Q&A Genesis 22

Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening to another Q&A session with the pastor. Last week, Pastor Keith Goad preached on Genesis 22, seeing the sacrifice of his son as a gateway to the gospel that we inherit. Keith, thanks for joining us again today for your questions. Now, you proved yesterday that you could at least do 15 push-ups all by yourself. So we are expecting big things out of you today. Going straight into what you talked about this last weekend. where Abraham was called to sacrifice Isaac and then God stopped him from that. As you were preparing for the sermon, how hard was it to prepare for a sermon about sacrificing a promised son? Yeah, that was one of the most difficult things to try to grip and the, well for me to, to get a hold of and then to communicate is the real tension and suffering and difficulty that Abraham had to suffer, experience as he hears the command, sleeps on it at night, then takes a three-day journey and lets every kind of possible doubt set into his mind, lets Satan constantly attack his faith in the Word of God. That's why I'm still kind of struck that he rose early. It's amazing to me that he rises, he rose early to do these things. Best circumstances. Do you wonder a lot if you would respond in the same way? Do you start comparing your life today with how would I respond in the same way that Abraham would or would I react differently? If he rose early, would I sleep in or would I act early? Is it proper to try to parallel our thoughts with maybe what they were thinking? with this type of story? Is that a proper response as we read the Bible to think, oh, what would I have done differently or the same? Yeah, I mean, one of the things I've been trying to teach on Wednesday night and Sunday morning is as we look at these stories, we need to identify the fallen conditions or the sin, and we should see how we relate to that. And Abraham, for the most part, has always been a model of folly and failure. And we should identify with his failure and see that God is faithful to us most of the time throughout his life. Here, he is a model of faith. Hebrews sets him up that way. The New Testament tells us that's how we should look at him, especially in this story. And so, as we see, that doesn't sound beautiful with a whole story together. I mean, I would like to preach one whole sermon on Abraham together. So, because you could see how his life is one of God keeping and preserving him. And then here, he models a faith that God has established and grown in his heart. Should we long to have circumstances like Abraham had to prove our faith to God or to allow ourselves to be an example to other people? I mean, we probably wouldn't want to have a circumstance like where we would sacrifice our own son. But how careful should we be in pursuing things like these kind of circumstances? Yeah, Paul said that he gloried in his sufferings. I don't recall a specific instance where he ever longs for sufferings. He doesn't avoid them. I think our culture, we tend to want to avoid suffering. We over-medicate, we eat comfort food, we buy our things, fancy things, whatever our particular way of coping is that avoids suffering with a band-aid, a psychological band-aid. Our culture too often is avoiding suffering. Now the other way to go is that we should pursue suffering. I don't think that's necessarily it either. I think we should not long for the suffering, but we should long for the faith that will endure the suffering. We should long to be tested and tried in such a way like Abraham that when the day comes that we are called to do what we think is impossible, we would endure. We would stay the course. We would persevere because God has built in us that faith to go and seek suffering, you know, because you're And I'm just thinking of the monks that, you know, okay, we could avoid sleeping with a pillow. You know, that brings a certain kind of... It's getting rid of a comfort that isn't necessary. We could go live on a pole, as some monks did. Starve yourself and so forth. You know, I think fasting is a good way to build in yourself a faith that endures not having something, denying yourself in such a way. But you're talking about how we should pursue God and expect that suffering is part of that. Yeah, we should have suffering. We remain faithful towards God. Yes, absolutely. It's not trying to be prepared to be faithful if I suffer. It's really saying, I want to prepare myself so that I am faithful when I suffer. And different people suffer in different ways. People will go through long seasons of a lot of trials and temptations. And then people will have a time of rest and peace and rejoicing. We don't prepare ourselves well for the suffering. And then when the suffering happens, we seek some kind of psychological medication from it in our culture. It's a horrible cycle. In just talking, you spoke a lot about the gospel in this sermon and how clear the gospel is if you align it well with what the New Testament is talking about. How clear is the gospel actually in this passage and how did you scripturally get there from beginning of the sermon to the end of the sermon? Yeah, as I meditated upon the passage and really focused on some of the key terms, my brain automatically went to the New Testament where those terms were also used. So, the emphatic language at one level captures the pathos of the passage. Your son, your only son, whom you love. So, on level that, phrase, I think, is supposed to be capturing the emotion that's just so powerful there. That was one of the big things I really wrestled with capturing and making sure people really felt the emotion of this passage. But then that language not only just captures the emotion, it sends my brain immediately to that language of John 1. Jesus, the Word of God who became flesh, he is the Son of the Father, the only begotten Son whom he loves. So, as we look at these, that Father-Son language that is so clear in Genesis 22, it immediately makes you think of that Father-Son language of the Trinity. And it even becomes so much clearer in Romans 8 when Paul takes that phrase, who did not spare his own son. In the Greek, that's the same exact language that God says of Abraham. You did, seeing that you would, you were not holding back your son. It's the same Greek term there. And Paul is intentionally, I think, making people look back to Abraham who was spared from having to not hold back his son. But the father Well, he doesn't hold back his son. He gives his son to us. I'm reminded in Genesis 22 verse 7 where it said, and Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father, and I just am reminded of Christ screaming out in the same way with submission to the father. I mean, you see a good picture of Isaac being submissive, knowing that his father in almost an obscure way, is caring for him, and is pursuing the Father in this circumstance, but also you see Christ's submission to the Godhead in the same way. Well, I try to make the most organic connections, so the Father-Son language is obviously, I think, an organic, natural connection that is intended by the Holy Spirit to be connected from Genesis 22 to the Gospel. But there's also, I mean, there's some symbols. Isaac, carrying his own wood up the hill, Jesus carrying a cross. There were a lot of other symbols that are, I think, very clear. They're not as organic. They're not as obviously intended in the text as the father-son language and obviously the sacrificial language, the substitute language. But yeah, that part of the father, there's so many other parts to it I didn't emphasize, mainly because I had enough with just the organic connections. Yeah, it's a big story. How important is emotion in this type of story? I mean, there are some camps that say don't put emotion into a story, let the word come alive in itself. There's a whole other extreme where you have like Charles Finney who bases all of his sermonizing on pulling emotion out and rather it seemed like you were trying to carefully translate the emotion that is already into the text and make sure that we were able to see that as people listening to the sermon that emotion is in the Bible and we need to grasp the tension that's going on. How did you work through that? Did you ever think maybe I should tone down? Did you think maybe I should amp it up? What were your thoughts in getting people excited, but also realizing the gravity of seeing what was happening in Genesis 22? Yeah, I think every text has a certain level of emotion. So Romans 1, if Paul writes with emotion, In Galatians, he's writing with some righteous, I don't want to say anger, but some righteous... Feistiness, yeah. Yeah, he's got an obvious feistiness. He's got some sarcasm in Philemon. He had some rejoicing and some love in Philippians. So, even the epistles have an emotion that you have to connect with when you're reading it and when you're preaching. This story, I mean, Job is the only person I can think of that has the same kind of emotion. Okay, you know, all the prophets, you know, Hosea and obviously there's a very strong emotion in that text Yeah, there's emotion throughout all scripture actually I'm thinking of all the different prophets, but this particular text I Just felt like I couldn't amp up the emotion enough Now I'm you know Finney His whole point was to make religion an emotional response, or the father of liberalism. It's a feeling of absolute dependence, is what religion... Well, I'm not going there, you know, we're logically... But he wanted emotion to come out of you, and you wanted the word of God to relay the emotion to you. Well said, Mr. Griffin. Thanks. Wow. I just can't... Can I just ask you the question? Hey, hey, no, no, no. That was, that was... We should just shut the interview down. Yes. Good night. No, say that again. So instead of me drawing the emotion out of you, you want the Word of God to give them the proper emotion. Yeah, I think what I saw is that you wanted to spend so much time in making sure that we got the emotion from the text. Yeah. And that it would almost dampen down our emotions of pride and self-will. What I wrestled with, referring to Rebecca, or two of our children, who are the age that everyone thinks Isaac was, just to help people see it better. And I wrestled, should I do that? And I said, absolutely. I need to make sure this is as real as I possibly can make it. The whole point of that strenuous journey is for Abraham to experience the testing. And we, if we're going to really experience the story and really understand the story, we have to experience that at some level. Every parent is supposed to cringe at the father-son story. Every parent, every child. Does that mean every child should think, would my father sacrifice me? Every child should cringe. Everyone should cringe because they have either a parent, they at least have a child relationship with the parent's wife. Everyone should cringe at that. And then you take that cringing and that pain and you see just a little sample of what the Father and the Son of the Trinity are like. All right, well, that was Genesis 22. What are you preaching on this weekend? It's really wrapping up the first patriarch. Abraham and his wife Sarah were going to deal with Sarah's funeral, Abraham's funeral, and then right in the middle of that you have the big transition. of Isaac getting a wife. God providing a wife for Isaac, which that just sets up the transition to the next patriarch. Transitional passage. Now, just tell us some things, just so people can wonder about what you do all day. What are some of the things you're currently reading? Like for yourself, are you reading anything on your own? Are you going through the Boxcar Children series? What are you digesting? I just found this at a used bookstore. Are you reading The Boxcar Children? No. I'm actually reading Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag. I'm reading his memoirs and collections of that. It's very moving and gripping. It's also a very emotional read. I've been reading regularly during the week, chapter by chapter, Spurgeon's letters to his students. It's kind of a way of me being mentored by a pastor. It's been very challenging and encouraging. Also reading week by week a chapter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Call for Discipleship, that's really what's been inspiring my Wednesday night lessons recently and encouraging me greatly in the Ministry of Discipleship here at Jefferson Park. I was given another historical biography And I almost picked it up last night, but I said, no, I've got to finish the Gulag first, and then I'll jump into that. It was a recommendation on, I believe it's the first man to reach the South Pole. I haven't read it yet, so I think that's what it's about. He told us a very gripping, he's a Christian man, very gripping narrative. And that came to you based off of a lunch from someone who visited the church, right? Yes, we recommended books to each other. I, of course, recommended Augustine's Confessions, which I recommend to everyone. If you're a Christian and you haven't read it, well, make sure you read the whole Bible and then go read the Confessions. Would you say read the Bible first and then the Confessions? You can read them side by side. I think Augustine helps you think God's thoughts after God. That's why he's so good. Excellent. Now, let me just brag on you for you. You just recently got a paper accepted into ETS, the National Congress, right? Yeah. First of all, what is ETS? The Evangelical Theological Society. Great. I'm sure that's a bunch of cool people gathering and talking about things. Oh yeah. I actually intentionally go mainly for the fellowship. I've made a lot of good friends that are professors or pastors across the country. I've been going for about 10 years. And yeah, the fellowship is actually the best part of it. And what is the paper that you submitted, what is it about? In layman's terms, let's not name drop. Well, it's actually a chapter that I cut out of my dissertation because it didn't fit the bigger thesis. It's Gregory of Nazianzus' spirituality. It's called Doxological Spirituality of Gregory of Nazianzus. It's really just showing how his theology, and especially the doctrine of God, influences spirituality. We oftentimes think of doctrine as abstract and our walk as real, not for Gregory and not for any real Christian. Your doctrine informs your spirituality and your spirituality helps your doctrine. Yeah, that sounds interesting. I can make a link to it on the website if you really think that would be helpful. Is it going to be in layman's terms? Yeah, I mean, I think a journal has already accepted it, and it's not, you know, a high academic journal. I think it's fairly, I think it's readable. No offense to that journal, of course. Well, no, it's a journal that's on practical soul care and pastoral care. It's not written for the The ivory tower your education is actually written How was your faith developed? In like when did you start really focusing heavily on the spirituality of our walk and making sure that our doctrine like you said? Develops our spirituality, but also our spirituality gives a driving force behind our doctrine when did you start looking at that kind of? emphasis I mean with that part of your PhD program did you think about your MDiv and Were you 14 playing soccer and bored? And he said, you know what? I'm going to look at Gregory. When my doctrine first started influencing my spirituality, that's a really good question. But I immediately go back to when I first was challenged with the doctrines of grace. After that point, I was a Christian only for about a year, two years, a year and a half. And all I was doing was reading scripture and really meditating upon it in a very naive way. But it was very much, I was moved. emotionally and passionately towards Christ. And it wasn't until the doctrines of grace really challenged me intellectually that I saw the connection of thinking rightly and living rightly. I don't know if I actually thought about it that clearly, but that's when I can look back and see that's when... Many people would say cold, hard doctrine. I think that's ridiculous. There's no such thing as cold, hard, real Christian doctrine. It started influencing my passion more. Yeah, I mean, whenever the beautiful thing, as well as the fathers, is that doctrine was for your well-being. There wasn't there. Every, every doctrine they argued for was for your own salvation and your own sanctification. Gregory goes to great lengths to defend the Trinity because without the Trinity, without Jesus, you have no salvation. Without the Spirit, you have no spirituality. So, the persons in the Trinity are necessary for your well-being. So, you must know them and know them well. Very good. Very good. Well, if you could sum up this coming week sermon in one word, it can't be God, what would that word be? Sounds like it would be death or funeral. Transition. Transition. Or transitioning. Well, the other one would be provides. You didn't want to use the word God. God provides okay, we'll hyphenate it there. We go to work. Okay. Well Keith Thanks so much if you're listening, and you've got a question from this coming week sermon email me at congregation at JPB J Jpbc.org the the architect of our wonderful website doesn't know the name. It's surprising that I even know how to get here every day All right, well Keith. Thanks so much for your time