|
<< Back to Sermon Archive
"Living Abram's Story, Today"
I'm sure most of you remember this famous children's rhyme…
Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight.
Wish I may, wish I might,
Have this wish I wish tonight.
And, of course, living in the shadow of Disneyworld, we can't
forget the song by a famous cricket:
When you wish upon a star,
Makes no difference who you are,
When you wish upon a star,
Your dreams come true.
What great dreams there are in wishing! We have all kinds of
hope when we make a wish! And what great disappointments follow
as wish after wish goes unfulfilled.
Now, there is nothing wrong with wishing. Wishing for some hope
or dream is fine. It is how we expect the wish will be fulfilled
that is the real issue. If I wish upon a star, if I hope that a
giant burning cloud of gas will provide my heart’s desire, well
then, I had better get used to disappointment.
So, let me ask you a question, today. How close do you feel to God,
right now? How connected do you feel to His work and power in your
life? Do you feel like He is right there next to you, making your
wishes come true? Or, do you feel like the hopes and wishes in your
life are being ignored?
In our Thy Kingdom Come passage for today, Abram had a
wish. He had an empty spot in his heart. And, he was not
feeling all that close or connected to God, because his
wish had not come true – he still did not have a son.
You see, in the first three verses of chapter 12, Abram,
whom we know more by the name Abraham, had been promised
by the Lord God that He would bring forth a great nation
from Abram. God had promised that in Abram all the nations
of the earth would be blessed through His offspring. Of
course, the Offspring would be Christ. It is the same
Offspring promised to Adam and Eve back in the Garden of Eden.
Yet, Abram was now old, AND without a son. He had been waiting,
but the waiting had been difficult. His life was filled with
doubt and uncertainty as the years kept passing. Year after year,
and he wondered how God would fulfill His promise – WHETHER God
would fulfill His promise. And so, in chapter 15 of our text
today, the Lord comes to Abram to encourage him.
The Lord says to Him in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I
am your shield, your very great reward.” And then something
truly amazing happens. Abram BELIEVES God.
Now, You might say, “Why is that amazing?” It’s because believing
God in the face of struggle or hardship or sadness or confusion
is not that common. In the disappointments and failures of life,
most people DON’T believe God.
Well, then you might say, “If God came to me in a dream, I would
believe Him.” But, are you sure about that? Dreams are fuzzy
things. I don’t remember the dreams I had last night? I sure
can’t replay them. I can’t go back to them and remember what
was said.
So, God has given us His Word in the Scriptures. He has written
down His messages to us, so that we can go over them again and
again. He has recorded them so that we can remember them.
And yet, in the face of struggle, and hardship, and sadness and
confusion we STILL find it hard to believe God, don’t we? God has
given us His promises in the Bible and STILL, in the disappointments
and failures of life, don’t we doubt His Word, distrust His promises,
disbelieve that He is working everything out for us?
So it IS an amazing thing that Abram believes God. The Lord
had just taken Abram outside and showed him the night sky,
with the millions and millions of stars, and He said, “So shall
your offspring be.” Abram was old and without children, yet the
Lord said, “Count the stars! That’s how many descendants you are
going to have.” To Abram, this must have seemed ridiculous. It
must have seemed bizarre, impossible.
What are your stars? I mean, what are the things that seem
out-of-reach or impossible to you – that seem bizarre or
implausible? Where in your life is God calling you to believe
in what seems ridiculous?
“God says ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ Yet, I
have been out of work for some time; there are no good prospects;
and I can’t pay my bills.”
“God says that He cares for me, yet pain and sadness are a
constant part of my life. God says that He has a plan for my
life, but I’ve never felt more lost or aimless in my life.”
Where do the things in your life… and the Word of God collide?
We have troubles in our life, and God’s Word says, “Don’t be
afraid. Don’t be anxious. Trust in me.” And we say, “I don’t
think so.”
Where do you… and God’s Word collide? For Abram, it was being
childless, yet being told by God that he would have countless
offspring. BOOM! That was a moment of truth.
But, God’s Word IS truth. So, what are you going to do? Follow
your own path of life, or trust in God’s Word? Abram believed.
And in that faith, Abram remained a forgiven child of God. And
as a forgiven child of God, the Lord remained active in Abram’s
life. The Lord used Abram as an important part of His story – The
Story of the Savior.
In Genesis 3, at the Fall into sin, the Savior is promised, but
virtually nothing is said about how God will do this. Last week
we saw the world devastated by a flood. At first, it leaves us
wondering if God has changed His mind about the salvation story.
But we learn that His Promise has survived the flood.
So now, God moves the story forward by reestablishing His
Promise. And as He moves the story forward, He reveals a
little bit more about it. He is going to build a new nation,
starting with Abram. And, He is going to give this new nation
a new land. And all of this will prepare for the eventual
coming of the Savior.
God takes this Promise seriously, so seriously that He performs
a unique ritual that emphasizes how important this is. When the
Lord God passes amongst the cut up animals, in the form of a
“smoking fire pot with a blazing torch,” God is declaring
that, as these animals have been brutally slaughtered, so it should
happen to Him, if He doesn’t keep His Promise.
It is one of the Divine ironies of the Bible, however, that
in keeping His Promise, the Son of God is still brutally
slaughtered – on the cross.
And here, in Genesis 15, we have the faintest picture of what
is yet to come for the Messiah. Abram falls into a thick and
dreadful darkness, which is similar to the darkness that fell
on the land when Christ died on the cross.
For Abram, in this darkness the Lord predicts the bitter
slavery of the children of Israel in Egypt. But He also
predicts their deliverance.
This is significant, because the Bible describes our sin
as slavery, from which only the suffering and death of
Christ on the cross delivers us. Already, we have a faint
shadow of the cross forming. As the story of God moves
forward, the cross, and the Messiah as a suffering servant,
becomes clearer and clearer.
But here, now, we have only the faintest outline. But, it’s
there. And that makes all the difference. Because “Abram
believed” what God was bringing about, God applied the
forgiveness of sins to Abram, from the cross that would
eventually come.
Verse 6, “Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to
him as righteousness.”
And that cross makes all the difference for us too. You see,
the story of salvation didn’t end at the cross. Salvation was
accomplished at the cross, but God’s story continues. It
continues with you. You are people of The Story. You are
living it and breathing it everyday.
It is the same story of Abram. It is the story of faith. It
is the story of believing God when you don’t see the answers.
It is the story of trusting God when things seem impossible.
It is the story of living our faith, and letting God lead us –
no matter where it takes us.
Do you remember me telling you about Megan back in October?
She is this sweet 6 year old girl, who started coming to
Redeemer in Sanford, as a result of Vacation Bible School.
Do you remember me telling you how she lives across the street
from the church, and even though her parents don’t attend, she
comes to Sunday School and church every week?
Well, we baptized Megan on December 16th. We also baptized
two of her friends that SHE invited to church.
From the hopelessness of Abram, who had no son, God created a
nation. From that implausible nation, God brought forth a Messiah.
But, you see, this is what God does all the time. Where there
appears to be nothing, God creates – something.
Out of the brokenness of a dying congregation in Sanford, God has
created, unexpectedly, new life and hope. What God is doing at
Redeemer is exciting! You have to come visit and see it.
In a little girl named Megan, who didn’t even know who Jesus was
last year at this time, God has created a little evangelist, who
is telling everybody at her apartment building across the street
about the Jesus she met at Redeemer. We have 6 new members,
because of Megan.
And in your life right now, God is working in the same way. He is
working to create – at just the right time – hope, and opportunities,
and second-chances where there seems to be only hopelessness.
Wait on the Lord. Wait and see. “But I have been waiting so long.”
But, that doesn’t mean God isn’t there.
He is working – in His time – to bring answers and solutions where
you see only emptiness. He is working to create something where you
see, now, only nothing.
How do we know this? Look at what God did with Abram. We ARE part of
the same story, don’t you know.
Amen.
Top of Page
<< Back to Sermon Archive
|
Click here to play video.