Worship as Sacrifice

 

We have been working out the answer to the question of what worship is, and I’ve set about doing that by looking at the Hebrew words that the Bible uses for worship. We saw first, by looking at the Hebrew word, “Abad”, that worship is the act of aligning the whole of one’s life under the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. Last week, we started to look at the Hebrew word, “Saha”, and we saw – based on the first way that it was used – that worship is the act of reverently communing with God through the presence of His Spirit. So, today, we are going to look at the second time the word, “Saha”, is used in the Bible by looking at the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. From this passage we find that worship is the act of giving all of our lives to God as an offering of praise. To understand this text, I want to look at two points: what the text says about Abraham and what it says about God.

First, let’s consider what the text says about Abraham. There are two aspects of Abraham’s character that I want you to notice today. The first thing is simply this: Abraham placed the worthiness of God above everything else in his life, including his son. The 19^th century Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, was so stunned by this one story in the Bible that he wrote a 300 page book about it (Fear and Trembling). It astounded Kierkegaard that Abraham would be willing to sacrifice the son that he had waited over 25 years to have, the son that God had rested all of his promises on. Kierkegaard points out that this act makes no sense from an ethical perspective. You could imagine at least considering the sacrifice of your child if it meant that his or her death would save someone else’s life, but that’s not happening here. Or, you might be able to stomach the idea of sacrificing your child for the sake of the greater good, like sending a child off to war, and yet that isn’t what is happening here either. Abraham wasn’t doing this to benefit mankind or because of some oath that he has taken or out of some sense of honor. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son of promise simply because his God commanded it. Kierkegaard said that Abraham had reached the point in his life where he “related absolutely to the absolute”. This wasn’t a question of meeting his own desires or being an ethical person. This was a question of worship. In fact, you’ll notice that Abraham puts the situation in those very terms. In verse 5, he tells his two servants to stay here while the boy and I go and “worship”. The Hebrew word that is translated as “worship” there is “Saha”. Abraham believed that God was worthy of everything he had, including his son, so if the Lord required everything of him (even his son), he would give it.

The second aspect of Abraham’s character that I want you to notice is that Abraham trusted in the goodness of God, even when he did not understand. Notice verse 5 again. Abraham tells his servants that “we will go and worship, and we will come again to you”. Heb. 11:17-19 says that Abraham did all of this by faith, believing that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead to keep his promise. Abraham had 25 years of proof in God’s faithfulness. He knew that God had been with him wherever he went. He knew that God had kept his promise, even when Abraham and Sarah tried by their own wits to take a shortcut to the promise. He knew that nothing was impossible with God because he had taken a man who was as good as dead and a woman who had a dead womb and caused a child to be born through them. He trusted in the goodness of God, even when he was called to sacrifice that one thing that was most precious to him.

Abraham’s faith in God brings me to what the text says about God. Abraham knew that God was gracious and that he would provide.  On the way up the mountain, Isaac gets to looking around and realizes that Abraham forgot something: the sacrificial animal! So, in verse 7, he asks, “where is the lamb for the offering?” Notice what Abraham says in verse 8: “God will provide for himself the lamb.” Later on, as Abraham is ready to plunge the knife into the heart of this son of promise, an angel of the Lord stays Abraham’s hand and directs his eyes to a ram that is caught in a thicket.

You see, even if Abraham had sacrificed his son of promise on that day, it still would not have been enough to truly make him acceptable before God. After all, for every good and faithful act that Abraham did, there was always a sinful and faithless act to match it. But, Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son points forward to another sacrifice that would be accepted by God. One day, thousands of years later, there would be another son of promise who would be called to offer himself as a sacrifice. Like Isaac, who carried the wood for the sacrifice on his back, this new son of promise would carry the wood of a Roman cross on his. Like Isaac, who ascended a hill to the place of sacrifice, this new son of promise would be driven out of Jerusalem and up the hill known as Golgotha. Like Isaac, who willingly laid down so that his father might pierce him, so too this new son of promise would willingly take the piercings of sinful men to fulfill the will of his father. Yet, there is a difference between Isaac and this new son of promise - he is also a true and spotless lamb. On the hill of Calvary, God provided the lamb who would take away the sins of the world – Jesus Christ, the true Son of God.

Jesus, in his sacrifice, has made us acceptable before God, and he has proven God to be the gracious Lord that Abraham knew him to be. It is because of his great mercies that we are called to worship him with the whole of our lives. So, Paul says, in Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Our right response to this great mercy of God is that we would use our bodies in such a way that it pleases him. Though the world may tell us that our bodies are our own possession to use up and show out, yet because we love God more than our bodies, we are willing to use them in obedience to him as an act of worship. Heb. 13:15 says, “let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.” So, not only are our bodies to be used as a sacrifice of worship to God, but our words are, too. We should gladly and readily acknowledge God before men because He is worthy of our praise. The writer of Hebrews goes on in 13:16 to say, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” So, our bodies should be a sacrifice, our words are a sacrifice, and lastly, our possessions should be shared as a sacrifice to God. Brothers and sisters, the whole of our lives should be given to God as an act of sacrificial worship.