Isaac all that he had done.
67 And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah and took Rebekah as his wife. And Isaac loved her and was comforted after his mother’s death.
Faith and the next generation
“Some of us are waiting on God to move, and God is waiting on us to move.”
Loritts draws a generational lesson from the ending: the fruit of faith may extend beyond our own lives to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
He describes his own life as receiving the fruit of a praying mother and father who continued to walk with God.
Will you trust him with your future?
“I knew you’d get me”
When Loritts’s youngest son was five, he spent the summer afraid of the pool’s deep end. He stayed in the kiddie pool with goggles, floaties, and a pool noodle while his brothers jumped from the diving board.
One day, without his flotation aids, he called to his father and jumped. Loritts rushed to lift him from the water.
When asked what he was thinking, his son answered, “I told you I was going in. I knew you’d get me.”
Loritts asks whether we have spent years in the kiddie pool while God calls us to trust him in the deep end.
Name your Isaac
Take out your phone or a piece of paper and write it down.
- What is your Isaac?
- What is your “this”?
- Has a good gift taken the place of the Giver?
- Has a blessing become an idol?
Sometime this week, tell someone who or what your Isaac is.
Lift it to God
Loritts invites the congregation to lift the phone or paper on which they named their Isaac as an act of surrender.
He recalls the father lifting his child in Roots and Hannah promising to give her son back to God.
This is an act of worship: “God, I’m giving this to you. Thank you for the gift, but Isaac is not you.”
We let go
Father, we lift our Isaacs to you: our children, relationships, jobs, careers, or whatever has taken your place.
Have your own way, Lord. We trust you. No one and nothing compares to you.
We are stepping into the deep end today. We trust you, and we let go.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
