Sermon 17.03.2010.
Focus Scriptures: Gen 15.1- 12, 17-18 and Lk 13. 31-35.
Today we encounter Abram and Jesus, at decisive junctures in their lives. The two men have embarked on divinely appointed journeys to fulfil the will of God.
Abram’s first step in his conscious relationship with God was at 75 ..God said to him the life changing words:”leḵ-ləḵā — “go!”- “leave!” Trusting solely in the living word of the Yehovah, Abram left kith, kin and country. God revealed one step at a time and in faith Abram, like Jesus, accepted each step. No more nor no less is asked of us. Both Abram and Jesus took those first steps in faith, because of the calibre of the One who called them.
In our first reading Abram is in the midst of his third/of seven life changing encounters with the Living God…
‘Do not be afraid Abram, I am your shield…I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.”
Abram journeys through life carrying great promises of a homeland and an heir. He discovered holding on to these promises demanded patience and trust in the One who made them. When he was 75 God called him. But he’d be a 100 before his heir would be born.He died at 175 with the homeland promise still unmanifested.
Then we see Jesus, the Nazarene from Galilee, fatefully turning His face and footsteps and commence His fateful journey to Jerusalem to His dreaded appointment with torture and death with a firm hope and trust for His resurrection.
His death + resurrection would open The Way of Peace between God and those who would seek Him.
This Christ- Way, is strewn unnerving paradoxes:
To gain life…we must lose it
Our strength is in our weakness….…
To be rich is to be poor
To rise…..fall …
To be truly fully alive………. die…
Our Way with Jesus is no mean pathway, for on it we are invited into a spiritually dynamic life of co-labouring with God :where we;
‘work out our own salvation in/with fear and trembling….for… God it is who is working in us …”
It is by the divine gift of faith we work out this salvation; looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our redemptive journey. This is an ancient and well trodden track. A track of promise through obedience and faith in our Father God.. A track set by our ‘father-in-the-faith’ Abraham and his seed, who partook of his DNA , Jeshua Ha-Mashiach…
Jesus the Messiah, Son of God and on His mother’s side, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.
Like us here…Both learned to obediently tread the Way of Faith in God .
Like us…Both freely, one step at a time, journeyed on the path that God would guide them on.
Like us…Both experienced extended times of trials and temptations….testing their faith, obedience and self-sacrifice .
Like us…Both grew into trust, into confidence, and into faith in God’s rema/word living in them.
In faith, we become Abram, Sarai,and Jesus journeying from the barren desert of our old dry bones, in hope and expectation that God keeps His promises.
Like Abram, Sarai and Jesus we wrestle, with doubts; with battles against sin; with internal voices seeking to undermine the hope that was seeded, in us, by God’s Holy Spirit.
Like them, we know delay, mistakes, and disappointments, never knowing when when transforming joy of God’s Holy Spirit will strike us.
The Apostle John tells us that Abram foresaw the wonderful ‘day’ of Jesus and rejoiced and was glad.
Father-God, in His knowledge of us is compassionate. He knitted us in the womb. He knows our make-up. He saves us to the uttermost.
As with Abram, so with us. Each step and act of faith is built on the previous one. For each step in our developing faith carries its own demands and temptation. God observes our stewardship of one gift before He gives another.
Abram’s life was filled with seeds of promise : God says: I will
…make you a great nation…bless you;…make your name great…you shall be a blessing…I bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you…all the families of the earth shall be bless because of you.…
It would be a mistake for us to imagine that just because God our Father has given us vision and promise that all will be plain sailing. This is never so. The seed of promise is sown…but tended with time, grace, patience, and obedience…… trusting God to be true to His Word. For as we co- labour with Him the promise will manifest.
By the time we arrive with Abram to today’s reading, tens years have passed since God made his promise, and there is little to show, suggesting that God has totally forgotten His words of promise. But ….a lesson lies here…..the eyes of faith are set to see what is not seen.(John)
Abram is now 85 when the LORD speaks to him in a vision and we get a telling insight into their relationship. The relationship is not a one-sided affair, where God pronounces and Abram passively listens and obeys.
Though here Abram is told that his reward will be great, he is not unduly impressed. He is already a very wealthy man. His concerns are definitely different to God’s, and he says as much. Basically he says, what is the use of additional rewards, if there is no heir to leave them to. It’s not money I need but an heir….and despite promises, there is no sign of one.
‘’ I continue childless … You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’’
The LORD asserts:
‘’no one but your very own issue shall be your heir’’
And then the simple but highly significant scene in the tent:
And He/God took/led/brought him/Abram outside/abroad and said, “Now look/haBet/na toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.
And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.’’
Sometimes the problems we wrestle with can close in on us….and look like overwhelming us….Abram might well have been like this here….despite his considerable wealth and good works he was literally at the end of his line. But notice, he speaks honestly and directly to God.
Look at what the LORD suggests: …. let’s step outside….shift your ground ….broaden horizons…..step out of this blinkering tent…Look out ,not in … Look around… Look up not down..now listen/speak/pray…sit/rest/wait….having prayed/listened then step out in faith.
It is peculiar quirk of our human psyche that easy times rarely help us to deepen our spirit of understanding…. periods of suffering, and waiting can … As does learning to keep faith under difficult circumstances and disappointments. These trying conditions insert the needed grit into the soul so that it produces priceless pearls of patience, long-suffering, perseverance, creating in us, solid hope
Times occurred when Abram and Sarai felt God had forgotten their promised child and they fell for the temptation of ‘helping God out’…… Enter, at Sarai’s insistence, Hagar the maid….. and Abram fathers Ishmael…..this both complicated matters to this very day… and further delayed the arrival of the promised heir.
For us, pilgriming in faith into Christ and the Kingdom of God is an eternal journey of love. For it has not entered into our hearts or minds what things God has prepared for those who love Him.
We journey on into life after life, from glory into glory; from being wandering aliens on an orphaned planet to becoming, through faithlife in Jesus, the adopted children of God our Father /Creator. Then ,like Jesus in the gospel, we can set our face to our Jerusalem and go through death’s torn veil to resurrection in Christ.
I conclude with a verse from Paul and Jude:
I am sure of this. That He who began a good work in you/us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ ( Phillipians).
And Jude:
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, 25To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.
Amen.