Christmas in Genesis (The Promise of Freedom)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you. Last week we talked about the typology of Marley and How Joseph Marley was bound in heavy chains and it was great. I got to see the the play this week.

So it brought out even more of the symbolism and how those chains were weighing him down symbol of eternal consequences that were lying on the the body of Marley and Would be awaiting Scrooge if he did not repent.

Now I thought it was interesting in Dickens and also in the play that we watched the chains were made of these strange items cashboxes keys padlocks ledgers Deeds and heavy purses that were wrought with steel that were all sort of woven together inside of these ethereal chains.

And I think what Dickens was getting after and certainly the play brought this out Was the idea that these are individual acts of sin that were perpetrated over the course of a lifetime That were unforgiven that were weighing down Marley acts of greed acts of of Accumulation of sinful wealth and also the refusal to participate in acts of true generosity.

And all these sins span the life of Marley and it weighed him down to the point to where almost every word that he.

Speaks is is.

Interrupted by agony and pain the chains represent the fact that the judge has not overlooked the sin and That the case against him is certain. The binding of Marley also and the chains of Marley also represent to Scrooge a warning that if he doesn't repent and if He doesn't Turn to the Living Christ and Dickens does not bring this out as clearly as the play does.

The play did a great job bringing Out the gospel that's underneath this story and that if he doesn't repent and turn to Jesus then he will be in the same place. The chains will be laid upon him and he will be in torment and agony forever.

The binding of Marley is Foreshadowing of the doom that is coming if Scrooge doesn't repent but also in a way Marley acts as a kind of or a type of Savior to Scrooge. He comes sacrificing himself. Demonstrating his bindings in order to set Scrooge on a different path that will end up setting him free.

His bindings Not only point to Ebeneezer's future, but they also in a very real sense point forward to his salvation. For it was his bindings that set Scrooge on the quest that brought him to faith. Now in the same way that Marley's bindings point to a ton of things.

They point beyond themselves to things that are that are great and weighty weightier than the chains. There's a binding in the scripture that we're gonna look at today. There's actually three bindings in the scripture that we're gonna look at today one in the Old Testament and two in the new and.

The one in the Old Testament is like Marley in the sense that it points beyond itself. It points to something greater. So what we will do is we will turn to Genesis 22 1 through 19. We'll look at this binding and then we'll at the end.

We'll see how it points to the greatest freedom that you and I could ever possibly know. So if you will turn with me Genesis 22, excuse me, it's 1 through 14. That we will do this morning as you're turning there.

I'll give you a great vocab word that I shared with the men at the at the Bible study on Tuesday hapax legomenon. It means a word that shows up only once in the Bible. The word here for bound in Hebrew is a hapax legomenon.

It shows up the only time in the Old Testament here out of 10 ,000 unique words That show up in the Old Testament. The only time it shows up is here. I think there's a reason for that. Let's read. Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him Abraham and he said here I am and he said take now your son your only son whom you love Isaac and Go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young man men with him and Isaac his son. And he split wood for the burnt offering. And he arose and went to the place of which God had told him on the third day.

Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance and Abraham said to the young men Stay here with the donkey and I and the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you. Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son and he took in his hand of the fire and the knife.

So the two of them walked on together and Isaac spoke to Abraham's father and said my father Here I am my son. Abraham said behold the fire in the wood. But where is the lamb for the burnt offering. And Abraham said God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering my son.

So the two of them walked on together and then they came to the place which God had told him and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and bound that's the word His son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel the Lord called out to him and said Abraham. Abraham and he said here I am he said do not stretch out your hand against the lad and Do nothing to him for now.

I know that you fear God Since you have not withheld your son your only son from me. Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him for a burnt offering in the place of his son.

Abraham called the name of that place. The Lord will provide as It is said to this day in the Mount of the Lord. It will be provided. Let us pray Lord, we thank you for every verse of Scripture. We thank you for the simple passages.

We thank you for the complex. We thank you for the ones that seem Shallow in the best way that we could jump in and and get wet and not drown and yet Lord. We also thank you for those passages that are so deep.

It feels like we will drown in them. Lord we thank you For passages like this and all that it points to and and how it points so much beyond its own pages. Lord, I pray that as we observe these things today that we would see nothing less than the gospel of Jesus Christ and That Lord we would see how true freedom comes from you.

It's in Jesus name. Amen. Now events don't happen in a vacuum. I think we need to talk about the background of this Particular passage and what we're gonna do is we're gonna spend about 90 of our time today.

Probably about an hour and a half and I'm just kidding. We're gonna spend about 90 of our time on the background and then we will get to the aha the point at the end. Now Abraham if you will remember is old.

He's old when God calls him. God calls him out of the land of Ur which is a Metropolitan city a great city in the ancient world and God calls him and his barren wife out of The life of luxury. This is a great city.

This is a city that Archaeologists have even suggested could have had indoor plumbing which is incredible at that particular time. This is a city where Abraham was living the life. He had the sort of what we would call the American dream and I don't think Abraham was looking for an entire total life interruption and yet there it is that God Uproots him and pulls him out of that place and moves him to a land where God says that I will bless you.

And I will make your name great and those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed. Abraham's entire life will have to remember is uprooted in this point. Genesis 12 1 through 3 says as much now the Lord said to Abraham Go forth from your country and from your own relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great and so shall and so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you and In you all of the families of the earth will be blessed.

What a promise.

It's the first time Abram has heard from God. I.

Want you to leave your family. I want you to leave your father. I want you to leave. Abram was already old. So his mom and dad are really old. I want you to leave them. They can there's nursing homes in her but I've got something for you.

I Can imagine Abram had no idea what to think about this. Not only the logistics of I got to pack up and move away from all my family From a God that I just met that would have been confusing enough. But also God says I'm going to bless you and make a nation out of you.

How does Abraham or Abram at this point?

Reconcile God.

If you're any God at all, you must know genetic or biology old men and old women, especially the old woman past the age of child rearing don't have babies and yet He goes. It's a real sign of tremendous faith given to him as a gift clearly by God.

But beyond the physical issues beyond the family beyond the circumstances beyond all of that He believed God enough to move his entire family and pack them up and move them hundreds of miles away to a god He just met.

Now you can imagine Abraham went home that night. Abram went home that night and he said you're not gonna believe what just happened. God. The one and only God not the gods of her. Not not those that the true God has told me that you're gonna have a baby.

So After dinner tonight. Maybe we can go to bed early. I Mean he's a man of faith. He has to act in accordance with his faith. You can imagine he's not gonna do nothing. He believes the promise. So he's going to begin working to see that happen.

But can you imagine after like a month when there's no morning sickness? No. No anything you can imagine Abraham saying well, did I really understand the promise correctly? You can imagine after six months after nine months after a year after two years.

Actually, in fact, there's a couple of years that transition from this point until Genesis 15. He's moved his family. He's taking them all the way there and no pregnancy. And again, he's a man who is acting in faith.

So he's doing the kinds of things that make babies and nothing is happening. You can imagine the disappointment and the bitterness that would have set in between him and Sarah. Sarah at this point. It's at this point that Abram Does what most of us would have done and starts to doubt whether he heard the promise correctly and he says well.

Maybe this promise has to do with Eliezer. He's a gentleman who lived in Abram's camp remember I said Abram was a was a very rich man. He had servants. He had livestock. He was so rich. In fact in Genesis 14, he rescues lot from Four kings so Abram and his family go to war against four kings that's a big that that's a big group of people with a lot of blessing to take on four kings and Abram's Property is so big that he can do that.

And yet he doesn't have an heir. He doesn't have a son and he says maybe it's this gentleman Eliezer of Damascus maybe it's he that God will give me.

And.

God says no. God comes to him in Genesis 15 three years after he's told him that they're gonna have a son three years of waiting three years of unmet.

Expectations.

And he gives him more clarity on what is going on. Genesis 15 1 through 3 says and after these things the Word of the Lord came to Abram. I love how the Bible does that by the way after these things three years.

After some stuff happened God is not on our timetable. After these things the Word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision saying Do not fear Abram. I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great.

Abram said Oh Lord God, what will you give me since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said Since you have given me no offspring to me one born in my house shall be my heir.

And God responds Absolutely not. Verse 4 This man will not be your heir But one who will come from your own body. He shall be your heir. And It goes even bigger than that. He doesn't just promise the old man and the old woman that they will have a son.

He promises that their offspring will be so uncountable so incalculable That you can't even count them. It would be like trying to count the stars or trying to count the sand on the seashore the grains of sand.

He says to him in verse 5 and 6. And he took him outside and he said now look to the heavens. Count the stars if you're able to count them. And he said so shall your descendants be. Then Abram after three years.

It says he believed the Lord and God counted it as righteousness to him.

Abram.

Believed God and he believed that God was true and he believed that God's promises were true. Even if the timeline didn't purport with his timeline Genesis 15 is an incredible example of faith without seeing anything.

That would lead him to believe that these things were going to happen. This is faith that the Apostle Paul says in Galatians now after this between Genesis 15 and 16. They don't get immediately pregnant again.

The first weight is between Genesis 12 and 15. That's three years between Genesis 15 and 16 is 10 years. 10 more years with nothing. No baby bump. No, no cravings for port wine cheese in the middle of the night.

And then they take it into their own hands again. They're confused. 13 years since the promise has come and Sarah I think this is my interpretation, but Sarah has an epiphany. God said it was your body.

That it would come from not mine. You can imagine Sarah come in and saying as far as I can tell this has nothing to do with me Abraham. This is about you. It said that the child's gonna come from your body.

So here I have this great idea. Let me give you my maidservant Hagar and then the promise will come true because it'll come from your body. It's not about me. It's about you. How silly we missed it? Yeah.

You ever did that with God where you look back on something that that you know God said in his word and you're like, I must not have understood that correctly. Let me let me figure out some way to make this true.

What Sarah's ultimately doing. Is she's limiting the power of God? She's trying to find a naturalistic solution to a supernatural problem and. By doing that it was dishonoring to the Lord. Sarah believed they misunderstood.

Sarah believed that it was not about her, but maybe she could do this in another way and as we know Men are not limited in the same way men can you know, maybe not as easily but men can have children in their 80s.

There are examples of such all throughout history, but women can't after they pass a particular time. It's over. So Sarah's being practical. And Abraham is being ignorant. Because it never works out in the scriptures.

When you take on a second or third or fourth wife, it always adds to misery and it does in this situation.

And.

Immediately after. Immediately after this Sarah regrets her decision. Because Hagar gets pregnant easily quickly even and Sarah is angry about it.

She said.

Here Abraham. Here's my servant. Then as soon as she got pregnant every Frustration that was in her heart welled up even stronger in the womb of this woman was everything she wanted. And it wasn't her carrying her husband's child.

It was this woman and you can imagine the frustrations of anger and bitterness and she began to terrorize Hagar to the point that Hagar despaired for her own life and she ran away into the wilderness.

I'd love the fact that God Blesses her as well Hagar. When she's in the wilderness and she's almost ready to die. She has no water. Her child has no water. No food. God visits her. The angel the Lord visits her in Genesis 16 10 through 11.

Moreover the angel the Lord said to her I will greatly multiply your descendants. She's talking to Hagar. They will be too many to count. The angel the Lord said to her behold you are with child and you will bear a son you shall call his name Ishmael.

Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction the Lord God is the only one who can take our sin and our brokenness and our corruption and turn it for blessing and turn It for good and this is what he does.

Now she goes back and she submits to her master. To the wife of her master Sarah she submits and she has the child there and that creates no amount of Expectation in Sarah knowing that this was not the child of promise and God very lovingly Gives the gift of circumcision to Abraham and you may be if you're especially if you're a man you're like, I don't think that was loving.

It was loving because up until this point Abram had nothing To look at as far as promises. All he had was the Word of the Lord. All he had was the was the verbal promise from God. So God marks him. God cuts him.

God brings him a sign. That is very personal. Every day he will notice the sign and God is like I'm gonna give you this to help you and to remind you that I am a God that keeps my promises. In The Old Testament the word for covenant making is is Barit and it usually means to cut.

God literally cut Abraham into his covenant. He cut him in and gave him a sign that he would never forget now after this. First time God made the promise was three years next time. It was ten years gone now 13 years.

Makes Abraham wait until the next time he interacts with God, which I think is fascinating right. 26 total years of Waiting 13 from the time that Hagar returns and Abram is circumcised 13 years. Abraham is 99 years old by the time that the next act of God's promise comes and in this time Instead of God giving a word from the Lord.

The angel of the Lord comes and visits Abram and he not only gives the word he comes in person to promise. Do you notice what God is doing? He's coming now in a way Incarnationally to demonstrate day room.

Do not fear these things will come true. Genesis 18 verse 10 and verse 14 He said I will return to you at this time next year and behold Sarah your wife will have a son and.

Then.

He says is anything too difficult for the Lord, I love that God asks himself the question it's rhetorical no. At the appointed time. I will return to you at this time next year and Sarah will have a son and this is where we Get the name Isaac because Sarah laughs and God says you laughed and she says no I didn't he said yeah you did.

Now you can imagine one year later. This is 24 years now 24 years after the promise was first given that the Sun comes. You can imagine If there was ever a woman and a man. Especially a woman who could be called a helicopter mom.

It was Sarah 24 years she waited for this child. You can imagine the child's feet.

Maybe didn't hit the floor except to give her old back a rest. He probably had the most nutritious baby food probably non-toxic ancient Middle Eastern diapers Organic butt paste even of whatever variety that they made back then.

Maybe I'm supposing she was a little bit protective after waiting that long to see God move. Not unreasonably so but gratefully so. She wanted to care for the promises of God. She wanted to steward the blessings that God had given both her and Abram.

Well and.

They raised the young man from a babe into a toddler and from a toddler to a young man and We don't hear anything from the Lord this entire time. Until the word used for Isaac is young man. Usually given to someone who's older than a teenager, but yet not a married man.

So somewhere between 13 and 30. It's really not clear. But I would say probably somewhere between 13 and 20 given the age of Abraham and It's at that point that Abram. Here's the shocking news that this child your son.

Your only son. I want you to sacrifice him on the altar. Can you imagine the dinner table conversation when Abraham comes home that night and says hey God showed up again. Oh, yeah, honey. What did he say this time?

Really? So super blessed about the last time he visited 13 years ago.

Yeah.

He wants us to offer our son Isaac. It's a burnt offering you can imagine. That probably didn't go over well. That conversation must have been difficult to say the least and yet. They did what none of us would have done and Abram and Isaac went.

You and I would have stopped and we'd have said that was a bad burrito. What I just ate that that caused a bad reaction. That's mental illness. I need medicine. I need to go to the doctor. I need that brain scan.

There's something going on with me. They didn't say that. Abram did not say that. It says that he stood up and he and Isaac and two of their servants left to go obey the Lord. And it wasn't because Abram didn't love his son.

We know that's not the case because the text says it was his only son. It's because he loved God more and he believed. That this same God who brought life into a dead womb Miraculously could also bring life from the dead that he could raise up Isaac and bring him back.

So they saddled up their donkeys. They took their servants with them and they rode to the land of Moriah. When Abraham saw the land in the distance it says on the third day ironically.

This.

Great foreshadowing to Christ. It says I'm on the third day they approached this land that they told their servants to wait. And he and Isaac climbed the mountain together. Isaac carried the wood up the mountain.

Abram carried the fire and the knife up the mountain. And just in case you're wondering there was jars at that time where they would keep burning embers and They would carry those up and then those they would use to to set straw and fodder on fire.

And then they would use that to get the the fire going. That's how Abraham carried the fire up the mountain. But he trusted God and we see that even in his words. He says to his servants Me and the boy will return.

He knew. He didn't know how he didn't know what God was going to do.

But he knew that when they arrived and when he bound Isaac. That God would perform a miracle because God can be trusted. What faith? And it's at this point that he climbs up the mountain with his son.

There is no lamb. There is no ram caught in the thicket yet, and he takes hold of his son. And he binds him on the altar. And he raises the knife. Now we have to talk about something here that I think is fascinating.

Abraham is like a hundred and twelve years old at this point. He lived in a time period which was strange. Because if you remember people used to live to like 900 years old and things like that and that happened before the flood.

But there was a weird period of time where ages were coming down. Tara his father lived in the 200s. Abram I think is in the hundred and forties hundred and fifties when he dies. So there's this period of time where ages are starting to trickle down to a normal age.

Abrams pretty old. He's vigorous. But still climbing a big mountain at a hundred and twelve years old. It's probably not easy. Isaac the word for him is is young man, which means that he was quite vigorous which meant that if Isaac really wanted to he could have ran away.

If Isaac wanted to he could have said Yeah, dad. I don't think this is what God wants. I'll see you at the bottom of the mountain and he would have won the foot race and Just in case Abraham was really spry that morning and he grabs Isaac.

Isaac was stronger than him and could have thrown him off. So what my point is is the only way that Isaac gets on this altar is willingly and voluntarily. It is not don't have the picture in your mind that Abraham in a moment of tears on his face grabs his son and forcefully puts him on there.

Isaac climbed up there and let his father tie him down because he believed to the promises of God, too. He submitted to this ceremony knowing that he was a child of promise. Abraham had taught him. Your child that God gave us of miraculous circumstances.

God's gonna deliver you in this situation. He submitted to it and he trusted his father and more importantly trusted God. He knew that even if he were turned into ashes. Well, God can make things out of ashes.

He did it in the Garden of Eden before. I Would say that Isaac is bound by more than ropes. He was bound by faith the faith of his father Abraham. And he believed the promises of God and because of that when Abram raised his knife in the air.

It says that God caught out Abraham.

Abraham.

You know that he's old because he had to cry out twice. No, I'm just kidding and he said don't I know now that you love me more than anything else. And Abraham looked up and he saw the ram caught in the thicket.

Isaac came down free.

Now.

Isaac didn't deserve to be free. Neither did Abraham need another. Did any other human on earth? We all deserve condemnation for our sin. So it wasn't like Isaac was getting what he deserved. He was getting grace and this ram caught in the thicket was a substitutionary atonement for Isaac.

And.

It points forward to something so much bigger and so much greater than we could ever possibly imagine. Just like Marley's bindings pointed to something greater Isaac's bindings point to something beyond Themselves something greater to a future father and a future son into a future freedom.

Jesus in the same way was bound by his earthly father when he was wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger.

It was a similar kind of binding those little cloths were tight.

It wasn't snuggly little blankets that you buy at Target today. No, no, no. You ever seen Eskimo babies? They look like mummies. This is how Jesus was bound Placed in a wooden manger just like Isaac was placed on a wooden altar and yet God Instead of Isaac looked beyond Isaac to this Christ the Affectual offering that would be offered for our sins.

And yet it wasn't here that Christ was sacrificed. His earthly father bound him just like Isaac's earthly father bound him and Jesus just like Isaac walked away free from that moment. But the greater binding came when Jesus.

Grew up.

Preached the gospel told parables did miracles and the people of Israel grabbed him and bound him and Nailed him to a wooden cross. In the same way that Isaac was bound to a wooden altar. Jesus was bound to a wooden cross and in that binding.

The true father would not let him go. God the father spoke over Isaac. I know now Abraham that you believe me. Let the boy go over Christ. God spoke. No word to Jesus letting him free. The knife of God's wrath rose over the cross of Christ.

Coming down upon his son his only son on the third day on that exact same mountain. Mount Moriah as we've said before is the mountain that Jerusalem was built on and Calvary was its highest peak. On the same summit that Abraham was going to offer up Isaac.

God offered up his one and only son and Bound him to the wood and did not deliver him. The point of this. Is that Isaac could not be the true sacrifice to save Abraham or to save anyone because he too was a sinner Christ Was what the sacrifice was always going to be.

God allowed Abraham to bring his child up to the top of a mountain to Enact what was coming and what was coming was the sacrifice of Christ the perfect man. The man who never sinned the man who was perfect and pure in all of his life would be offered as a substitutionary atonement for us in The same way that Abraham looked up and saw the ram that would take Isaac's place you and I today Have been given the pleasure of looking up and seeing the Christ Who took our place?

You and I deserve to be on that cross. You and I deserve to be on that altar. But it was for the love of God and for the grace of Jesus Christ that he was bound for us. And as we close All of this ties into Christmas.

Because Christmas is not just about sweet little baby. Jesus it starts there, but he was born to die. He was bound in his birth because he was going to be bound in his death with the same linen rags that he was wrapped up in the tomb and He was bound For our freedom in the same way that Isaac was set free you and I have been set free by Jesus Christ and here's what I want to challenge you with during the season if Christ the true and perfect Savior has died to set you free.

Why are you still in bondage? Why do you still let the rags and the wrappings and the ropes of depression cling to you. Why do you still let the grave clothes of Lust and anger and jealousy and bitterness cling to you.

If Jesus Christ is God's perfect atonement for you, then you have perfect freedom in him. Lay down those things that bind you do not walk in the season bound to anything other than faith in Jesus Christ.

Galatians 5 1 is where we'll end. It says it was for freedom that Christ has set you free. Therefore keep standing firm and do not subject yourself any longer to the yoke of slavery brothers and sisters.

Lay down your sins. Stand up like Isaac and let the ropes fall down to the ground. There's anything you're struggling with give it over to Christ. Because for freedom Christ has set you free. Remember that this season and remember that all year.

Let's pray Lord God each of us are carrying burdens and each of us are carrying different things that we were not designed to carry and word.

Wow.

We deserved to be on that cross in your good pleasure. You have determined that we would have a substitute. That the Living Christ would be put there in our place. And because he's perfectly dying for our sins and our miseries and our failures Lord, let us not pick them back up again.

Lord, let us not leave here today Still wearing the grave clothes that we were delivered from. Let us not continue on in the bondage Addictions or or past sin or failure that Christ has perfectly died for.

Let us throw off everything that encumbers us and run the race that Christ has given us for freedom. Christ has set us free. Lord God, I pray that while this is not a complicated truth to grab hold of word I do pray that it would be a necessary truth that everyone in here clings to.

That we would no longer cling to anything that binds us. But Lord we would cling to Christ who has set us free and Lord help us this season to be free and to be free. Indeed Lord us in Jesus name. We pray. Amen.