(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

I invite you to stand for the reading of God's Word from Genesis chapter 22, verses 15 through 19. Please hear the Word of the Lord. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself I've sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that's on the seashore and your offspring shall possess the gates of his enemies and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you've obeyed my voice. 

So Abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to Beersheba and Abraham lived at Beersheba. This is the Word of the Lord. It is written, it is written, that's the phrase that Jesus uses again and again throughout the Gospel of Luke when he's answering questions about scriptures, situations that come up, he's teaching, it is written. 

It's what Jesus said in the wilderness when Satan was tempting him, right, like turn this stone into bread. He said it is written that man shall not live on bread alone. Or Satan said bow down and worship me and Jesus replies it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. 

You might remember much later in the story, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem. It's the week before he's to be crucified, right, and he shows up in the temple and in the courts there's money changers and peddlers and he's flipping tables. It's a popular scene and he says it is written my house shall be called a house of prayer. 

It's an interesting thing I think to think about the Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, God in human form, Lord of Lord, King of kings, that he sees fit to cite another source of authority. Do you ever think about that? We're gonna, I want to unpack that, sit with that idea a little bit this morning. We're gonna be looking this morning specifically at the last instance of this phrase in Luke. 

It's in chapter 24, it's at the very end, it's after his resurrection, it's his last teaching to his disciples where he unpacks the scriptures and he says exactly what is written about himself. And if you picture the scene, you've got 11 men who are standing and looking at a man that they just watched brutally killed three days earlier and now he's talking to them and still what he has to say surprises them. You would think that hey y'all I'm back is like a hard one to top but he still blows their minds. 

It says in Luke 24 he records that Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled and then he lays it out for them. Thus it is written, there it is again, Jesus continued, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. We've actually been exploring this key text all weekend, as Tom mentioned at the beginning, this is our annual theology conference, we call it Grow Weekend. 

Every year in the fall before we get ready to launch our fall programming, we have a weekend conference where we dive deep into the theme of what our adult education ministries, our grow classes and our deep dives are going to be focusing on over the next year. And this year the theme is, you might have guessed it, it is written. Okay, so this weekend, Friday and Saturday, several of us had been gathered here and learned about what Jesus had been unpacking for his disciples in these verses. 

Friday evening we looked at the structure and content of the Hebrew Bible, like what is the Bible that Jesus had in his day? And then yesterday, Jerry Risser and Dr. Piotrowski from Indianapolis Theological Seminary, they walked us through the first of the two things, first two, sorry, of the three things that Jesus says is written. That the Christ must suffer, yesterday morning, and that he must be raised on the third day. So that leaves us this morning just with one final thing to explore together. 

It is written that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning in Jerusalem. And like I read to you a second ago, these things aren't just written once, these things are written all throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Bible that Jesus had. He didn't just pluck some obscure idea from one corner one page somewhere. 

No, these are written in the law of Moses, in the prophets, in the Psalms. Every page drips the wisdom literature, the Psalms, the praise, the law drips with this truth. But for this weekend, in particular, we camped out on one particular section of the Hebrew Bible, comes from Genesis, because there's one passage where all three of these ideas, that he must suffer, be raised on the third day, and the gospel must be preached to all the nations, that all three of those ideas are densely packed into one account, and it comes from Genesis 22. 

It's the story where God tests Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son, his only son, the one he loved, Isaac. And I can't really possibly do justice to what Jerry Risser and Dr. Piotrowski walked us through yesterday. There are recordings if you're interested. 

If you weren't able to make it, you can find the recordings of those sessions. I would encourage you to do that, and I would encourage you next year to make sure to carve off that weekend and be here. It's a rich time in the Word. 

But if you weren't able to join us, I'm gonna try and bring you up in a nutshell, bring you up to speed. So God had promised Abraham, decades prior to this story, that he would be blessed, that he would have a son, he would have descendants, and then importantly, that all of the nations on the earth would be blessed in him. Now here's the thing, he was pretty old, his wife was very old, but in case you're not familiar with the story, in the end, she gets pregnant, she gives birth to a son, Isaac, and the promise is kept. 

And if you are familiar with the story, then you know that I skipped a whole lot of parts there, the parts where Abraham was a complete idiot. My paraphrase, not God's word, but man, that guy, from the very beginning, right, he's like promised that he's gonna have descendants, you know, and he's like, well, I'm gonna go ahead and just bring my nephew just in case. He ends up having a son, but you know, not with his wife. 

God's like, I'm not sure we're tracking on the same page here, but eventually it does happen. Sarah gets pregnant, she has Isaac, she's 90 years old, she gives birth to the promised son, Isaac, and then God thinks to himself, let's decide once for all, let's make it known once for all whether Abraham trusts me or not. Fair, right, given the track record, fair question to ask, fair question to ask. 

The Bible says it this way, God tested Abraham, and he says, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and offer him as a burnt offering. And you know what Abraham did? Plot twist, he obeyed. He actually did it.

Well, almost, right? The very last minute, God intervenes, he says, stop, don't lay a finger on the boy, you passed, right? God says in this account that we studied yesterday, now I know that you fear God. So he demonstrated his faith, and then there's this ram, he's caught by his horns, and some thorns, or a thicket nearby, and Abraham's like, let's not let a good altar fire go to waste, right? So we're gonna worship God, we have a substitute ram, and he offers that in place of his son Isaac. Isaac lives. 

But you see, Abraham, what's important out of this story is Abraham trusted God with this. He reckoned that God was able to, if he so chose, to raise Isaac from the dead, that he could raise his ashes off of the altar if that's what he had to do, and figuratively speaking, he did receive his son back from the dead. That's what the author of Hebrews teaches us, chapter 11.

So Jesus, when he reads this story, when he's studying his Bible, the accounts that Moses has handed down, he realizes that this is written about him. He realizes it is written that he must suffer. Not just here, but in many, many other parts of the Hebrew Bible, he realizes that it's written that he must suffer, that the Christ has to suffer, and not just come close like Isaac did.

Picture Jesus seeing this story, reading himself into the story. He doesn't read himself into the character of Isaac, guys. He reads himself into that story, and he knows the character in the story that he fulfills is the ram caught in the thicket.

And what actually does suffer and die, and Jesus knew that he would rise again. He had faith that he would rise again, and like Abraham, who got his son back from the dead, figuratively speaking, Jesus trusted that God would do the same thing for him. So there you have it. 

Now you're caught up for the text today, text that we were on today, so that I can start my sermon. So if you would, turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 22. If you are working off of the black Bibles in the seats in front of you, it's on page 19. 

It's the first book of the Bible. So page 19, Genesis chapter 22, this is where you find that account that I just summarized for you. In Hebrew, it's known as the Akedah. 

That's the Hebrew word for binding, because Abraham bound his son to lay him on the altar. So we pick up the story this morning in chapter 22, verse 15. It says, the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven. 

The first time he called to him was to say, whoa, stop it. Second time from heaven, and he said, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sands on the seashore. So let's pause there for a moment. 

If you recall the promise that Abraham had been given by God, then this might sound familiar. He has already repeated this a couple of times in Genesis. These are the same words that he said before. 

He's repeating something that Abraham has already heard, except in this instance two things are different, and I want to call those out for you. The first one is that this time he says, it's surely going to happen. That's actually, that's like an English rendering of this Hebrew. 

What's happening in Hebrew is he doubles the verb. It's still a common way of emphasizing a word in many Eastern languages, even to this day. I've got a friend in India, and sometimes we'll talk about business strategy, and he'll say, we need a different, different strategy, which means he really does not like the strategy that we're working on right now. 

Okay, emphasizing the word. But what happens here is, he says, if we were to translate this very literally, it might be like, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you. And because that sounds a little clunky in our language, we just say, we say surely. 

He said, I will surely bless you. I will surely multiply you. Now that you have obeyed, this is what God's kind of saying, now that I have seen you obey to the fullest, it is doubly certain, I will surely do it. 

And that's the second thing that is a little different here. It's the condition. Look at what he says, because you have done this, and not withheld your son, your only son. 

Because you have done this. I have to admit, I have often struggled with this verse, because I don't know if you hear that the way that I hear that, but it sounds as though God's blessing is conditioned on my obedience. You hear that? And that doesn't sound consistent with the way that I've come to understand the gospel, and so I've struggled with that. 

So here's the idea, big aha moment, and yet I'm gonna blues right through it because it's not the main point of the sermon, but I think this is key to land on. I'm just gonna lay this out short and sweet. God's favor has always been conditioned on obedience. 

His blessing, for His blessing, He has always looked for perfect submission, perfect obedience, just not yours. And that's the gospel. Okay, Abraham, this is foreshadowed here, this truth is foreshadowed in Abraham, that he demonstrates an unwavering faith in Yahweh, that he would, if he chose to, raise his son Isaac up off of the altar.

He demonstrates that amazing faith, and Abraham's faith is so deep in God that he would and could do that, that it secured for his offspring a sure blessing, blessing He will bless them. Abraham's faith secured that for his offspring. Jesus read and understood that it is written that the Christ must suffer. 

He must be obedient even unto death, and that he would be raised again on the third day, and because He did that, because Jesus obeyed, not you, His perfect faith on your behalf, your standing is secure in His obedience on your behalf. Praise Jesus, that's the gospel. So let's read on, let's see what else we find in Genesis 22. 

So back in 22 verse 17, he continues, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, shall possess the gate of his enemies. We don't talk like that very often these days either. It's just a figure of speech for winning, okay, that you're gonna be victorious in battle, that you're gonna possess the gate of your enemy's city, or fort, or castle, or whatever it is. 

That was a comforting thought for Abraham's descendants, for the Jews, because they found themselves with a lot of enemies, and more often than not, over and over and over again over the course of their history, their enemies possessed their gate, didn't they? The Jews were conquered and subjugated by foreign powers several times throughout the course of history, take all the way to the Hebrews in slavery in Egypt, right? 400 years they're in slavery, but these words, the promise that God had passed down, the words he spoke to Abraham were known, and were repeated, and they took comfort in these words, that your offspring will possess the gate of his enemies, and God raises up Moses, doesn't He? And He leads them in the Exodus, and God defeats, He's winning, He defeats the enemy, Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea, for the Israelites, then later striving to occupy, and seize the land that God had promised to them, but they're constantly being kicked down, and dominated by Canaanites, and Philistines, but then God anoints the king Saul, and then David, who rise up, and they defeat the Philistines, and they establish their borders, and there's peace, they possess the gate of their enemies. It doesn't last though, does it? I mean the Babylonians, then the Assyrians, and later Alexander the Great, and they all run roughshod over God's people, but during those times, priests and scribes, they're copying down, they're rewriting these words, the Torah, and they remind people the seed of Abraham, his offspring, will possess the gate of his enemies. There's the Maccabean revolt, establishes Jewish independence once again, they have their own kingdom, they rebuild the temple, that doesn't last either, because along comes one of the greatest military powers we've seen on this planet, the Roman Empire, dominate them, and subjugate them, and in Jesus's day, for Jesus's disciples, for his contemporaries, first century Jews, offspring of Abraham, they're gathering together in synagogues around Judea, and around the whole diaspora, and they hear these words, and they're comforted by the promise, your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and they're hungry for it, and they're waiting for it, and then comes Jesus, the anointed, the Messiah, the Christ, except Jesus has a different take on what is written, doesn't he? A surprising take, he saw the Christ filling a role that was altogether different than his contemporaries did.

How? Well, I might be oversimplifying this just a little bit, but I'm going to just suggest to you that it's because he kept reading, so look back at Genesis 22 with me, we'll pick it back up in verse 17, your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Jesus knew, and he opened his disciples' minds to understand the scriptures where it is written, if all the nations are to be blessed in Jesus, in Abraham's seed, then ultimately the enemy is not the nations. Do you understand? If all the nations are to be blessed in his seed, then the enemy is not the nations. 

The ultimate enemy to be destroyed, to be conquered, is in Egypt, or the Philistines, or the Canaanites, or the Assyrians, or the Babylonians, or the Greeks, and for his disciples, for his immediate audience, for dear Simon the zealot, sword on his hip, Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures, the enemy was not Rome. And in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul's riffing on the same idea, he's talking about the enemy being put under his feet as a footstool, and he describes it this way, he says the ultimate enemy to be destroyed is death. The ultimate enemy to be destroyed is death. 

And yes, in as much as rulers, and authorities, and governments bring death, sow chaos, defy God's rule, yes, Christ will possess their gates too. But it is written, Jesus said, that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations. Because Jesus came not to conquer them, but to bless them, as it is written. 

Genesis 22, verse 18, ends just the way this whole section begins. He says, in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. Because you've obeyed. 

Jesus knew that to possess the gates of his enemies, to conquer the ultimate enemy, death, and to bless all nations, that he himself had to obey. And unlike Isaac, there wasn't going to be a last minute substitute, there wasn't going to be an alternative. Christ Jesus is the substitute. 

Abraham's faith was strong enough that he would have gone all the way, and God knew that, and he saw that. God's faithfulness is strong enough that he did give his only son. So then knowing that, listen to how Paul describes this in Galatians 3.80, talking about this same passage. 

He says that the scripture, foreseeing that God would make righteous the nations by faith, that he would preach the gospel beforehand, the gospel was preached to Abraham beforehand, saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed. He preached the gospel before the law, before Moses, before David, before Jesus, and then once it had all finally been fulfilled in Jesus' death and resurrection, Jesus opened his disciples' minds to understand the scriptures. Thus, it is written, the Christ should suffer.

On the third day, rise from the dead, and repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations. I said this at the beginning, isn't it interesting to think of Jesus sitting under the authority of scripture? What he had learned in scripture, seeing that it is written that the Christ has to suffer to accomplish these things, in order to accomplish the blessing of all the nations, he had to suffer, and he willingly, obediently does it. How many times do we read in scripture something that makes us a little uncomfortable? Like be generous, or forgive, or rest, be silent, be still, and we struggle to accept it. 

Jesus reads the scriptures and he finds in it that he had to suffer and die, and so he did. Because he didn't come to conquer Rome, he came to conquer death, and he did. He did.

And after he did, after he had suffered and died, and rose again on the third day, just as it is written, he gathers his disciples together, and he leaves them with the mission, that repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in his name to all the nations. Picture the scene. They had just been betrayed by one of their own.

You'd be mad about that, wouldn't you? They had just watched this complete sham, unjust trial that condemned Jesus to death, and then they saw their occupying power, their subjugating force, the Romans execute Jesus brutally. Jesus could have easily united his followers around a common enemy. It would have been natural to rally the troops, especially after Rome's execution didn't stick, right? There's a unifying force to rally the troops, to possess the gates of their enemy, Judas, or the Sanhedrin, or Rome itself. 

But get this, Jesus didn't unite his followers around a common enemy. He united his followers around a mission. Let me say that again. 

In his final teaching with his disciples, he did not unite his followers around a common enemy. Jesus united his followers around a common mission. This news, the news that the Messiah had conquered death, that the ultimate enemy had been conquered, that the gates of hell, the gates of hell couldn't stand against him, this news needed to be preached to the nations. 

Jesus didn't unite and embolden his followers to carry out vengeance on God's enemies. Instead, he actually unites them around a mission to carry the gospel to the very people who had done it. You guys realize in the book of Acts, the first Gentile convert, that is the first person to come to faith in Christ from the nations, was a Roman centurion named Cornelius. 

Roman centurion, this is the occupying force. This is the military presence. But the gospel was preached to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem, and he came to have faith in Jesus Christ for the repentance and forgiveness of his sins in the name of Christ. 

Why? Why did Jesus not using, wielding the same power that had raised him from the grave, use that power to conquer the nations, to judge the nations? Well, because it is written, simply because it is written that those nations be blessed in his name. And I want you to see in that the weight that Jesus put in the scriptures. He believed them, he submitted to them, that's why we study them. 

We believe them, we submit to them, we let our lives be transformed by them. And also don't miss this, what it means for us church today, as the church, as a local expression, small c church here, as the global church, capital c, the church of Christ, the bride of Christ, means that we should not be drawn to any brand of unity, a sense of belonging, and knowing that people are on our side, that's a brand of unity put in force by uniting us around a common enemy. Christ did not unite his followers to search out the enemies of God, to judge them in his name. 

In the church we find that we have been called to unity to search out the people of God from all the nations and to proclaim in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins. That kind of unity that looks outside and says, looks outside and goes, there's a problem out there, we're going to find it, we're going to fix it, we're going to judge that, that kind of unity is the perfect kind of unity that brought people like the Pharisees and the Sadducees together in unity to kill Jesus. But when we finally actually grasp why it is written that the son of man must suffer, why it's written that he must suffer, because there's a problem in here, in us, and that we can't fix it and that we stand under judgment because of it, that's when we can look outside and we can see other people the way that we see ourselves, we can come together on mission to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in his name. 

Are you hungry for unity, faith church? We could use a dose of it, couldn't we? Do you want to know that this is a place you belong, people are on your side, people are sitting beside you, that they're with you? Let me turn it around. Do you desire to make the people sitting around you in this room know that you're on their side, that you are with them, that we are together? Then join together in mission. Don't forget, faith church, you have a middle name. 

We are Faith Missionary Church, and it is right every now and then to be reminded of the deep roots and the outsized impact that this church has even today. I got these stats from Randy Schlonegger this week. At this very moment, you and me, this body, the people sitting in this room, we sustain the work of 31 missionaries around the globe preaching forgiveness in his name, preaching repentance, proclaiming to all the nations. 

And over the past couple of decades, God has been at work in surprising ways. He has brought the nations to our doorstep, to here in Nora. Each Tuesday night, hundreds of refugees and immigrants gather in this building to learn English and to experience the love of Jesus.

God is at work. He is at work. He's at work in this church.

The mission continues, and we are a part of it. If you hunger for unity in this church, the way to find it is to get to work where God is on the move. Roll up your sleeves together with the rest of this body and get on with the mission. 

It is written that the Christ should suffer. He must suffer, and he did for you. It is written that he must rise on the third day, conquering death, and he did. 

And it is written that forgiveness for sins and repentance be proclaimed in his glorious name to all the nations. So let's do it. Let's pray. 

Heavenly Father, you have said your name will be great among the nations. From the rising to the setting of the sun, your name will be great among the nations of the earth. And Lord, we see you doing that and praise you for your work. 

And God, we thank you that for generations you have used this church in that mission, and we praise you expectantly asking you to continue using us in that mission that we may see your name great among the nations of the earth. We pray this in Jesus' glorious name, for his sake and his honor. Thank you for engaging with our community by checking out this podcast.

If you would like more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindeed.com.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)