What Will You Sacrifice to Follow God?

Jun 28, 2026

Devotional

Day 1: When Jokes Only Make Sense With Missing Context

The King Kong joke falls flat until we learn it was designed for American Sign Language. Like Scripture, meaning hides in cultural layers we might miss. Stories demand humility to recognize we’re not the original audience. Truth emerges when we seek the full backdrop of ancient voices rather than forcing modern assumptions. What seems confusing or offensive often reveals deeper wisdom through patient listening. [37:12]

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
(Psalm 119:105, NIV)

Reflection: What assumptions do you bring to difficult Bible stories? How might studying their original context change your understanding?

Day 2: Wrestling With a God Who Tests

The Abraham-Isaac story unsettles modern sensibilities, feeling like divine cruelty. Yet discomfort often signals a gap between our cultural values and ancient priorities. God’s character gets distorted when we project 21st-century expectations onto Bronze Age narratives. The real test isn’t blind obedience, but whether we’ll let Scripture redefine our view of God rather than the reverse. [38:46]

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
(Isaiah 55:8-9, NIV)

Reflection: When has Scripture challenged your assumptions about God? What tensions invite you to deeper trust rather than easy answers?

Day 3: Child Sacrifice and Cultural Shockwaves

Genesis 22 wasn’t written to normalize violence, but to condemn it. In a world where sacrificing children was routine, God’s last-minute intervention screamed revolution. The original audience heard radical grace where we hear horror. Scripture often works subversively, dismantling cultural norms by first mirroring them, then overturning them. [43:49]

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
(Romans 12:2a, NIV)

Reflection: What modern practices might future generations view as barbaric? How does God call you to counter cultural norms that conflict with love?

Day 4: Altars for Killing Our False Identities

Abraham’s knife wasn’t meant for Isaac, but for every idol claiming priority over God. We climb our own mountains clutching identities – careers, trauma, politics, diagnoses. The test remains: will we bind these to the altar? True freedom comes when we sacrifice what we mistake for our essence to reclaim our core identity. [50:01]

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
(Galatians 2:20a, NIV)

Reflection: What identity have you confused with your true self? What would it look like to surrender it at the altar today?

Day 5: Children Before Anything Else

Before Abraham was a patriarch, Isaac a son, or Sarah a mother – they were God’s. Our primary name isn’t parent, professional, or patient, but “child of God.” Every other role derives from this eternal belonging. The binding of Isaac ultimately reveals a Father who stops our knives because He’ll later plunge His own. [52:40]

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
(1 John 3:1, NIV)

Reflection: When do you most forget your identity as God’s child? How might living from that truth change your choices this week?

Sermon Summary

A clunky King Kong joke sets the frame: the punchline makes no sense until the listener realizes the story belongs to another audience and another language. The joke lands once American Sign Language supplies the missing piece and the hearer stops assuming it was told for them. Context expands what can be seen, and the more context there is, the more sense it makes. That image opens the door to Genesis 22.

Genesis aims to show who this God is. The book sets Israel’s God next to the gods of the ancient Near East and says, different. The ancient Near East normalizes child sacrifice. Children serve as extra hands or future security, not treasured centers. Against that backdrop, the opening command to sacrifice a son sounds ordinary to the original audience, just another grim demand from the divine. But the story’s turn answers the question, what kind of god would ask a father to do that, with a hard line: not this god.

The narrative’s shock is the stop. The knife is raised, the altar is built, and then everything breaks pattern. This God interrupts the economy of sacrifice, rejects what the neighborhood religions expect, and refuses to be pleased by harm. To those first hearers, the event is foreign and overwhelmingly progressive, a public condemnation of a widely accepted practice. Parallels to Jesus can be noticed by later readers, but the text’s first job is to reveal the character of Israel’s God in its own time and terms.

The text then calls for humility in reading Scripture. A reader thousands of years removed cannot presume to carry every nuance. Humility keeps a disciple from forcing modern expectations onto ancient words.

Faithfulness finally presses a personal question: what is a person willing to give up to be all in with God? Identity markers gather on the altar in this story’s mirror. A past full of mistakes, a diagnosis that tries to rename a life, a political allegiance that claims ultimate loyalty, even the good roles of family, all can become what someone trusts to tell them who they are. The call says, take those up the mountain, bind them, and kill them as defining centers. Before anyone belongs to anyone else, a person belongs to God. At the figurative core, the question still rings: are you in, and are you God’s?

Key Takeaways

1. Context changes the whole reading. The disciple who learns to ask, who was the first audience, gains ears to hear. The King Kong setup shows how language, culture, and setting unlock meaning that looked incoherent. Scripture asks for the same patience and humility before it. Understanding grows as context is layered in. [37:49]
2. Genesis confronts child-sacrifice culture. The story refuses to treat an accepted norm as inevitable. In a world where children are expendable, the narrative stages the expected ritual and then breaks it. The text reads as a thunderclap to its neighbors, not an endorsement but a public takedown. [46:27]
3. God refuses worship through harm. The question, what kind of god would demand a son, meets a decisive answer. This God will not be pleased by the destruction of the vulnerable, not even in the name of piety. Divine holiness shows up as interruption, not appetite. [45:25]
4. Faith surrenders competing identities. When a lesser name tries to sit at the center, faith leads it up the mountain. A past, a diagnosis, a political tribe, even a cherished role, can demand a loyalty they cannot carry. Surrender clears the space for trust, not annihilating gifts, but dethroning idols. [49:44]
5. Child of God names the core. Before any role, failure, or label, a person belongs to the Creator. Letting that name stand first reorders all the others and keeps them from asking for worship. Security rises where ultimacy is rightly placed. [52:40]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[32:37] - An old college joke
[33:23] - King Kong on the climb
[35:53] - The punchline that falls flat
[37:12] - ASL twist: the sign for marry
[37:49] - Why context changes everything
[38:28] - Struggling with Abraham and Isaac
[40:28] - Genesis and God’s character
[42:19] - The ancient Near East normal
[44:05] - The command and the setup
[45:25] - Not this god: the turn
[47:26] - Reading Scripture with humility
[48:34] - What faithfulness asks to surrender
[49:44] - Killing the idols of identity
[52:25] - Before anything else: God’s children
[53:15] - Blessing and sending

Bible Study Guide

Bible reading
Genesis 22:1-14 (NIV)
1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said, “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 a mountain I will show you.” [...] 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

Observation questions

What specific cultural practice in the ancient Near East does Genesis 22 confront, and how does the story subvert expectations?
How does the original audience’s understanding of child sacrifice shape their interpretation of God’s command to Abraham? [44:20]
What key detail in the story reveals God’s refusal to accept harm as worship? [45:25]
How does the sermon use the King Kong joke analogy to explain the importance of context in understanding Scripture? [37:49]

Interpretation questions

Why might God’s interruption of Abraham’s sacrifice have been shocking to the original audience, and what does this reveal about His character?
The sermon states, “Before anyone belongs to anyone else, a person belongs to God.” How does this idea challenge modern definitions of identity? [52:25]
How does the story’s resolution (“The Lord Will Provide”) reframe the relationship between obedience and trust?
What does it mean for faith to “dethrone idols” of identity, and how might this look in daily life? [49:44]

Application questions

What “identity markers” (e.g., past mistakes, political views, roles) do you unconsciously treat as non-negotiable, and how might surrendering them deepen your trust in God? [50:18]
The sermon asks, “What is a person willing to give up to be all in with God?” What practical step could you take this week to prioritize your identity as God’s child over other labels? [52:40]
Where have you seen harmful practices or beliefs mistakenly justified as “worship,” and how can you actively reject them? [45:25]
How can humility in reading Scripture (e.g., asking, “Who was this written for?”) change your approach to confusing or troubling Bible passages? [47:26]
The story’s climax hinges on God providing a ram instead of Isaac. When has God provided an unexpected alternative in your life when you were ready to sacrifice something precious?

Sermon Clips

42s

#NotThatGod

“``And the authors of Genesis whose job it is to explain to us the character of God, who God is, they answer the question, what kind of God would ask a father to sacrifice his own son? And they answer the question by saying, not this one. Not this god. The whole point of the book of Genesis was to introduce a god that people hadn't encountered before, one that rules out of love and justice, not anger and vengeance.”

59s

#ChildrenFirst

“They are the best things about our identities in many cases. And before we are any of those, before we are anything else, we are children of God. We are children of the creator of the universe. Before we were anybody else's, we were gods, and we remain today. At the figurative core of the Abraham and Isaac story is the question, are you in, and are you God's? And God is still asking us that question today.”

54s

#ContextMatters

“And so what we see as utterly disgusting and barbaric today, the people of the time, the original audience, would have seen the exact same events overwhelmingly progressive and completely foreign. This had never happened before. God demands sacrifice and nothing else until now. Until now. What we see as a story that promotes violence of literally the worst kind, the audience of the day would have seen as the ultimate referendum and condemnation of a practice that was widely accepted.”

48s

#LayItOnTheAltar

“We're told we're a lot of things, and most of the things that we're told, they make up our identity. They make up who we are. Are we willing to take these things that we think identify us? Are we willing to take these things that we hold up as idols and take them to the altar and kill them. I mean the things that we think define us. The good things and the bad things about us. Our past.”

48s

#GenesisReframesGod

“The nature, the character of this god. That's the whole point specifically the book of Genesis. And what they wanted to describe was that this god was nothing like the gods that were worshipped in the ancient Near East. If we look at the literature of that time period, creation narratives, yep, everybody's got one. If we look at the literature of that time period, flood narratives, yep, everybody's got one. And they all talked about different gods who were worshiped at the time in the surrounding nations.”

39s

#WhatWillYouGiveUp

“What more is God trying to tell us through this story that appears in our holy scriptures? Maybe it's this. Maybe the lesson to be learned in all of this is simply the question, what are we willing to give up in order to pursue faithfulness? What are we willing to give up about ourselves in order to be in a truer and deeper relationship with God?”

40s

#AllInForGod

“Because that's what God wanted from Abraham, isn't it? God wanted to be sure that Abraham was all in, and God wants to know that same thing from us. Are we all Are we willing to denounce the things that might feel like they make up our identity in favor of a relationship with God? This is where the rubber hits the road for the church of Jesus Christ today because we are told that we're a lot of things.”

39s

46s

“If we look at the literature of that time period, creation narratives, yep, everybody's got one. If we look at the literature of that time period, flood narratives, yep, everybody's got one. And they all talked about different gods who were worshiped at the time in the surrounding nations. But Genesis Genesis tells the story of a different god. Genesis tells the story of our god, a god of love, and a God of hope, and a God of peace, and a God of joy.”

26s

“So may we embrace our primary identity as a child of God. May we be willing to hear the whole story. May we know that we are defined by our love, and may we be Amen.”

45s

#WhatKindOfGod

“We know about child sacrifice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this god is just like all the other gods. So Abraham goes up to the mountaintop, binds his son up, places some rocks to make an altar, grabs the knife, no muss, no fuss, and then wait a minute. Stop. Stop. What kind of god would ask a father to sacrifice his son, his only child?”

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Elm Park United Methodist Church This sermon · AI assistant

How does context change interpretation of scripture?

What does Genesis say about God's character?

What are we asked to surrender for faithfulness?

What Will You Sacrifice to Follow God?

Devotional

Day 1: When Jokes Only Make Sense With Missing Context

Day 2: Wrestling With a God Who Tests

Day 3: Child Sacrifice and Cultural Shockwaves

Day 4: Altars for Killing Our False Identities

Day 5: Children Before Anything Else

Sermon Summary

Key Takeaways

Youtube Chapters

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips

What Will You Sacrifice to Follow God?

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