Laying it All on the Altar
The Life of Abraham 8.0 
Genesis 22 
by Eric Stillman
August 20th, 2006

We’ve reached the end of the series I’ve been preaching on the adventure of faith and the life of Abraham.  Today we come to probably the most well known story in his life, where Abraham is asked by God to go and sacrifice his son Isaac, the same son that he has waited 25 years for God to provide, as a burnt offering.  This is a story that many of you are familiar with.  Before we look at the story, I want to say that I recognize that it can be tough to listen to a familiar story, and it can be equally tough to preach on a story that many people have heard before.  Many of you have heard this story more than once and may feel like “I know this story and the lessons you can get from it, so I can tune out.”  And for the preacher, the temptation can be to find some new way of looking at it, some different way of approaching the text.  But I think there’s a better way for us to approach this story.  I know that when I preach, my goal is to understand God’s heart in the story so that I and my listeners might respond appropriately to God, whether it’s in worship, obedience, service, dialogue, or something else.  And I think it’s always important to stay aware of Jesus’ words at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.  Remember that after he had taught his listeners all sorts of amazing things, he said a few important words, and I want you to consider them before we begin looking at Abraham today:

Matthew 7:24-27   "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  ²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  ²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  ²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

Essentially, Jesus said that just hearing a story or teaching means nothing in the end.  Just because you’ve heard something ten times before or are hearing it for the first time, it doesn’t matter.  The important thing is, do you put it into practice?  Do you live out what is begin taught?  If all you’ve done is hear a story, Jesus says that you are like a foolish man building his house on the sand.  It is only the man or woman who hears his words and puts them into practice that is wise and has his or her life built on a solid ground.  For that reason, I think the best way to approach a familiar story is to focus on praxis, on application – sure we may know the story by heart intellectually, but are we actually living out what God is telling us? For that reason, this morning we’ll spend more time on application and looking at our own lives then we will at trying to pick out new meanings from a familiar text.