Yahweh Jireh

INTRODUCTION. Morning. My name is David Sorn. I’m the Lead Pastor here at Renovation Church. Hey, before we get into our message this morning, I want to update you on something that’s happening here. You may have noticed, but our church is growing, fast. Like, very fast. Our Grand Opening of this building was only a little over 14 months ago, and we are already running out of room here. Last week, we were within about 15 people of running out of room at 1st service. And then, at second service, we had to seat a number of people in our meeting room to watch the service on a screen because they couldn’t find a seat in here. It’s growing so fast, that we added almost 70 chairs in here this Fall, and I bet you didn’t even notice. And now, there is no more space to add chairs… So, staring on January 8th, we are going to move to having FOUR services every Sunday. (4 Services Slide) The 4 service times will be 8:00, 9:10, 10:20, and 11:30 Let me quickly answer what the 2 most frequently asked questions will likely be: #1: Why aren’t we adding a Saturday night service? Basically, every other growing church has warned us to not do that at this time. Something has changed drastically in the last 2 4 years Every protestant church in MN (except 2 that I know of) has shut down their Saturday night service due to no one coming anymore. I know a pastor that just started one when everyone asked for it, and the room isn’t even 10% full. And so at this point, we want to respect the advice that so many have given us. #2: If we’re running out of room so fast, then what’s next after this? Like, next, NEXT?? All I can say is that we have already been working on that for a while now, and we will be updating you on that, quite soon. 😊 BUT, for now… We need your help. Especially if you normally come to 9:00 or 10:15… If that’s you, I really want you to consider trying a different service for a season. This isn’t going to last forever, and so would you, can you, sacrifice to make room for others to hear about Jesus? We’re asking people who normally come at 10:15 to consider coming at 11:30 where there is still room. If you normally come at 9:00, we want to move 100 or so people to the 8:00am service. To help make it easier for you, (I know 8am is really early), there will be free donut or free coffee for everyone at that 8am service. We think the 8am service is a great option is you’re an early riser… …or if you have a baby, and you already get up at 5am 😊 8:00 is like lunch time for you. Help us out and come then. …or your kids have a sporting event on Sunday morning at 10, you can still make church a priority and come early, which is great! God is doing something amazing right here in Blaine. We are following Jesus and helping others do the same, and God is moving! But now we need to respond. So come January 8th, can you sacrifice so others have room to hear about Jesus? I pray that you will. THE PASSAGE (Names of God) All right, let’s jump into our message. We are in a series called, “Names of God,” where we are taking a look at 5 unique names of God in the Bible. This week we’re taking a look at the name Yahweh Jireh… Which, maybe you’ve heard the famous Jireh song, and wondered, “What in the world does that mean?” Well, today, we’re going to find out the history behind it. Let’s take a look at the passage that name comes from Page 14 Genesis 22:1 14 We’re going to see a story about Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is the father of the Jewish nation God promised that Abraham and his wife, Sarah, would have a baby, and through that baby (Isaac), their family line would become as numerous as the stars. And in today’s story, their son Isaac, is now a young man, and God is going to test his father Abraham in a mighty way. Let’s read the WHOLE story together, and then we’ll break it down and see what God is saying through it to us (Genesis 22:1 14) – NIV Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said, “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.” 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “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. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But 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,” he said. “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 caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” (Yahweh Jireh Title Slide) Now, you might be thinking, “Great story! But where was the part about Jireh?!?” Good question! The book of Genesis was originally written in Hebrew, and Jireh is actually a Hebrew word. Do see in verse 14 where it says, “The LORD Will Provide?”) The original Hebrew said Yahweh Yireh Which means, the Lord (Yahweh) will provide (Yireh) Today, in English, people will often pronounce this Yahweh Jireh In the past, others have said, Jehovah Jireh Now, I could spend another 10 minutes explaining the reasons for each version of the name, but a good part of the differences is like the difference between saying Jesus and Jesus (Spanish version) here. And so don’t get too caught up in pronunciation The point is: Abraham is naming that place, and thus who God is, as Yahweh Jireh: God WILL Provide. That’s Who He is. YOU CAN WALK IN HIS PATH EVEN IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE DETAILS And if you know God is Yahweh Jireh, God the Provider, how should that impact your life? If God is Yahweh Jireh: You can walk in His path even if you don’t have all the answers So think about how our passage starts out. God says, “Abraham, go to Moriah” and then sacrifice your son How many of us are obeying that command? In addition to this being an insanely difficult request, think about how many questions Abraham didn’t get to ask. Let’s start with the question “WHY? Why God? Why in the world?” Or, “How is Isaac going to be the one in which my family line continues then?” Or, “Why would you have me sacrifice Him if you don’t do child sacrifice like the other pagan religions do?” And why walk 3 days?” Abraham doesn’t get answers for those questions. The details aren’t filled in. And yet because Abraham knows God as Yahweh, JIREH (the God who provides), it says (v. 3), Abraham gets up early the next morning, loads his donkey, and starts walking. (Yahweh Jireh Title Slide) For whatever reason, I feel like the Lord keeps leading our church to this theme in the Bible We saw this same thing in Joshua this summer. How did the Israelites get to see God do the amazing thing of parting the Jordan River? They had to step out in faith first…and actually put their feet in the water before it would part. And the same was true for Abraham. If Abraham says, “God, that’s crazy! No, I’m going to need all the answers and explanations first!” Then Abraham never would get to see God provide. And I think God keeps bringing us to these passages perhaps because some of us need to hear this. Maybe, God is telling you to step out in faith, but you keep saying “no” He wants you to be a leader, and you say “no,” because you don’t have all the answers. God wants some of you to: consider missions work to start a new business commit to Christian fellowship by joining a House Group (when we start new ones in January), He wants you to invite your unsaved neighbor over for dinner Or see a Christian counselor, He’s calling you to something, but you keep saying “no,” because you got a bunch of questions without answers “What if they say no, what if the people don’t like me, what if it doesn’t work??” And listen to me, you’re never going to get to see the amazing miracles of “Yahweh Jireh,” (God, the Provider) if you don’t first start walking even when you don’t yet know the answers to HOW he will provide. And I think Abraham can start walking, because in part, he has done a faith walk before. Earlier in Genesis, God called him to leave his home and go to a land God would show him along the way. And at the start, Abraham had none of the details, and yet he started walking. By the way, you know what’s interesting? I’ve only ever preached on Abraham’s life, one other time in my 18 years of teaching. And the other time was in 2014, when our young, small church began raising funds to buy land…somewhere. And like Abraham, we had no idea where. I just said to our church, God is calling us to do this. He wants us to Amplify what’s happening here at the school where we rent on a much greater scale. But we don’t know how, and we don’t know where…we just know it’s time to start walking. Yahweh Jireh…The Lord will provide AND HE DID! And see, it all comes back to remembering WHO GOD IS. And so when your anxiety comes on, and you’re worried about how everything is going to play out …you remind yourself of who He is! Some of you need to get on your knees tonight, and say, “God, you are Yahweh Jireh, the PROVIDER.” I know you will provide. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. It might not even benefit me. But I trust your will, I trust your plan. So help me load up my donkey and start walking in the morning. YOU CAN WALK IN HIS PATH EVEN IF IT LOOKS HARD There’s another important truth for us in this passage, and it’s this: If God is Yahweh Jireh: You can walk in His path even if you don’t have all the answers You can walk in His path even if it looks hard Because it’s not just that Abraham doesn’t have all the answers, it’s that this is HARD. Sacrifice your own son. What could possibly be harder than that? And I would ask, “What is God calling you to that’s hard?” Maybe it’s just to obey God and put away a sin that you’re living in, a way of life where you know you’re going against God And to walk away from that sin is going to be hard. It’s going to cost you. But who is this God you came to worship this morning? Is He Yahweh Jireh or is He not? Can He still provide for you? Is He not more than enough? Maybe for some of you, you need to surrender a part of your life that you’ve possibly made more important than God Himself. It’s probable that this is what God is testing in Abraham Abraham finally has this beloved child with Sarah…and this child is where all his hopes lie. And does Abraham love Isaac even more than he loves God? And so God is saying, “Are you prepared to surrender EVERYTHING to me? And God would say to us, “Is there anything in your life that I could ask of you, and you would say “no?” What if God told you to quit your job? Would you say “No?” What if He told you to break up with the person you’re dating? What if He told you to move to a smaller house and give sacrificially of your money? Where would you tell God, “NO”? I think we’re prone to tell Him “No,” but as we learned in Colossians, the spiritually mature follower of God is the one who puts Jesus Over Everything. That says, “If you ask for it, I will surrender it….even if it’s my Isaac…my most prized possession?” But I feel that very few of us are at a place where we could say that to God. We’re still convinced that things will go better if we just stay at home and hold on to our “Isaac.” And I would submit to you today that the reason we think that is because we don’t really know God as Yahweh Jireh…The God Who Provides…even when we offer up “our Isaac” But look at Abraham’s faith. He still has faith God will provide. That’s why in verse 5, Abraham tells his servants, “WE will (both Isaac and I) come back to you” He believes in Yahweh Jireh, the God who provides! When Isaac says, “Father, where is the lamb for the offering” What does Abraham say?” V. 8: God will provide It’s the same word (Jireh) And what is enabling Abraham to have such faith? Even when he doesn’t know the answers Even when he’s asked to do something incredibly hard? At the end of the day, what gives Him such faith, is his trust in God’s promises. Remember, God has already promised him, PROMISED HIM, that through ISAAC God would make his family into a great nation And God always keeps His promises and His Word Look at how Hebrews describes Abraham (Hebrews 11:17 19a) NIV By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead And so Abraham is still stressing in his mind (like you and I) as he walks up that mountain, But he tells himself, “Keep walking. Keep walking. Even if Isaac has to die, God will just bring him back from the dead! Because God…. ALWAYS….keeps….His…promises. (Yahweh Jireh Title Slide) This is part of why it’s so key that you study God’s Word. Start studying God’s promises in the Bible. Look them up online, and commit some of them to memory. And then as Raymond Edman once said, “Never doubt in the dark what God has told you in the light” Because some of you in here right now are actually already in the middle of the hardest journey of your life. You’re already halfway on that long journey up the mountain of God’s hard call. And right now, it feels dark, and like Abraham, your mind is going crazy with scenarios and questions, and the journey has been hard… But never doubt in the dark what God has told you in the light. He is Yahweh Jireh. Keep walking. Keep walking. God will provide. In His way. In His timing. MORE THAN ENOUGH – THE GOSPEL And you don’t have to doubt his provision (or His goodness)…even if His provision ends up looking different than you thought it would. And here’s why: If God is Yahweh Jireh: You can walk in His path even if you don’t have all the answers You can walk in His path even if it looks hard You can walk in His path because He’ll provide for your deepest need Let me show you what I mean: Look more closely at the end of our passage. Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son, but God provides a ram. And then, look at verse 14 again. V.14: So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” “on the mountain of the Lord, It will be provided Okay, which mountain are we talking about? We’re on Mount Moriah as it said earlier in the chapter. Mount Moriah is incredibly significant in the Bible. In fact, if we were to move on from Abraham, and fast forward ahead 1,000 years in history, we’d see in 1 Chronicles 21 that David is the King of now the young country of Israel. And we would see a scene where David had sinned against God And as punishment, a plague breaks out. Much of the countryside is dying, and just as angel is set to come down the mountain and destroy the brand new capital city of Jerusalem. The Lord, in His mercy, stops the plague. And we’re told in verse 1 Chronicles 21:15: The angel of the Lord was stopped from spreading the plague any further, right on the threshing floor of Araunah” Well, where is that? And why does that even matter? Let me show you. (MoriahMap#1) Here is where the city of Jerusalem was in King David’s time (1,000 BC) And up here, on this mount, is…Mount Moriah. The exact same place that 1,000 years earlier, God, in His mercy, provided a substitute ram for Isaac And now, at the same spot where God showed his mercy to Abraham & Isaac, God does it again 1,000 years later. And so King David buys that very plot of land (right here), builds an altar where, again, a substitute lamb will be sacrificed, and God approves by sending down fire from heaven on the sacrifice. A generation later, David’s son Solomon decides to build a temple, so the Jewish sacrificial system, can have a permanent home. A place where people can come and see that God mercifully provides a substitute to die in their place for what they deserve. And Guess where Solomon built the temple? (MoriahMap#2) 2 Chronicles 3 tells us that Solomon builds the temple right here, on Mount Moriah, at the exact same spot God showed mercy in the day of his Father David, and in the day of his ancestor Abraham. And then another 1,000 years go by, and Jesus comes on to the scene. And once again, we have a story of deliverance in the same place. As right near Mount Moriah, just down at the bottom of mount, on Calvary, God provides the lamb. Except this time, instead of saving the son in the story, God, gives his own son. Look at verse 4 of our passage again, but think of Jesus. “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there See, this time, on Mount Moriah, God provides for your deepest need, your need for a Savior, by letting his son die as a substitute in your place. (Yahweh Jireh Title Slide) Cuz truth is that you and I have sinned, and we fall short of God’s perfection. And for our sins, we deserve His judgement. It should be you and I up on Mount Moriah… Waiting for the just judgment of God. But just like He did throughout all of history, God provided a substitute. He provided Jesus. And Jesus came to die on the cross for your sins. And if you would believe in that, you will not only be forgiven, but Jesus can come into your life and change it, and give you eternal life in heaven (not in hell) Because your sins will have been paid for. But it starts with a decision. A decision to make Him your savior and leader. And if you need to do that today, here’s what I want you to do. I’m going to pray, and then I’ll head out into the lobby during this last song. If you need to make that decision, I want you to walk out into the lobby, anytime during this last song, and I and our follow up team will help you with what to do next. We’ll greet you right as you walk out. Sound good? Okay, let’s pray. Copyright: David Sorn Renovation Church in Blaine, MN You may use this material all you like! We only ask that you do not charge a fee and that you quote the source and not say it is your own. DAVID SORN DECEMBER 4, 2022