Harrison Faith Church
One Spirit - Part 3 | Pastor Scott Brandon | June 30, 2024
Pray with me this morning as we open God's Word. Father, we love you today. You pray, Lord, as you bless God, pray in her family. You'll also bless us, God, as we dive into the Word. Lord, I pray you would show us how to live a life of worship today. And it's not always an easy life. God, you've called us into this world, this world is a difficult world. And yet Lord, you still give us your Word and your instruction and your spirit in us and your power in us, or to overcome all those things, God, that become problematic in our relationship with you. And I pray today, if I ask you, walk out of here. We would know the difference between those things, God, that the world has put upon us and those things that you're inviting us into. We ask that you to keep us, Lord, and Jesus, let me pray. Amen. Turn to Genesis chapter 22 this morning. I'm going to just share with you, I think, just from this one chapter. And I don't want to preach at you this morning, which is why I'm going to go ahead and take a seat because this is-- my heart is to not put you in a place if you feel like what Pastor Scott said, you can like it or lump it in this morning, you know? And that's not my heart. When I think about the Christian walk, sometimes I think about how closely it resembles marriage. When you took the vowels, it says, "For better or for worse." Boy, some of y'all, y'all are like, I'm not saying that. I just said better, and that was it. He said worse. I said better, for better, for worse, for richer or for, poor, if sickness ends in, until what? Death do you part. And that's how the Christian walk is. We have these vowels, too. But let's be honest, a lot of us like to say, you know what, Lord, as long as we rich, as long as we healthy, and as long as it's good, the better. I love Jesus with all my heart. Yes, I do. But what did you say, Lord, poor? Oh, you said no health. I'm going to have to reevaluate those contracts, Lord. I'm not sure about that. It's hard to serve God in the lesser times. And I would say that if you look at our lifestyle, you look at the Christian walk, most of our walk is finding a way through the suffering path of life. Why is that? Because you and I, we are in a world that does not love us, does not care for us, does not like us. And as of right now, it is not getting any better. But one day, his will will be done. One day, his kingdom will come, and will no longer have those things that we have to subject ourselves to. But rise of right now, you need to know that if your life is suffering at all. Hopefully, you have understood the suffering at some point. You said, Patrick, Scott, I don't want to suffer. Well, Christ said, if you don't suffer with me, there's no glory for you. So we want to know who are we as a follower of Christ. You should have some suffering in your life. How do you walk through those suffering moments is going to determine your love and your knowledge of Christ and who he is. And so this morning, I just want to look at Genesis chapter 22. Perhaps you've probably read it before. This is the story of Abraham. And I'll just give you a quick rundown really quick that you've not ever read it before. This is Abraham, and Abraham has been blessed by God back in chapter 15. The Lord said, I'm going to make of you a man of great nation. You'll have more offspring than you can count stars in the sky or grains of Santa on the seashore. I'm going to bless you and flourish you. And then fast forward all the way up until chapter 22. He says, he finally gives him a son, Isaac. And then he says, now, go and take your son, Isaac. And I want you to sacrifice him as a burnt offering on the mountain that I tell you. And I'll let you know when you get there. Can you imagine that walking for days not knowing when it's time to murder your only son? That you prayed, that God gave to you, that God delivered for you. You didn't ask for it. God came along and said, I'm going to give you a promise. And I'm going to deliver it. He delivered it. And now he says, now I want you to give him away. And so he does exactly just that. He finally lands with the Mount Moriah, and then he goes to the top of the mountain. And he goes to sacrifice the son. Thankfully, God intervenes at the last minute. Abraham did not know that. Neither did Isaac. He intervenes the last minute, provides a sacrifice in his place. And then we see God revealing himself as Jehovah Jara, our provider. In all of that, there is a lot of human emotion, a lot of responding that we don't know. Sometimes it's so easy to read the word of God and go, oh, that's nice. See how God delivered. He brought a little lamb because he almost had to kill his son. That was so good at God. And you have no idea what Abraham was going through. You have no idea what he's wrestling with. And I think to some degree man, we do have an idea, because have you ever been given something a blessing and then God said, I need that back. I'm going to take that back and you may get it back. I don't care how much you beg for it. I don't care if I promise to you or not. I'm going to take it back. And if I take it back, it's on my own sovereign opinion to do so. I don't have to guarantee you anything. And then the question of the day is, is in that hardship, we ask ourself, is God still good? Do we still love God? Because there's three things in this world that make our life difficult. There is the culture we're always trying to face and fight. There is crisis that we're always trying to manage. But then there is this other thing called contradiction. And that is God's contradiction. When he promised you to do one thing, and then he does another. Have you ever been in a God contradiction before? I'm going to do this, but then what he does is something totally different. And this is what we find God in Genesis chapter 22. And in that context of contradiction, you and I are still called to worship. That is, all of who we are is to respond to all of who God is. And the question we have to ask ourself is, can we pass the test? Because God does test. He doesn't tempt you, but he does test you. And you say, "Well, why would God test me?" Well, let's look into it. Look at Genesis chapter 22 verse one through three. I want to talk to you about three things today. I'm not going to put a ton of notes on you, but there's three things I want to talk about in terms of sacrificial worship. We were talking about being in a series of one spirit, and being in one spirit. We are to do these things that are applicable to the spirit, and that is worship. What is worship? It's not showing up 15, 20 minutes here today and singing a cute little song and going home. That is not worship, it is a form of worship, but it is not worship as an entirety. We want to know what worship is, and worship is almost always sacrificial worship. So are you and I, are we being called to sacrificial worship? So there's a call to sacrificial worship. There is a confidence of sacrificial worship, and there is a compensation in sacrificial worship. Let's look at the first one. Verse one, 22 says, "After these things, "God tested Abraham and said to him, "said to him, Abraham, and he said, 'Here I am.'" 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." And so Abraham rose early in the morning, sowed his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and rose, and went to the place of which God had told him. But I want you to know first off is this. After these things, God tested. God does not do this. He's not managing a situation for his glory. God's not trying to solve a situation for his glory. What I want you to see is after these things, God orchestrates a situation that does not exist. It does not exist prior to this moment. God is not saying this is a great opportunity for me to use this. He's not doing that. He's not managing something. He's creating something for what reason to test Abraham. It's important for you and I to know that God does test us. That's not outside of his character. He is not an evil God or a less God if he tests us. He has a right and a prerogative to test us. And if he does so, honestly, it's for our good. It's always for our good. And so what do we do? How do we manage these moments in life? Well, I want to know one thing is that God never, he never gives us a test without a reason. God is not purposeless in that. If he's going to test you, there is a reason. He always has a specific purpose in mind. And when God tests us, he's actually wanting to expand our capacity to know him. That's not on my notes, but you should write that down. He wants to expand your capacity to know him. We also need to know that a test is not a judgment. Oftentimes we think, oh man, I don't know what I did wrong. Can I tell you that when I did something wrong, my mom let me know I knew what I did wrong? Anybody ever done something wrong? You didn't know what you did? Now, I know you told your parents, I didn't know what I did. You always said that. I said that too. And every time my dad would be, I don't know what the heck I was going. I was like, dad, what, why is this? Ow, stop, what's that for? You know what you did? But my mom, I always knew. My mom, I always knew. I may say I didn't do that, but I always knew. You know why? Because my mom did love me. She did discipline me. And I gotta think that if God does love me, greater than my mom, he is no less of a parent, no less of a disciplinarian and no less of a communicator than my mother. I will always know when he is judging me, when he is discipling me. I'll always know that. Because the Holy Spirit will let you know, you know you shouldn't be doing that. He's trying to get your attention. God's first response is not his right hand. His first response is his love, it's his heart. He's trying to let you know this is not good for you. I love you, I want something better for you. And when we push away, then comes the discipline. But you and I will always know when we're being disciplined. But you and I will always know when it's a test. So the first thing you need to understand about a test is this, that a test only applies to people who are walking with God, walking with God. See that helps me understand things a little bit better for me because when I look through a test and I've had some tests in my life, I'm thankful now to look back that he really gave me the test because I was walking with him. He wasn't giving me the test because I wasn't listening to him, he was giving me the test because he actually wanted me to grow closer to him. Although it does not feel that way to my flesh. That is how I feel. God is actually testing me. And here's the reason why. Because a test reveals the depth of where you are so you'll understand where you need to go. I just want to remind you this morning, let me just stop and just say this for a second. Today is a mature word. I'm not here to cheerily do. There'll be other days to do that. I'm not here to really encourage you in other ways but today is to mature you. Our faith must deepen. We must be spiritually mature. And this is not for everyone, only for those who are looking for maturity in Christ. So today all that you hear, I want you to absorb. I want you to process. I even want you to question everything I say and go back to your own time and press on the word of God and say God is this true. If it's true, then I want it for myself. But can I tell you these things don't, they don't feel comfortable. You know, I don't know if you know that about God's word. It's not always comfortable. The Spirit's not always comfortable but it is always beneficial. A test reveals the depth of where you are so you'll understand where you need to go. At the end of the school year, you take a final exam, right? And that exam lets you know what? Where you are and where you're gonna go, right? That's exactly how it is. And so God brings us a test. But the problem is in a test, he touches on things that we don't want him to touch on. Those test-touch things, we don't like him to touch. Look at verse two. And he said, take your son, your only son, whom you love. God's after your affection. He's after your feelings. He's after your loyalty. God said, take your son. Take the thing you love the most. Thought you would never have the promise that was delivered. The thing that brings joy and reminds you of my blessings when you look upon him. He's also the person who will serve to fulfill both the will and the word of God. Yeah, take that boy and go kill him. Lord, you said you're going to fulfill your covenant, your promise. That's what you said. That's not what I said. So what you said, you said you're going to use him to fulfill your promise so that all of my descendants will be more than the stars in the sky or the sand on the shore. Now, we have a contradiction, Lord. How in the world is what you said going to come true? Then when you look at what you're wanting me to do, so you're saying and you're doing are not, they're not doing this, Lord. Then Lord, did you know that? Did you, maybe you didn't realize that. Maybe I can bring that to your attention. That if we were to do this in our world, that would be what we call a contradiction between A and B in case the Lord forgot as politely and respectfully as you can say it. In Genesis 15 and five, just so you know, Genesis 15 and five says and you brought him outside and said look toward heaven and number the stars. If you're able to number them, then he said, so shall your offspring be. In chapter 21 verse 12, he says, but God said to Abraham, be not displeased because of the boy that's Ishmael and because of your slave woman, whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac, not somebody else, not some alternative through Isaac, shall your offspring be named. So how the Lord is God going to make Abraham a great nation when the only person that can be fulfilled through, who Jesus said, who God said it was Isaac is about to die. Isaac can't be both the future and the sacrifice. What do you do when it looks like God does contradicting yourself? Have you ever prayed for that job? You got that job and you got fired from that job. You're like, Lord, I prayed for this job. I need this job. Or have you ever prayed for a job? You got the job, you hate the job. You're like, I prayed for this job. This is what God brought me and I hate this job. Have you ever prayed for God? You know the financial need of my life. I pray you bring that blessing into my life so I can deal with this. This is a big thing and you prayed for it, you fasted for it, you sought God's word for it and God brought you the blessing. Only to have something else break in your life to the exact amount of the blessing that just came in and you say, Lord, I know what you said and now I know what must be done and it seems like you're in contradiction. Lord, I prayed that you healed me and you did and now I'm sick with something else. I don't understand you contradicting your own hand, your own word, your own blessing. So what do we do when we get into a place that we feel like God is contradicting himself? Let me just tell you, it's just a test. More importantly, it's an invitation. It's an invitation. The invitation is a call to sacrificial worship. Look what Jesus said in Luke 14, 26. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Now, please, there is a context here. But what I do want you to understand is that Jesus is, if you want to be my disciple, if you wanna follow me, you gotta deny yourself, your possessions, your relationships, you must be willing to give them all up for me. That's because, listen to me, that's because true worship always gives God the most treasured things in our heart. True worship always gives God the most treasured things in our heart. It puts you in a place to ask yourself, do I love the blessing more than I love the blesser? Because the blesser can always bring the blessing back or he may change the blessing or he may upgrade the blessing. I'm not sure, but here's what I know. We always gotta make sure that our heart is on the blesser and that's not easy because the blesser feels distant at times. The blesser feels not near or connected to us and the blessing is right here. So how do we navigate that? And that's a hard question for me to ask, I ask the Lord. What is the blessing? What is it that I'm holding on to? That I care more about? What's my Isaac? Here's what I want you to know, and he says in verse two, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love." Listen, God knows that whatever tests our affections, test our faith, whatever tests your affections, whatever God says, I need that. What is it that you would say, I don't know about that, Lord. I don't know that I'm there. I don't know that if we're just being honest, we would never say this, but we're processing it. I don't know that my love for you is greater than my love for it. I don't know that it's not. It doesn't mean I don't want it to be. I want to love you more. God, I just don't know if I love you greater than all these other things. And we may say, because our Sunday school classes had taught us that we would deny that, never say that, but I bet your feelings would say something different. Because we're human and we understand things that are real to our life. We love those things that God has blessed us with, but God is trying to show us something in the test. He tests our affections, and so doing, he tests our faith, which is why Abraham is in the hall of faith because he not only responded to the call of sacrificial worship, he responded with the confidence in sacrificial worship. Look at verse three, Abraham rose early in the morning, settled his donkey in 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 in which God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar, and then Abraham said to his young men, notice this, stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. Let me read this in the new living translations a bit better, stay here with the donkey. Abraham told the servants, the boy and I will travel a little further, we will worship there, and then we will come right back. Did you catch that? We will worship there, we're going to do what God said he was going to do, and then we will come right back so God can do what he said he was going to do. You follow what I'm saying? In my mind, that day ain't going to happen. If you kill that brother, he ain't coming back. That's how the world works. That's how life works, okay? If that's how it works, we could just hate somebody kill him, be over with and God say, bring him right back, but that's not how it works. He says, we're going to go over there and worship, I'm going to kill him by my own hand. It's not going to be good, it's going to be painful, he's going to cry out, I'm going to hurt, but then God's going to do something after that, and we're going to come on back. You stay right here, wait for this to come on back. If God told us that today, we'd say, now wait a minute Lord, wait a minute, wait a minute Lord, let's pray about this, let's talk, let's fast, let's fast, let's talk, you know, tell me what you're thinking Lord, like show me your heart. That's what we say, right? The Lord says, walk, kill, come back, that's what you're going to do. And we don't like that, because we're asking the Lord to show us more, but notice Abraham's ability to have confidence in the contradiction. It's really seen by his faith in God to do both things. Sometimes we're in a place, we have to understand, God can do both things. Our logical mind doesn't understand that, but God can do both things even when they contradict each other. All I know is this, that's what Abraham is saying. All I know is this, I'm going to go do what I can do, and I'm going to let God do what only he can do. I'm going to do what I can do, and let God do what only he can do. We know this because Hebrews 11, 17 talks about this. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his son. He was here, he was here with that knife. He was right here, and it says of whom it was said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be made." There's the contradiction, he's about to kill him, but here's the error at the same time. But look at verse 19. He considered that God was able to raise him from the dead, from which figuratively speaking he did receive him back. Here's what I need you to know. Faith is doing what is possible, so God can do what is impossible. Faith is doing what's possible, so God can do what's impossible. Faith is acting in your capacity when the rest is beyond your comprehension. If you don't operate in your capacity to do what God calls you to do, don't expect him to operate in his capacity and what he desires to do. He said, "Okay, what does that mean? "I should go talk to somebody and tell them about Jesus." No, those are small things. I'm asking what's gonna die in your life. What are you gonna have to kill? What are you gonna raise the knife to? What is it that you love that you don't wanna give away? What's in your life that you hold like this, not like this? You say, "Lord, you're gonna have all these other things, "but I can't let you have this." The Lord says, "I wanna show you where you're at." Remember, he wants to reveal where we are so we can understand where we need to go. But Abraham's faith in verse 19 says, "He considered that God was able." He considered that God was able. What I want you to see was that Abraham believed, even when he had a limited amount of information and a limited amount of instruction. You and I will be saying, "God, tell me just a little bit more, right? "How come, why are you doing this?" And the reason why we're doing that is because we need to have more faith in the plan than the planner, to be honest. That's what it comes down to. If you'll lay it all out, God, if you'll lay it all out, then I'll understand and then I'll have no problem. But here is the problem with that. He says, "You need to be more confident, "not more comfortable. "We wanna be more comfortable with the plan, "not more confident in the plan." And the reason why we're not more confident in the plan is because we were not confident in the planner. The issue is intimacy. You see, when we come to the situation and we're having a problem being more confident than comfortable, or comfortable than confident, the problem is as we come to a place we have to make a decision is do am I okay? Am I okay with being obedient? And basically what we're saying is this, "Lord, it is your love worth my obedience." It's this thing you're asking of me. Is it worth my obedience? This Isaac, this is a big thing. You want me to give a little bit more? That's okay. Okay, I'll give that to you. Then God says, "Don't know, I wanna sacrifice." You know the difference between the sacrifice and the offering? Have I ever told you all the story about Mr. Pig and Ms. Chicken? Y'all gotta know the story. One day Ms. Chicken said, "You know what? "Mr. Pig, the Lord's been speaking to me "and he's told me we need up our worship." He's like, "All right, Ms. Chicken, I'm listening to you." She says, "I believe that I need to give 12 dozen eggs." And that means I gotta work a whole lot, but I'm gonna give God 12 dozen eggs because I believe he's worthy of worship. And I believe the Lord told me that you ought to give a pound of bacon. He said, "Wait a minute, Ms. Chicken, "for you to give a dozen eggs is an offering, "but for me to give a pound of bacon is a sacrifice." I'm not talking about offerings in your life today. I'm not talking about the things that you can go on and your course of life can be offset for a little bit and get back on. I'm talking about a sacrifice, a sacrifice, something that changes the course of your life. You don't know where you're going, you don't know why you're going that way, but God has called you to this place and you know for you to go that way and so lay down all that you are and pick up this and do that. And that would be a sacrifice. And you say, "Lord, I don't know if I'm ready "to give you a pound of bacon "because that's gonna change all that I am." And the direction that I'm going, I pray to God it is, you need to change your direction. I need my direction to change. I need to understand offerings are free, but sacrifice is something out to be looking for constantly. Because I don't know about you, but I need to be less of me and more of Christ in my life. God is asking us, what are you willing to sacrifice? Are you deciding if your obedience is worth my love? Is that the decision that you're tolling with? Notice this, that Abraham didn't allow the lack of information or the instruction to determine his lack of immediacy to respond. For he rose the next morning. He had a little bit of information, and he had a little bit of instruction, and he rose the next morning. I wanna tell you something that's one that you, I hope you can use as a tool to invest your life in and inspect it. Your immediacy to what God is telling you to do, your immediacy reveals your intimacy. How fast you respond tells me how much you know him. If Julie asked me to do something that was not logically comprehendable by me, I would just do it. 'Cause I know her. And I don't have to, I'm not trying to guess what's your angle on this. I know her, I know what she wants me to do. She's not going to ask anything that would risk the relationship between me and her. That's not going to happen. But oftentimes you and I, when God asks us to do something, we hesitate, why? We don't know if it's best for us. But see, if you were more intimate with God, if I was more intimate with God, I would be more immediate in my response. Some things you ain't gotta fast about, some things you ain't gotta pray about, you should know. And if you don't know, it's because your proximity is too much between you and the Lord. Abraham did not hesitate, not because of the what, not because of the when, not because of the how, but he did not hesitate because of the who. He knew it was God. What else is there to ask? What else is there to ask? I know who he is. All that I have is his. All that I've been given is his. And so whatever he asks me to do, even though I cannot comprehend it, even though it does not make logical sense, that will I do, I'll rise up early in the morning and do it, why? Because my immediacy is tied to my intimacy. Lastly, it's a worship team that comes on back. Lastly, there's a compensation of sacrificial worship. Just as chapter two, verse 11 through 12 says, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, he said, here I am. He said, do not delay 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, as I read this, I don't know if you caught this in verse 12, but he says, did not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now, who's speaking? God, for now I know that you fear God. What do you mean? Now you know. Now you know. You didn't know this? You didn't notice me forward until now. When you created the world, set things in the order and set, you didn't know all those things? I don't know, that's not what God's talking about here. Obviously God is all knowing. He's omniscient. So since we know that God has the information, he's not talking about information here. So what are we talking about? Well, if you look at this word no in the Hebrew, the first use of it in the beginning of Genesis, there's three ways that the word no is used. The first one is knowledge. The second one is revelation. He's revealing something and the third one is intimacy. Look how he uses it in chapter three, verse seven. He says, "Then the eyes of both were open "and they knew that they were naked. "They knew that they were naked. "That word no simply means to reveal. "They were naked before. "They just didn't understand it. "It wasn't revealed to them. "But now, since they sin, it was revealed to them, "the status of their clothing." I guess you could say. Also, their heart. It was revealed to them. God could have been saying to Abraham, "For now I have revealed that you feared God. "I have made known, I have made it available "for me to see, you to see. "Most importantly, you to see. "And the fear that we see here is not a fear "that we have in relationship with God. "That's not it at all." God is saying, it's a fear of turning our back on him. When we see the term fear of God in scripture, what God is simply saying is, that you would have a fear to turn your back on me. Because you do not want me as your enemy. You want me as your God. Because I am a loving God. I'm a jealous God. And I will do for you more than you could ever do for you. But if you turn your back on me and make me your enemy, I will be a holy righteous God." And so he says, it has now been made known. It's been revealed that you love me. But more than just revelation. We don't stop right there. Look at chapter four, Genesis four verse one. This is now Adam, new Eve. New Eve, his wife. And she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord." So the word new simply means intimacy. Now we know here, in this instance, it's a physical intimacy, because there's pregnancy that comes out there. But our bodies are just instruments. They're just ways that we express what we feel. And so what we see here is that this word new in four verse one, out of new Eve, is a way that they're saying, we're expressing our desire to be known. We're expressing to be one, to be valued, to be accepted, to be understood at a deeper level, to expand our knowledge and our understanding. This is what the word new is referring to. He says, "I desire you to know me at a deeper level. I now can reveal myself to you in a way that I do not reveal myself to all men. This is what God is communicating to Abraham. He wanted Abraham to expand his capacity to know him. Can I tell you something this morning? You'll never pray this prayer, but you need to know what it is. When you say, "God, I want to know you," here's what you're saying, "God, test me. Test me. I want to know you. I want you to expand my knowledge of you. I want to know you in a different way." And I'll tell you why you would pray that prayer. You said, "Scott, why would I ever pray or pray for God to test me?" Because if you want life and life more abundantly, life and life more abundantly, is a different kind of life at a different kind of level. But you and I must understand that that life is not a part from the intimacy and the closest we have with God. If you want a different kind of life at a different kind of level, then you have to go to a different level and a different kind of intimacy with the Lord. So when we say, "Lord, test me." What we're saying is, "Lord, show me the intimacy." It is tied to a different kind of life on a different kind of level. It is the calm porties of us of no Christ. It's a no God. If we don't know Him, it's called death. He says away from me, I never knew you. So if death is not knowing God or God not knowing us, then knowing Him is life. And the more we know Him, the greater life we experience. That means regardless of whatever hardship you go through, whatever difficulty you go through, whatever problem you go through, you'll have a life that is irreplaceable and cannot be taken away. But it will not come unless we're tested. I want to end with this. I got time. It's 11-18. The Holy Spirit are annoying to me this morning. Speak fast. Y'all listen fast as well. I want you to see this. No, I'm not. I'm not, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I want to be good. The Lord said no, be quiet, Scott. All right, yes, sir. I will. So here's my question to you today is this. To be tested by God is an invitation to know Him in a way that is not common to man. Are you okay with knowing God the way you do? There's three types of people in this room. Either you've never been tested and you will. You have to know what your salt's worth. You're either in a test right now and you may not even know it. Or perhaps you've gone through the test and didn't realize what it was. And probably missed the blessing that came with it. So it's valid for us to understand what a test is all about. My question is, is do you want to be called? Do you want an invitation? To know God in a different way? To have a walk and a life with Him that's different? 'Cause it will test you. We'll call you. But the question for me and the question for you will always be when it comes to worship is what do you love the most? I only have one question today in a sea of questions. This is it. Here's what I want you to ask yourself. What's your Isaac? What's your Isaac? What's the thing that brings joy? What's the thing that you feel like it was a promise that was delivered to you? What would grieve you most if you lost it? What's your Isaac? Is it your lifestyle? Is it your career? Your friends? Is it your family? Is it your kids? If you lost those things, if you lost those things, would you give up? Would you cash out? You see, God doesn't want to kill any of those things. God never wanted to kill Isaac. Here's what God wanted to kill. He wanted to kill the thing in Abraham that loved Isaac more than it loved him. And he brought Abraham to a place that he was willing to say, "Okay, Lord, okay, and this is what you want, and this is what I'll give you." Stand with me this morning. (gentle music) Father in heaven I pray that you'd reveal to us even now. What our Isaac is, God, I know how the mind works because I know how mind works. I'm trying to get you to focus on everything I don't want you to focus on. I'm trying to name all the things I don't want you to name. But, God, I know if I really allow you to search me, I know it may be a lifestyle, it may be possessions or opportunities or future. It may be even a spouse that's already passed away. We can't explain that. We're still living in the test of how to love you more than we love them. But, Lord, you know our Isaac. You know our Isaac. I pray today, God, you would call us out, give us the opportunity, Lord, to at least know the thing that we love more than we love you. And I pray, God, today, that this is a moment of spiritual maturity that we truly look at our life and take inventory, the things that we care for more than we care for you. We place it upon the altar, Lord, and give us the strength to raise the knife. Maybe it's our independence. Maybe it's our reputation. Maybe it's our pride. Maybe it's our religion. Maybe it's our understanding. I pray, God, you would make that known to us today. Give us the strength, God, to give it back to you because I know how you were, Lord. But whatever we give to you, Lord, you give back to us in a way. It's always better. It may not be the same thing, but it's always better. And I pray you give us the courage, God, to offer it up today. If you say Pastor Scott today, I'm in that test. I'm in that test. Will you just slip your hand up? Let me see who I'm praying for. I'm in that test. I'm walking through it. Yeah. Put me in the hands. I'm walking through it. You see, Pastor Scott, I went through a test. I don't think I got it right. I don't think I understood I was in a test. I need to know if that was me, that God was wanting to draw closer. Yeah. Yeah, easily. We do this today before we leave. We have plenty of time. You can turn Neil at your pew. You want to come down to the altar and just say, Lord, show me my Isaac. Give me the strength to place it upon the altar. You take some time and spend the time with the Lord and lie in the speak to you. ♪ (gentle music)