The Obedience of Abraham

Good morning to all. It's a blessing to be here this morning with you all, and Happy Father's Day to all the fathers here this morning.

I'd like to highlight a father in the Bible that stands out to me this morning. That is Abraham. Somehow Abraham came to a place, a point in his life that he carried a name that I don't know any other Bible character carried.

Remember the rich man lifted up his eyes in hell, and he cried, "Father Abraham." The Jews claimed him as their father, and God claimed him as the Father, the God Abraham, how's it say? In many other phrases, we see that we have songs that sing about Father Abraham. And somehow Abraham made it to a level in the Bible that all nations wanted to connect and reflect and call him Father.

And I just want to look at a few highlights that may have gotten Father Abraham to this point. Remember Zacchaeus when he repented? Jesus met him at his house. Jesus told him, "Thou also would become a son of Abraham or a child of Abraham." So this name is used throughout the Bible as a highlight of a father and an example of a father. James chapter 2 tells us, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

See as then how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith Abraham believed God, and it was imputed or accounted unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God."

So how did Abraham get to this level and connection with his God? We see, first of all, that he learned to obey his God. And it was through that obedience that faith was made perfect, and that Abraham came to a place and he fulfilled scripture by that. There was a and he used the time where he offered up his son Isaac. And with that, I'd like to turn to chapter Genesis 22, and we'll just look at that and see what we can glean from that story. Very familiar story. Genesis 22.

So the Bible tells us that Abraham became God's friend through obedience. Jesus says almost the exact same thing to his disciples, "You are my friends if you keep my commandments." And that is how that is one way that Abraham gained his friendship with his God is through obedience.

Jesus says that as well. "If you're going to keep me, if you're going to love me, you're going to keep my commandments." That's how he knows whether or not we really mean business with him. And remember the

in different places in Genesis, it says, "And God came to Abraham and blessed him because of his act of obedience." So the act of obedience brought blessing upon his life. And when God's blessing is on our life, that's the best place to be. We don't want to be anywhere else but have God's blessing resting on our life. Remember what Jesus said after the sermon on the mount, that long, hard sermon that he preached? He said at the end of the sermon, "There's two different groups of people here. The one group of people is hearing the sermon. It sounds good, nice sermon." But they made excuses and justified, saying, "Wow, it's probably not for our time, and nobody can live this thing out."

And he said, "I'm going to liken those people like a foolish man that built his house on the sand." You know the story? The wind came, the storms blew, and that house crashed. And then he said, "There's another group of people there that they're going to listen to the sermon, and they're going to say, 'How can I live this out in everyday life?'

And they're going to pay attention to that sermon, and they're going to take it in and say, 'Okay, this is for me. This is for our time.'" And he said, "That person is going to be likened unto a wise man that built his house on the rock."

It's interesting. Last Sunday, we were visiting with Chris and Melinda, and Chris was saying that when they lived in Kansas, I asked, "Well, what about tornado shelters there?" And he said, "Well, some of the newer houses had built within them a little storm shelter, and it was a room in the house you would hardly know. You walk in it. It was part of the house. It felt like a room part of the house. But that was a tornado room." And he said that thing had, I think, cables, chains, or whatever, anchors going across it and anchored into the ground that when a tornado came and ripped everything else away, that shelter was supposed to stand firm.

That's the picture I get when Jesus says, "The storms are going to come, the winds are going to blow, and the rains are going to descend, the floods are going to come, and everything else is going to blow away but that room." That's the picture Jesus says. And if you learn obedience to my word, he says, "Your life is going to be on a rock.

The winds and the trials and the tests of life are going to come, but you're going to stand. I don't want to be anywhere else but there." Amen? Is that where we want to be? That is where God's blessing is going to visit us right there. And that is where Abraham let's look at his account.

Genesis chapter 22, verse 1 and 2 speak about the test that God brought to Abraham. And folks, this morning we see in the word in the Old King James says God tempted Abraham. But that word there is not quite it has the idea the word should be tested because James tells us that God does not tempt anyone. He just doesn't. It's not in him to do it. In our daily prayer, we say, "Lead us not into temptation." God never leads us into temptation. It's the devil that leads us into temptation. But God does test us. James is very clear. But God tests with a purpose.

He has two things, main things I want to highlight this morning. When God tests us, he has a purpose behind us, behind that test. Remember what Job said? "The Lord knows the way that I take. And when I'm tried, I will come forth as pure gold." Beautiful picture. Remember Joseph when he was tested?

They tell me that Joseph could have been in prison for 12 years. And the Bible says he was forgotten. Joseph was sold twice. He was sold to the slave traders. And I don't know if slave traders are anything like horse dealers, but they have one thing in mind is this is an object where I can make a few dollars. And Joseph was that object. Put yourself there. And then he goes off and is sold to Potiphar.

You know the story? He sat in prison, falsely accused for all those years. He was being tested. But Joseph passed the test. And at the end, he said to his brothers, "You mend it for evil, but God mend it for good." You see the picture? God is in the testing business. And as a farmer, if I would design a hay wagon that's meant to carry two tons, what would I do to test it? I would put four tons on it, and I would take it into the field and hit the roughest potholes there are to test the wagon, to see if it's going to hold up. And God says, "What is any religion worth if it's never tested?"

That's how God tests us. And this was a tremendous test for Abraham. And I want to notice a few things here. So what God asked him to do, verses 1 and 2, and it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, "Abraham," and he said, "Behold, here I am."

And he said, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."

Now,

this must have been the hardest test man has ever faced. He was just told in the previous chapter that this son is going to be a promised son that has a lot of potential and future, and we're going to raise a godly seed out of this son.

And here he's saying, "Now you take this son up here on the mountain, out here in the land of Moriah. You put him on the altar, and you bring him to death and burn him there." What a test.

The first thing we want to notice about his response is

in this test, and this is something for us, he allowed God to be God, even if it didn't make sense to do this. He just allowed God to be God.

And he put himself there. He didn't go for advice. He just simply let God be God. And I think that's what we have to do today when things don't make sense in life. And I'm sure there was nothing about this test that made sense to Abraham.

Absolutely nothing.

And he surrendered under that. Let God be God. His ways are so much higher than our ways.

His point, point number one, we want to notice here that the purpose of this test was to make a better Abraham, a better Abraham. I want to be there. Let's not let one test go to waste. A better Abraham.

James says, "Count it all joy when you fall into different tests. Count it as a good thing because allow it to do its perfect work. And when he's finished and through with the test, then you'll come forth shining." So that's one thing, one purpose of this test. And the next point, I think, where in every test, when we do pass the test, there's another thing that happens.

And this is point number two. God is glorified. God is always glorified. When we're tested, we pass the test, and God turns around and receives glory and honor. Remember Job? Wasn't God tell the devil, "Did you consider my man? Did you consider Job that's faithful and just in all his dealings?

Go try it." God received a lot of glory. Now, Job was trying to figure out God. We look at the dialogue. We look at the talk and the discussion. And he had all these questions for God. And God finally came back and said, "Job, where were you?

Where were you, Job, when I was in the business of creating and I did all these things? Where were you?" Job had a hard time letting God be God. And we struggle with that at times, don't we? We want things to make sense. Not everything about the Christian life just makes sense, does it?

Non-resistance doesn't make sense to our human way of thinking. You mean? People say, "You mean if a guy comes to your door and he's going to violate your family, you're just going to stand back?" Those are questions we're asked.

When we take things into our own hands, God is not obligated to protect us. But he is obligated to honor his word. And that's what Abraham was willing to do. He was willing to let God be God. Notice the timing.

Now, I think this is worth looking at. Verse 1, it says, "And it came to pass after these things that God did test Abraham." Let's think about these things, the timing. So he could be referring to the previous chapter, chapter 21. There's a number of events that was taking place in chapter 21. This is when Isaac, the son, was born. It was when they had a weaning party for Ishmael, the older brother that was no, I'm saying the weaning was for Isaac, but the older brother was there. And Sarah noticed that he's mocking the younger brother, and she's like, "Take this man out with his mother." And that's one time God asked Abraham to listen to his wife.

When he was grieved about it, this was a dear son to Abraham as well. It was his firstborn, Ishmael, to Hagar. And so that was an event that happened in chapter 21. In chapter 21, in the covenant he made with these men there over a well that had been taken, I guess, years earlier. So there's a number of events that we see happening in 21. And then in verse 33 of 21, it says, "And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days."

So how long was that time? We don't know. But it does seem like, as it says, many days. It was a time of rest. It was a time of reflection, maybe. And it doesn't say here, but I'm assuming that Sarah was there, Abraham was there, and Isaac was there. They just got rid of the older brother and the other woman, and they're just there living their life. And notice what Abraham is doing. It says he there learned to call there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. And I want to highlight that. This is one step that Abraham took to become the father that he was. In that time of rest, that period, there are many days, he learned how to hear God.

He learned how to commune with his God. That became so very important. Remember, he is preparing for the greatest test he's ever going to meet. And this time of preparation for this test, he called there on the name of the Lord. What does that look what does that look like for us today?

Will we learn to call on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God, the eternal God?

This is a time, I think, where we turn off all other noises. I'll just give a little testimony of my own life. And this was after we were married. We were sort of loose-ended for quite a while. We just weren't sure where to go to church and where to land, where to raise our family. We visited so many different churches.

We visited the Holdeman Church. We visited Stiles Town. We visited Culbertson. We visited Charity. And finally, I was hearing so many different voices and so many different interpretations. And then we come hear some. I'm hearing so many different voices and interpretations. I got so confused. And I remember coming here one morning at early morning prayer meeting. I shared this with Brother Leon. I said, "I'm so confused. I don't know where to go to church." I said, "The Joe Wangers drive past my house every Sunday morning. The Stiles Town people go this way. The Culbertson people go that way."

And the list could go on. I said, "I don't know what to do. I'm so messed up."

There were so many voices and so many interpretations.

And I started reading the Bible in a different way.

I started reading the Bible and saying, "What is the power of God's word speaking to me?"

And it became so precious to me. That is where I began, I believe, to walk with God. It was in that everything else is turned off, everything. And I say this, and I highlight this. Young men, you're young in the faith. I would encourage you to get the hardcopy Bible out, brush the dust off of it, put your phones away. If you're like me, if you read the Bible on the computer, I get distracted because there's other things that are appealing and jump out. And the next thing I know, I'm looking at other things, and I'm not reading the Bible.

Get the old Bible out, take the dust off, and read it daily with an open mind and heart and say, "How does the power of God speak to me?"

That's what Abraham was doing. If Abraham would have went to advisors over this time, you know what he would have been told? He would have been told by a lot of modern people that you're dumb because God never promoted human sacrifices.

You're not hearing God. And another thing, God promised this son is going to be a future son. So you're not hearing properly. He would have been advised and directed and so on, and he wouldn't have done it. I'm pretty convinced he wouldn't have done it. But somehow, Abraham learned to communicate with God with all the voices turned off. And that's where we need to find ourselves.

Walking with our God, hearing from Him. Let the world, let the podcasts, let the books - they all have their place, don't get me wrong - but I'm saying most of the books, most of the podcasts, most of the instructions that you read nowadays, you have to eat like watermelon with seeds in them. You get the good and spit away this, spit away that. Folks, I'm here to say this is authentic.

This is pure. You don't have to spit anything away. It is the only true way that's going to see us through life. When we learn Jesus told His disciples in John 10, "My sheep, hear my voice." What happens to sheep that hear His voice? He said it's there that they find pasture. They go in and out. That's special to a farmer when he knows his animals go in and out, and there they find life and pasture. And that's the picture that Jesus gives in John 10.

You can find any interpretation out there of God's word that you want to find.

You can take any passage of Scripture. And depends where you go, you're going to get a different interpretation. It's confusing. And I call us back. I call us back to a personal walk and relationship and hearing from the Shepherd.

Now, let's look at Abraham's obedience, verses 3 through 10. "And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac, his son. And he claved the wood for the burned offering, and he rose up and went unto a place of which God had told him.

Then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, 'Obide you here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you.'

And Abraham took the wood of the burned offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son. And he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham, his father, and said, 'My father?' And he said, 'Here I am, my son.' And he said, 'Behold the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for the burned offering?'

And Abraham said, 'My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for the burned offering.' So they went both of them together.

And they came to a place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

Without a flinch, Abraham is obedient. You notice the detail, the detail of this story. He got up early in the morning. I wonder if he slept that night. But he gets up early in the morning. He saddles up his little donkey, and he gets two men to go with him, and he gets his son Isaac now. And they're headed off for a three-days journey or more.

He does it in a very orderly way. Without any doubt, he's doing this while it doesn't make sense, but he's going to do it. You notice that obedience to his God? Now, human reasoning could have kicked in here,

but it didn't. He overwrote all that. He went and did what God asked him to do, whether it makes sense or not. And that's a call for us today. Does it have to make sense? If God says it, it must be true.

Abraham was not just doing it out of a blind faith either.

He was letting God be God. And according to Hebrews, he had a faith that was so deep in his God. And I think that all happened back in that land the many days that he worshiped his God.

Romans tells us he staggered not at the promises of God through unbelief but was strong in the faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was able also to perform. Romans 4:19. And then in Hebrews, we have this account, "By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it is said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called," accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure. That's Hebrews 11:17 through 19. And what I take of that, that word accounting there is an interesting word.

It's not just it says he didn't stagger at the promise of God. He might have been old and feeble by now, and he's staggering maybe physically. But in his faith, he was strong, and he was fully persuaded. And that strong faith and that fully persuasion had its roots in something that is very precious. It says that he accounted it, the accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence he received him in a figure. I take of that that in Abraham's mind, he's going to offer this son. And then it is God's business what he's going to do about it. He told Abraham that this son is going to be a promised son, and he has potential future.

So it's going to be God's problem. And he believed that if God would so do, he could raise him from the dead. Well, that was a new invention. I don't think we had recorded history anywhere unto this point that anyone was ever raised from the dead. So who invented the resurrection? Sort of Abraham in his mind. Picture that. But it was based this faith was based on the accounting. I want us to get a hold of that word, the accounting.

Now, he knew his God. He had experiential knowledge with his God when we look at his history. And we all do too. The older we get, the more experience we have with our God. And that's what Abraham was saying. He never left me down. He always fulfilled his promises.

Didn't God call Abraham, "Leave your relatives. Go to a land that I will show you"? And Abraham went out and wandering in a strange land, not knowing where to go. Did God show him where to go?

God has never left him down. I'm going to turn that question to us. Has God ever left us down? That's what he was basing his strong faith on.

Genesis, he told Adam and Eve, "If you eat of this tree, you're going to die." Did they die?

Came true, didn't it? God told Noah to build an ark. It's going to rain.

Noah built an ark. It rained, didn't it? It came true. What God says does happen. That is what he was basing his faith on. And in our Sunday school lesson, God, Jesus said the temple's going to be destroyed.

Was it destroyed? It happened, didn't it? This is one that comes home a little closer.

God made this covenant after the flood. He said, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not stop while the world stands." Is that true today? See, that's what Abraham was building his faith on, is the faithfulness of his God in his experience with God.

Now, I look around. We just take for granted tonight's going to be another night. And if time goes, tomorrow it's going to be another day. That will continue. Seedtime and harvest. There's these global warming people and climate change people that are trying to say that somehow it's going to change. It's not. It's settled. God settled it. And we can rest in that stability and that faithfulness of God. And that is what Abraham was doing. He was accounting for his experience and knowledge of God that he will not let him down, and God will not let us down. When he says it, that's the way it is.

I want to notice in verse 5 when he told his young men, "Obide you here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you." Now, he didn't say, "I will come again to you." He said, "We will go. We will worship and come back again." So somehow his faith was pretty deep that he's going to come back again with his son.

But notice he said, "We will go to worship." And I want to highlight that. Sometimes we get the picture that worship happens on a Sunday morning when we all go to church. And it does. That's a part of it when we all sing and get excited and inspired. And some maybe even get slain in the spirit and some of that. It might be a form of worship. But I want to lift out today the highest form of worship in Abraham's experience was his obedience to God. You notice that? We don't think of obedience as a form of worship, do we?

Did you know that the New Testament and I don't know what John's going to say about this, but I discovered the New Testament when it talks about singing and the word sing and song and songs is used four times, over four times less than the word obedience and commandments and so on, supersedes it by far. Jesus said, "If you love me, you're going to obey me." The singing in the New Testament is an overflow of worship. It's an overflow of a heart that knows how to obey God. You get it? Abraham said, "We're going to go to worship." Now, whoever would have thought going and offering your son is a type of worship? But it was obedience.

And I just want to highlight this. We can come to church Sunday morning, and we can worship in song. That's good and right. But the greater form of worship is Monday morning when life hits and Wednesday afternoon when the sun is hot and our marriage has tried and there's other trials. The greatest form of worship happens right there. How do I respond to God's plan for life? How do I respond to my family? How do I respond to my spouse if I do it God's way and I hear His voice in the matter? That's the greatest form of worship. Abraham said, "We're going to go and worship." You see that?

Now, let's look at closing here.

We want to look at God's provision. And that is verses 11 through 14. So he has his son stretched out and bound up with a rope. I'm just assuming. It says he bound him up. How old was Isaac? We don't know for sure.

Some say he could have been 25. Some say he could have been 14. We just don't know for sure. But it does say I think he was several years old when he was weaned. And then they went to this land, and they were there for many days. So about all we know about his age is he was many days old.

And I would like to notice this. He was young enough to be called a lad because his daddy called him a lad. He was young enough to be bound by an old man, his father. So if he was 25 and he had any kind of self-will, I can hardly imagine that Abraham, probably being 125 years old by now, that old Mr. Abraham would take his 25-year-old son and wrap him up in ropes and lay him on the altar. I can hardly imagine that. So we don't know. But he was old enough to make a three-day trip, I'm guessing by foot, unless Abraham put him on the donkey off and on. We don't know that.

He was old enough to understand an altar and what it meant and the wood and the fire and whatever else, the knife. So he was old enough. I would like to think he was 7 or 10 years old. I don't know, many days.

But he was just old enough to understand something about this altar. We have all this stuff. But where's the lamb? Old enough to understand that there's a living creature that should be here and put on that altar. And remember, his daddy said, "God is going to provide a lamb."

So he tells these young men, "You stay with the donkey. You stay with the donkey. And the lad and I are going to be worshiping and we'll be back." Now, how far that was? They saw it in a distance, the place he said they saw, they went.

But there's something I think important here that we need to see, that last little stretch, the leg of that little stretch. It says that Abraham put the wood on his son Isaac, and he carried that wood. I don't know what that signifies necessarily. But the son was asking, "Where is the lamb?" Now, I brought a little lamb here.

My wife got this for me at a yard sale the other week, and I said, "I love that little thingy.

I'll do a little object lesson with that lamb. If you know anything about lambs, he looks so innocent, doesn't he? There's nothing this little lamb ever did to deserve death, nothing at all.

And lo and behold, when the knife was about to come down, the angel cries out, "Hold it, hold it." And he looks around, and he sees there, that ram that's stuck in the thicket. Now, people make a big deal between the lamb and the ram and so on. I tend to believe it was the same thing.

I think God just grew a little horn on here so he can get caught by it. But the ram and the lamb, it's basically the same thing. It's a sheep. A ram is a male sheep. Doesn't matter if it's male or female.

This little person, this little being, person, not person, this little being became the substitute, as we know the story, innocent, but it had to be offered. And that is a picture that the Bible gives to us. So often, Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God. Remember John the Baptist, I think it was, and it said, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." That's the substitute.

And

Jesus told the Pharisees one day in John 8, I think it was, says, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day." And he saw it, and he was made glad. So somehow something happened there on that day that struck a chord with Abraham, and he made the connection for the future. He made a connection that is a special place, and he named that place Jehovah Jireh, I believe it is, meaning that God will provide. And this is the provision.

This is the provision that we want to point people to. And the connection between let's see what Abraham or Isaac and Jesus had in common. First, they were both miracle babies. So Jesus was born to a virgin. And Isaac was born to a woman that was, what, 90 years old? That's a miracle.

That's a miracle. Number two, they were a promised son, both of them, Jesus and Isaac. They were both promised. Another thing they had in common, they were given a name before they were born. You see the connection? And another thing they have in common, they were both of them were the only son, referred to as the only son.

And another connection we see is this three-days journey. So in Abraham's mind, according to Hebrews, he had already figured Isaac to be dead. So for three days, as they're traveling to the Mount Moriah, in his mind, his son's dead because we're going to kill him.

Jesus was dead for three days. Now, here's where it breaks down. Jesus had no substitute. The Bible says he did not spare his son, but he had to go through the sacrifice. Another thing that they don't have in common, loving father Abraham was with Isaac through it all, and Jesus had to die alone. "My Father, why have you forsaken me?"

Let's talk a little bit about this mountain that this happened on, Mount Moriah, found very interesting. Isaiah 2:2 says, "And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow into it."

And I believe that is a picture of the mountain of God that is being opened up for the Jews and the Gentiles. As Paul says, for those that are far away and those that are near, the provision was made for all nations.

Chronicles tells us that Solomon built his temple on this mountain right at the spot where this happened. He built the temple there. And then Gilgoth is around the corner where Jesus walked up to be crucified. So there you have it. What a shadow, what a type and a shadow of our great Savior.

Revelations tells us that we've been washed in the blood of the Lamb. There we are again, pictured as a lamb that is without spot. This little fellow has never done anything that's worthy of death, nothing. And the Bible says that Jesus went as a sheep to the slaughter without answering again. He went for us. That's the provision.

Isaac bore the burden of the sin. He carried that wood. Now, that could be referring to the cross itself. It could be referring to the sins of the world when, for some reason, his daddy just loaded him down with all the wood. I think there's something significant there. And the Bible says in Isaiah that he bore the iniquity of us all. He carried it for us. What a picture, what a connection. In this provision, he brought to us hope. We sing a song, "My hope is built on nothing less."

That is hope that he brought into the world. Jesus said he came to heal the brokenhearted. The provision through Jesus Christ came to heal your broken heart. And I know some of you are just going through a loss of a loved one. He came to heal you, sister.

He came to build us up and give us hope for the future. He came to give sight to the blind. What a provision through Jesus Christ. He's going to help us see the big picture and take away our blind cataracts, as it were. He said, "It liberated them that are bruised." Think of that. There's a lot of bruises in the world today.

This provision came to set free and to take away anyone that's a victim. And in Jesus Christ, there are no victims. We're set free. We have hope. We have future. We have goal and purpose. And he says he came to preach deliverance to the captives.

There's a lot of people that are held captive today. He came to preach a way out. He came to set a way, a new future for them. He came to bring peace, this provision that he had, this substitute to bring peace to the world and not a peace that the world brings but a different peace that is down deep, that overrides in a troubled world. He came to bring joy and that our joy might be full.

In closing, I just want to refer to a story I came across. There was a young girl once preparing a Valentine card for her daddy.

And she put this card in her dad's office on the desk.

And in the card, she had something written to the effect that, "I love you, daddy. Thank you for being my daddy." And she was expecting a response from her father, and there was no response. And she was waiting and waiting for that response. So she went, snuck in his office when he was gone, and he noticed the card was in the trash can.

And she's like, "Surely this wasn't my dad. This must have been an accident. It must have gotten brushed into the trash can." So she dug it out and put it back on his desk again. "Surely now I'm going to hear a response from daddy."

Still no response. She went back in the second time, and it was in the trash again. And she's puzzled, like, "Why doesn't dad receive my card and feedback, give a little feedback?" So she went in the third time, and there she found the card was crushed and put in the trash.

And she still thought, "This must be an accident. He surely didn't mean to do that." So she pulled it out carefully and unwrinkled it and put it back on her father's desk. And then the father came to her and said, "I'm tired of these cards on my desk. Would you just stop it?"

And his response was, "I know you love me. You don't have to tell me over and over." We think of God's love. He's been passing out little Valentines, so to speak, all over the world, hasn't he? Just little cards here and there expressing his love to us, his care, his message of hope. How many of us put it in the trash? And we say, "Well, you know I love you." But what God is asking for is a wholehearted response to him. Love is not love until it's received. And I just want to leave that challenge with us. Let's receive that togue, that love, that expression that he left through the provision that he made through Jesus Christ today.

May God bless us. Any response, anything at all.