🦁 Lent 2-6

Readings: Psalm 105:1-11, 37-45; Genesis 22:1-19; Hebrews 11:1-3, 13-19. 

Reflection

Good morning. This is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 105, verses 1 to 11 and 37 to 45, Genesis Chapter 22, verses 1 to 19 and Hebrews Chapter 11, verses 1 to 3 and 13 to 19, and Psalm 105. We have the thanks to the Lord and singing praises and this litany of God and remembering what God has done for the people of Israel and His wondrous works, His miracles and judgments and how He is the Lord, our God and His judgments are in all the Earth. He remembers his covenant forever, and this goes on and on while giving the land to Kaden Canaan was their portion of the inheritance and how he brought them out of Israel and all the things that God. This is most likely David is called Tell all His wondrous works is the title. And this is just a reminder reminding the people of Israel, the Jews, the Jewish people, that God took care of us, God did things for us and God endures forever and is is a very, very solid foundation. 

And Genesis chapter 22. So we've gone back to this is the sacrifice of Isaac. So going back is what we've done previously. So Abraham and his wife Sarah, and we had the illegitimate Ishmael through the second wife, Hagar and the gods. And now I'm Sarah. So we became Abraham and Sarah under the Covenant Covenant, we give them a child to Charles Isaac. So this is their only child. This is the only son. And God says, Abraham, take your son up on the mountain and sacrifice him. 

And Abraham didn't blink. Abraham went and did exactly what they would do, gathered all things, took his servant, put them on the carriage, drove out. They found the mountain. God pointed them out. You went up, made the altar, laid the wood, took his son, bound him, put him on the altar, and was going to sacrifice him. When the angel Lord stopped and said, Look behind you. And there was Abram released his son, put the ram on, sacrifice. The ram turned around and said, Your faith, even to the point of sacrificing your son, your only son. That way, God knew Abraham was faithful. This can be a controversial reading. Does God really test us? We do test God.

But here's here's a parallel that you don't hear too often. Abraham was taken to sacrifice his only son. Who else Sacrifice their only son, their only begotten son. So there's some parallel here. And I don't I do not feel that it is happenstance. I feel very much that, you know. God, how far would Abraham go? Abraham went to the point of almost sacrificing his son. God told him no, stopped it gave him the sacrifice of Abram. 

Then later, as we know, God sent his only begotten Son. And he did sacrifice himself for us. And again, this is this is how committed. So this is what I want to take away from. This is what I hope you take away from this today. This is commitment. This is how committed Abraham was to God and God is to us. And we need that kind of commitment. 

Our reading in Hebrews today is titled by Faith. And here we have the faith thing again. And I keep talking about that. But this is this. Hebrews 11 one is often quoted. I'll read it again real quick. Now, faith is the assurance that things hope for and the conviction of things not seen. So years and years ago, I was probably in high school before I went in, you know, I knows before I went in the army. So it would have been up somewhere high school to I went in at the age of 20. We had a a pastor who did a sermon on it was on he, I believe, pretty much sure it was on this, but he was trying to get us to understand what is faith. So we're all sitting there. He pulled out a folding chair and he had one go up to go sit in the folding chair. Okay. How do you know that you're going to hold up? Well, it does. We sit in the chair. How do you know that? Are you a engineer? Did you design this chair? Did you load test this chair? Have you done structural integrity of all this stuff? Right. We don't do that. We see the chair, we park our butts in it sometimes. You know, I'm. I'm 65 and £300, so I'm a little worry a certain chairs. But that was his decision. That was how he described faith to us as we just you just know you don't have to have all the background and all the knowledge and all the dignity and all this stuff that people want. All we have to do is just, hey, you know what? This is going to work. I believe so. When we move on here, this is, you know, by faith. We understand the universe was created by the word of God. 

Nobody was there. There's a lot of things surrounding creation, creation theory, creation, evolution of the creation story. Nobody has a definitive answer yet. We just don't know. We have a lot of theories. Cultural ideals, religious. Nobody knows. We're just here. I don't like getting tied up in those kind of arguments and discussions because they don't go anywhere because there is no answer. There is no definitive answer. It's all done by faith. My faith tells me, however you want to say, the world has come around at the very, very, very, very, very beginning. God made it happen. However you want to say it, God made it happen. And that's our faith. And God can make this happen, weighing all this stuff up and have this perfect orb here in the perfect spot in the universe to support life, etc., etc.. I trust God. I believe in God, not in the fairy godfather sense, but in in the sense that there is a being out there who created us, nurtures us and takes care of us if we allow him to. All that.