The Lord will provide
July 2, 2023
Prelude
Entry of the Bible
Lighting the Christ Candle
Welcome and Announcements
Called to Worship:
We gather to praise and honour the Lord, our Saving God.
Today, we sing our reverent thanks to our loving God.
When we cried out to you in our sorrow and despair, you turned our night-time grief into morning’s joy.
Listening God, we rejoice in the security you give us, because of your past mercy and goodness towards us.
O Lord our God, we will thank you always and forever.
We will not be silent! O God, how great is your love and your provision!
Hymn: 313 O worship the King
Prayer of Adoration
God of unfailing love, with confidence we gather to worship you; to praise your holy name; to express to you our trust and our confidence in your promise of security and refuge within your loving presence.
If only all your people showed the same commitment to you, O God, as you show toward us– they would know a that life lived within your presence is one that is rich beyond our understanding, and with a depth of inner peace that can only be hoped for and dreamed about.
O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, you are our stronghold against the forces within human life that confront us each day; and which try to shake our faith and resolve; therefore, we look to you in confidence and trust. We pour out our hearts to you O God, because you lovingly respond to our needs, and quietly wait to offer us love and acceptance, and a secure road to travel as we live out our faith Amen.
Unison Prayer of Confession:
Loving and Sustaining God, You call us to obedience, to follow you in all things; to give up the things we cling to, and to give ourselves wholeheartedly to your purposes.
We confess that we don’t always find this easy to do. It is often very difficult to let go of the things we love. But we also know that you stand ready to sustain us, and to provide everything we need.
Give us courage to faithfully follow your leading, even when the path you call us to seems impossible to comprehend.
Help us to trust you in all things, to let go of everything that would stand in the way of whole-hearted obedience to you.
In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.
Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
Scripture declares that those who speak the truth from their heart will abide in God’s sanctuary. Be assured that God hears the difficult truths we have named aloud and in the silence of our hearts.
The wonderful gift of God’s forgiveness flow through you and the abundance of God’s mercy and grace sets you free.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
The Peace
Passing the Peace
Hymn: 574 With the Lord as my guide
online: Be Thou My Guardian and My Guide
Prayer for Canada
O Lord, we gather together in your presence on this Canada Day.
We acknowledge you have dominion from sea to sea, and claim this promise—that your will would prevail in this land. We pray for the movement of your Holy Spirit across this nation and for the work of your church in every city and village.
Bless our land with honest industry, truthful education, and an honourable way of life.
Make us, who come from many different backgrounds and countries, a united people – one in purpose and vision. Give our governments a spirit of wisdom and compassion that there may justice and peace in our cities, provinces and land.
Bless the work of our Mayor, our Premier and our Prime Minister; and to the work of their governments, that they will be guided with your voice and your Spirit. And guide us, the people of Canada, so that in all times we will place our confidence in you. When times are prosperous, lead us to thanksgiving, and when times are troubled, lead us to a deepening trust in you.
All this we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymn: 800 O Canada v. 1, 2
Scripture:
Genesis 22: 1-14
Sermon: The Lord will provide
We all know of the struggles that Abraham and Sarah went through as they waited, and waited and waited for the long-promised child to be born to them. Finally in their old age, Isaac was born and the promise was fulfilled.
Yet today we read the Scripture in which God called upon Abraham, saying, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” NIV
There are some commentators that pointed out that this command could well have been a process of request and clarification that went something like this…
Take your son
Which son?
Your only son.
I have two sons
Your only son, whom you love
I love both my sons
Isaac, take Isaac!
Do we hear the prophetic whispers of the grace that God would provide in Jesus, when he sent his son, his only son, his only Son whom he loved, to be the sacrifice for the sins of the people whom he loved as much as he loved his Son.?
Out of all the questions that arise from this text, I believe that this is the most important question. This is a text that is the beginning of the revelation of the grace of God for all people. Yet that can be missed because the text in many ways is bewildering and unsettling. The questions about the nature of God that have arisen over the years have been many and distressing.
First of all, why did God feel the need to “test” Abraham? Had Abraham not revealed his faith and trust in God over many long decades? Was Abraham not the one who had received the promise by faith? How much more does Abraham need to do to show that he loves and trusts and obeys God?
Surely Abraham must have been in some shock. Was God really asking this? Consequently, did he doubt God’s love?
From our perspective as modern people, in a modern age, this request seems so very wrong. Was God promoting the practice of child sacrifice that was so prevalent in many of the nations that surrounded the people of Israel?
Does this impossible demand speak of a capricious God, always testing and punishing his followers without apparent concern for their well-being? Is this the God we know, and love and serve?
As I read and researched this past week the commentators kept bringing up all these questions. The questions are important to consider because when we tell others that God is a God of love, examples like this account in Abraham and Isaac’s lives seems to point to another God altogether, and can be a stumbling stone to people coming into a relationship with God.
How in this passage do we see the all-encompassing love that God has revealed for his people?
If this is indeed the kind of God we have, what does that mean for us? How does this translate into our own lives? Will God test us as well? And what seemingly impossible, unaskable thing will God demand of us?
When I look at this passage what jumps out at me is the process of the journey.
They travel to the mountain.
Along the way they collect the wood for the fire.
Once there they work together to build the altar.
Then, Abraham bound Isaac, laid him on the altar and drew his knife.
Do we feel the horror?
More importantly do we see this build up of tension as the means to understand what is the immensity of God’s grace?
On that final ascent to the mountain, Isaac asks Abraham about the sacrifice.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. NIV
If this was indeed a test of Abraham’s faith, surely the confident hope that God himself would provide the sacrifice, would have settled the matter?
Which leads to more questions.
Was Abraham so stressed that he missed the ram caught up in the thicket?
What was Isaac thinking. Scholars suggest that he was a young man of about 20 years of age at this time. Surely, he had questions, thoughts, fears. Why did he also miss seeing ram?
Or, did God waited until the very last second to provide the Ram?
We know what that feels like, don’t we. When we go through problems and trials and it can seem as if God does not hear our prayers, understand our fears or provide the grace we need. Until at last, we see what God has done, and has been doing all along.
Faith provides us with the strength to be obedient, but it must also provide us with the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Faith helps us to see beyond our circumstances to what God has done and will yet do.
Abraham saw that. He knew that God would provide and so with confidence he bound Isaac, laid him on the altar and pulled out his knife.
At this point the angel of the Lord called out, saying, “Do not lay a hand on the boy…Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. NIV
From that point on, Abraham called that place, “The Lord will Provide”
Not only did God provide at that time; but he also continues to provide for all eternity.
We see the signs of that as we follow the trials and journey of the people of God from Egypt to the Promised Land. The establishment of the Covenant, at Mount Sinai, and the ultimate laying out of the ways in which the people would worship God, show how the grace and provision of God have always been active.
In Exodus 13 we read: “The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.” NIV
At first glance this may seem like God is still asking his people to sacrifice their first-born son; but then we read further.
After the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he promised on oath to you and your ancestors, 12 you are to give over to the Lord the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord. 13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons. NIV
The firstborn son was to be brought to the Temple and presented to God, and then redeemed by the sacrifice of a lamb or if the family was poor, 2 doves or pigeons.
God asks for the sacrifice, and then provides the replacement that is the means of redemption.
That is worth considering. God asks for the sacrifice and then provides the replacement that is the means redemption.
We see this truth fulfilled in the life of Jesus.
As a baby Joseph and Mary take him to the Temple to present him to God.
In Luke chapter 2 we read: 22-24 Then when the days stipulated by Moses for purification were complete, they took him up to Jerusalem to offer him to God as commanded in God’s Law: “Every male who opens the womb shall be a holy offering to God,” and also to sacrifice the “pair of doves or two young pigeons” prescribed in God’s Law. MSG
So, Mary and Joseph did all that was required by the Law. They presented Jesus as a sacrifice that was Holy to God, and they substituted the doves or pigeons that God provided in the place of the sacrifice of the child.
This practice of God’s people, century after century, demonstrated their obedience to God, and God’s grace to them. All of it pointing to how God would reveal the fullness of his grace in Jesus.
In the Gospel of John we read: “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted. NIV
Do you hear the echo of what God asked from Abraham.
God gave his son.
His only son
His only son, whom he loved, to be a sacrifice for sin.
And this Son came to earth and lived as a human, and died on the cross as a criminal, in order to save the sinful people that God loves as much as he loves his obedient son.
God will never ask us to prove our love for him. God has already proven that his love for us is so great that he will sacrifice his very heart, his only son, the son whom he loves, for us.
We have nothing to prove.
We are however called to live in love for God,
We are called to live with faith in God
We are called to serve God in the work of bringing God’s love to others.
But we are not going to be tested, God after all sees our hearts and knows that we love him.
In the faithful living of our lives, there will be times of great turmoil and sorrow and sickness, but these are not evidence that God is testing us. This is an opportunity to open our eyes and our ears. This is the opportunity to see and hear what God is doing, has always done, and always will do.
Those days, every day, is our opportunity to know and to remember that God will provide.
Amen
Hymn: 321 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
Offering and Offertory
This is the time where we make our love for God visible through the giving of our tithes and offerings. Let’s give with cheerful hearts.
Doxology 830
Offertory Prayer
Generous God; Over and over your grace sustains us, over and over your love provides for us, over and over your arm steadies us. We give you these gifts, with gratitude and joy, thankful that you are God over all. Amen.
Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer
Our faith in your power and your providence, O God, is strengthened today in our reflection upon the experience Abraham and Isaac. You remind us that there is nothing in all creation that is more powerful than your word. Your promise is always true, and carries us through all circumstances. By it we are sustained from day to day and from minute to minute. Help us, O God, to cling to your living word—and to root ourselves in it—that we may be a people who overcome all the trials and tribulations that come upon us.
We pray, O God, for all those today who are in want and need, all those who have lost their direction and are in need of your merciful grace. We pray for those who must contend with forces greater than they—grant them faith and in faith, grant them courage; act for them, and in them, to bring about their liberation.
Hear us now, as we bring before you our particular joys and thanks; our concerns for those we know and don’t know, and our concern for our plant.
Joys and Thanksgiving
That you have provided for our redemption in Jesus
People we know and don’t know
All those who travel this long weekend, may they travel in safety.
The people of the Ukraine, as war continues to devastate their lives. Bring peace.
All those who live in refugee camps and all those who are fleeing dangers in their homeland. Provide a safe haven, and a new country to call their own.
This planet which is our home
For all those places facing drought conditions
For all the places where there is fire.
For all the places devastated by storms and flood.
We ask it through Jesus Christ our Lord—saying together the prayer he taught us: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive your debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever. Amen
Hymn: 689 Simply trusting everyday
Charge and Benediction
Go now and live by faith.
Patiently trust in God’s promised future;
live by God’s teachings,
and let your love for one another increase.
And may God give you grace and peace;
May Christ Jesus make you worthy of his call;
And may the Holy Spirit fulfil in you
every good resolve and work of faith.
Sung Blessing
575 Lead me Lord
Lead me Lord, lead me in your righteousness
Make your way plain before my face
for it is you, and you, God only
who makes me to dwell in safety
Public Domain
Three Fold Amen