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God's word to Abraham in Genesis 22:2 sets up the entire message: "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 the mountain that I will show you."
Stop Playing It Safe is the theme for today. Many of us want God's "suddenly"—His sudden breakthrough, sudden blessing, sudden provision—but we're not willing to make the sacrifice that prepares us for it.
We live in a culture chasing an illusion of success that exists without sacrifice. But God's way always requires sacrifice. If you want success—whether in your relationship with God or in relationships with people—at some point, you must be willing to make sacrifices.
When people want to be with you or recognize your true value, they must be willing to make sacrifices to connect with that greatness. Greatness requires sacrifice. The greatest enemy of sacrifice isn't selfishness—it's playing it safe.
Many of us aren't selfish; we're simply too comfortable. We wake up every day going to a safe job, praying safe prayers, staying in a safe circle even though we've outgrown it. We're settling for what's familiar instead of walking by faith. But some of us are done settling. We're stepping out on faith, even if faith requires sacrifice.
Obedience is when we trust God to provide for our need.
Sacrifice is when we trust God to provide for our next.
We may be grateful that God has supplied all our needs. But God is looking for people willing to believe Him for their next—their next favor, their next breakthrough, their next level. If you know you're next, you should be praising God not just for what He's already done, but for what He's about to do.
I'm next. I'm the next millionaire in my family. I'm the next healer in my family. I'm the next anointed author in my family. I'm the next cycle breaker in my family.
But you cannot shout "I'm next" if you're not willing to embrace the law of sacrifice.
The law of sacrifice means you must give up to go up. The higher you go, the higher the cost.
Imagine you grow up in an environment where resources are scarce. You don't know there's more until you step outside that environment. One day you get a traveling opportunity and head to the airport. You've packed for an entire month for a 48-hour trip because you don't know how to pack light. They tell you there's an upcharge for extra baggage.
You get on the plane and walk down the aisle. You see first class up front—nicer seats, better service. You ask, "What do I have to do to get from this seat to that seat?" They tell you it will cost you more.
This isn't just about airplane seats. This is about the flight of your life—the higher levels of favor and anointing God is trying to take you to. But He's saying it will cost you based on the environment you want to operate in. And you don't want to arrive at your destination surrounded by the wrong people. This is the law of sacrifice: you must give up to go up.
This principle is proven in Scripture through Abraham. God challenges him as a test—to see if he loves God more than what God gave him. Some of us won't receive our "suddenly" because God is asking: "Do you trust me enough to give it back?"
There's tension in Genesis 22:2 when God says, "Take your son, your only son." But Abraham has another son—Ishmael. How can Isaac be his only son?
In the Hebrew, "only" means unique, only begotten, or special. This refers to the son God prophesied about—the son of promise, not the son of preference.
Abram and Sarai got impatient. God promised them a son, but they grew old waiting. They looked at each other and decided to sleep with Hagar, the maidservant. That's how Ishmael came into the picture.
What is the Ishmael in your life? What did you produce because you weren't willing to wait on God? Some of us call certain seasons "favor" when God is saying, "That's not favor. That's Ishmael. I didn't produce that. You produced that and put My name on it."
You might say, "Why isn't that marriage working out?" Because God didn't tell you to say "I do." That's Ishmael. Ishmael represents what we birth in the flesh, not by faith. It represents what we produce when we attempt to get ahead of God.
Many of us are frustrated, believing God for a suddenly but stuck in the Ishmael season—frustrated by what we created instead of waiting for what God promised.
Isaac represents the thing that we value the most, that we cherish, that we believe God for.
Here's the key: Your next suddenly may not require you to get something. What if your next suddenly requires you to give something?
Isaac also represents a first fruit offering—a sacrificial offering. Some believers today reject teaching about giving because of bad theology and a prosperity gospel that teaches God only wants to give, never receive. But you cannot correct wrong teaching with no teaching.
Sometimes your next breakthrough isn't based on what you need to get. It's based on how much you're willing to give. One of the greatest ways to receive a blessing is to become a giver. The Bible says, "The Lord loves a cheerful giver."
It's one thing to praise God when you receive. It's another level to praise Him when you give, knowing your next suddenly may require you to give something up.
For some of you, your Isaac might be:
Write this down: What is my Isaac?
God gives Abraham specific instructions: "Take your son to the region of Moriah, to a mountain I will show you."
Notice God doesn't give all the details upfront. He doesn't say exactly where in Moriah or which mountain. He says, "Go, and I'll show you."
Many of us struggle because we need more clarity than God is willing to give. But He says: "I'm not going to give you all the answers until you obey My first instruction. Take what I told you to take and start walking. You'll get more clarity as you begin moving."
Do you have anybody here who, when God says move, no longer waits on someone to give you confirmation? You pack your bags. When people ask where you're going, you say, "I don't know. God just told me to start moving."
God's provision is often tied to us being in the right place. I wouldn't be who I am today if I wasn't in the right place. I did the same thing for over a decade in the wrong place—no favor, no results, no evidence. Same work, wrong place.
But when I had enough humility to move and get back in the right place, His provision began to show up. Not because I suddenly became good, but because I was in the right place.
Some of us don't like the place because we don't like to climb. We want a flat land where everything is prepared and easy. But God is calling you higher because He wants to see if you're willing to become the type of person for the provision He has on your life.
You think everything should be given to you, but God says, "Once you meet Me up here at the mountain, provision comes."
God is asking us a crucial question: What is your Isaac? Write this down in your notes and answer it intentionally. Is it your family? Is it your money? What is the thing that means the most to you?
Understand that provision is the act of providing in advance. When you get to the right place, everything you need is already there. All you have to do is show up. God has already provided for you—He just needs you to get to the right place. The enemy will do everything he can to pull you from reaching that place.
Verse 3 shows Abraham's response to God's instruction: he got up early the next morning. He didn't procrastinate. He loaded his donkey, took his servants and his son Isaac, cut wood for the burnt offering, and set out for the place God told him about. He moved with no delay—all gas, no breaks.
For some of us, we can't experience a suddenly because we move too slow. Delayed obedience is still disobedience. God told you to leave, but instead you have a bunch of leaving conversations. You talk to your family, you talk to your friends, you look for confirmation from people.
Think about how Abraham looked to his wife: "The Lord told me to take our son and sacrifice him on the mountain." That sounds absolutely crazy. But you haven't walked by faith until you're willing to look like a fool. When God tells you something that doesn't make sense to man but makes perfect sense to God, you have to be willing to move forward anyway.
Abraham begins to cut wood, which represents consecration—setting things apart and cutting off your old nature. If we're being honest, we're all naturally inclined toward sin. We all have an old nature that needs to be dealt with.
Some of that attitude, you need to cut it. Some of those old desires, you need to cut it. Some of those old preferences, you need to cut it. Some of those old habits, you need to cut it. You can't experience God's power if you won't cut off your old nature.
When Abraham reaches the mountain with Isaac, two servants, and a donkey, he looks at the servants and says, "Stay here with the donkey while me and Isaac go up." While he has a crowd on one level, when it's time to go up to another level, the circle has to get smaller.
The donkey is a metaphor for your flesh—it represents your fleshly nature that is hard to tame. He's saying to his circle, "I love you, but I can't take you everywhere with me right now. Stay here with my old nature. Me and Isaac are going up."
When they go up, Abraham says they're going to worship. The first time worship is mentioned in the Bible is in this passage—and it's not mentioned with a song. Worship is mentioned with a sacrifice.
Do you have any true worshippers in your life? Everybody can praise God, but everybody can't worship Him. Worship requires death. You have to crucify your flesh and truly give Him all of your heart. You have to sacrifice what you want for what He wants.
The greatest act of worship is not a concert—it was Jesus on the cross. What the altar was in the Old Testament, the cross is in the New Testament. This is true worship.
Notice what Abraham says: "We will worship and then we'll be back." Something remarkable happens when you start worshiping—your faith rises up. What felt like a loss, you start realizing is actually a lesson. What if the sacrifice wasn't about Isaac at all?
What if God was saying, "I wanted to see if you would give Isaac up in your heart, not in your hand"? Isaac meant too much to Abraham at that moment. He should be a priority, but he should never be in God's seat.
Some people fumble favor, opportunities, and relationships because those things mean too much to them. They're willing to do everything outside the will of God just to get it and keep it—because they have it in the wrong seat. But sometimes God will give you a suddenly when you show Him you no longer need it.
Worship produces faith. For some of us, our faith is not where it needs to be because we have not truly tapped into true worship. We need a song to worship. We need external things to help us connect with God.
But worship is deeper than that. It requires a sacrifice. It requires death to yourself. Sometimes you may have praised God but not worshiped Him—because worship requires that you give Him all of your heart.
Check your heart for settling. Abraham had to constantly break the temptation to settle. Settling is the result of small thinking. Settling will always produce struggling.
Consider Abraham's father, Terah, whose name literally means "terror." When Abraham's brother died and became the father of Lot, it did something to Terah. He pitched his tent and stopped moving. He settled. This instruction that God gave to Abraham could have been the instruction God wanted to give to Abraham's father. But his dad decided to settle, so God had to skip a generation.
For some of you, settling is in your bloodline. You're not just fighting your own issues. You're fighting issues that were handed down to you—a mindset, a way of talking, a way of thinking. Whatever is not healed gets handed down. You look up and realize you sound like your mama. You're acting like your folks.
This is why God told Abraham: "Leave your kindred and your country now, because you cannot become the right person in the wrong place."
Check your heart for stubbornness. Stubbornness is the worship of your own opinion. It is impossible to walk in obedience and your opinion at the same time.
Abraham confronting Isaac represents areas of our life that tend to be difficult to let go. But notice what happens when stubbornness gets redeemed—it becomes some of the most faithful people. What the enemy does is manipulate your gift. He sees how God wants to use it and manipulates it through pain and problems, so you use the right gift the wrong way. You become stubborn about the wrong thing instead of being faithful about the right thing.
Check your heart for self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is when a person knowingly or unknowingly defeats themselves. It's a tool used to blind you from your own favor. Favor is the transformational power to shift you from one level to the next. When you sabotage yourself, you cut yourself off from the favor God wants to give you.
Look at verse 10: "Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven."
When Abraham stretched, God spoke. Sometimes you're waiting on God to speak, but God is waiting on you to stretch. Because you're addicted to playing it safe, you're holding up God's wisdom for your life. He's saying, "I'm not going to say nothing until you stretch out."
That stretch might feel like your last resort—like you have no other options. But when he stretched, God didn't just speak. He also said, "Look, it's a ram in the bush."
While Abraham was climbing the mountain on one side, the ram was climbing the mountain on the other side. If you just keep climbing in the direction that God told you to go, He'll provide everything you need for where you're going.
God is Jehovah Gyra—He is your provider. He will make a way out of nowhere. He will open doors that no man can close. He is enough. He is always enough.
If He dresses the lily with beauty and splendor, how much more will He clothe you? If He watches over every sparrow, how much more will He care for you? You are enough. You always have been. You always will be.
