The Highest Priority

The Highest Priority

Genesis 22:1-19

22 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.

2 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.

3 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 clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.

4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt 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.

7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

9 And they came to the 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.

10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

11 And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

Introduction: What we see in our text is the first use of the word worship found anywhere in Scripture. We are about to learn a lesson from a 100 year old man and a teenager about what biblical worship is. To do this I’m going to refer to something called hermeneutics. This is the study of the principles and of methods of interpreting the text of the Bible. Second Timothy 2:15 commands believers to be involved in hermeneutics: “15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” The purpose of biblical hermeneutics is to help us to know how to properly interpret, understand, and apply the Bible. One of the most important rules of hermeneutics is the “Law of first Mention,” which means law (or principle or rule) of first mention is a guideline that some people use for studying Scripture. The law of first mention says that, to understand a particular word or doctrine, we must find the first place in Scripture that word or doctrine is revealed and study that passage. The reasoning is that the Bible’s first mention of a concept is the simplest and clearest presentation; doctrines are then more fully developed on that foundation. So, to fully understand an important and complex theological concept, Bible students are advised to start with its “first mention.” In verse 5 of our text you have the first mention of the word “worship” in the Bible. This will be our focus this morning. What is worship?

There are a multitude of definitions in the church world today, so many in fact that someone wrote a book called “The Worship Wars,” to highlight the conflicts surrounding this subject. What can be learned from Abraham’s experience?

I. The Challenge to Worship – v 1-2

a. What worship is not?

Can our worship be wrong? Unacceptable worship touches all of the believer’s life, affecting his or her speech, thoughts and actions. This profoundly makes ‘wrong worship’ treacherous and infectious. God outwardly rejects it, and clearly states that the end of such participants is destruction.