Weekly Sermon

"Abraham, Father of Christianity" Genesis 12:1-8; Hebrews 11:8-13

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church, June 20, 2004

This sermon relies heavily upon the writings of William Barclay in The Daily Study Bible Series, the Letter to the Hebrews, Revised Edition.

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb. Hebrews 11:8-13 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-and Sarah herself was barren-because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore." All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth. Prayer: God of Promise, you called Abraham forth to start a new nation intended to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. From Abraham sprung the church universal and yet invisible. Guide us to be a part of your universal church and a blessing to the world. Amen. There are various legends about how Abraham came to believe in God, but most of them emphasize that Abraham, known as Abram at the time, was the son of Terah, who not only believed in idols, actually was the maker and seller of idols. It is said that one day Abraham was left in charge of the shop. As people came in to buy idols, Abraham asked them how old they were. When most answered that they were fifty or so, Abraham would say, "Woe to a man [or woman] of such an age who adores the work of one day!" Abraham said things like, "You fool to adore a God who is younger than yourself!" Finally, a woman reportedly came in with a dish of meat for the gods. Abraham took a stick and smashed all the idols but one, in whose hands he set the stick. When Terah returned and demanded an explanation, Abraham said, "My father, a woman brought this dish of meat for your gods; they all wanted to have it and the strongest knocked off the heads of the rest, lest they should eat it all." Terah said, "That is impossible for they are made of wood and stone." Abraham answered, "Let your own ear hear what your own mouth has spoken!" [William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, the Letter to the Hebrews, Revised Edition, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), 143-144] As William Barclay writes, "All these legends give us a vivid picture of Abraham searching after God and dissatisfied with the idolatry of his people. So when God's call came to him he was ready to go out into the unknown to find him! Abraham is the supreme example of faith." [Ibid.] Abraham has a vital, exciting faith that Barclay says is "ready for adventure, patient, and looking beyond this world." [Ibid. 144-145] I love Barclay's phrase that Abraham's faith is ready for adventure. Wow! What could we do with a faith that is ready for adventure?! Isn't that idea of being "ready for adventure" part of what motivates all of our mission plans? Aren't the young people and adult counselors who are going to the work camp next Sunday "ready for adventure?" It's so easy to find ourselves in a comfortable faith. Lee Strobel is one of the ministers at Willow Creek, the second-largest church in the USA, with 15,000 in attendance each weekend. In his latest book entitled Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry & Mary, he tells of one kind of Mary who has a comfortable faith. He writes: Mary lives in Michigan and grew up attending church and Sunday school. In her teen years, she became friends with the other youth. She continued attending church on and off through her adult years. By the time Mary was 31, she had two small children. A friend from another church invited her to attend a crusade. Mary isn't sure why she agreed, but she did. Mary heard the gospel message and learned what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It struck her as though she were hearing it for the very first time… The next day, Mary attended another service with her friend…Following the second service, Mary had some questions for the guest preacher. She shared with him, "I've just realized I've been playing religion all my life." She told how she was active at her church and how she even served on committees…Then she admitted, "but it struck me today, I realized today, that I don't want to play church anymore!" [Lee Strobel, Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry & Mary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993), 118] Suddenly, for that young woman, comfortable faith wasn't enough. She needed a faith ready for adventure. We do, too. We need to take a chance, to follow God beyond our comfort zone. We are at the beginning of a new era for Geneva. It's time to share our hopes and our dreams, to find the adventures God has in store with us. Come the fall, we will be looking at ways to get to know each other better and to glimpse God's plans. God has planted dreams in our hearts and visions in our minds for an adventurous faith. The second thing that William Barclay says about Abraham's faith is that it is patient. That might seem to be in conflict with an adventurous faith, but adventure and patience often compliment each other. Sometimes the hardest part of an adventurous faith is patiently waiting for God's promises to be fulfilled. In our fast-moving culture, we often don't have the discipline to be patient. I struggle with that problem myself. I want things to be done yesterday. I especially want my sermon to be done yesterday, but I've noticed an amazing thing. The sermon doesn't seem to come until God is ready to give it. The sermons that arrive early don't seem to inspire and stimulate faith. The sermons that arrive on the wing of a prayer and a promise, at the very last moment, seem somehow to be more meaningful. Maybe the Lord doesn't want us to get too comfortable. Maybe we have to learn and relearn to wait on the Lord. A few minutes ago I told a story about a man named Lee Strobel, who is a pastor at the Willow Creek Church. He wasn't always a pastor. Before he was a pastor, he was an award-winning journalist and the legal affairs editor for the Chicago Tribune. He graduated from the Yale Law School. And he was an atheist. Something made him set out to disprove the Gospel. Here is how he describes what happened: "When I started the investigative process, I thought it would last only a few weeks. As an atheist, I believed I would find the soft spots of Christianity, discover the holes in the historical record and be able to dismiss it rather quickly. But the more I checked it out, the more evidence I began to see. It was the most stimulating two years of my life… "Finally, on November 8, 1981, when I was alone in my room and had reviewed all of the evidence I had encountered during my probe, I concluded that it would take more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. The most logical and rational thing that I could do was to confess my sin and receive Jesus Christ as my Savior. I simply needed to bend my knee to him and receive him as my Forgiver and Leader. I did, and the journey since has been incredible." [Jim Daily, Decision Magazine, September, 2003; © 2003 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association] The thing that strikes me about that story is not really the conclusion Lee Strobel made. It is the time and patience he invested in exploring Christianity. Some of us long-term Christians don't have the patience to explore our faith. We also don't have the patience to wait on the Lord. Sometimes, we don't even have the patience to pray, read the Bible, or come to church. Abraham's faith was patient. He trusted God even when it took a long time for God's promises to be fulfilled. There is one more thing I want to say about Abraham's faith: His faith looked beyond this world to the next. He had an eternal perspective. Later legends said that Abraham was given a glimpse of the new Jerusalem and the end times. So often we are shortsighted. Not long ago, I found myself teaching Olya and Johnny to ride bikes. Johnny had ridden before, but Olya had not. They made fairly fast progress, but Olya in particularly got lots of skinned knees. One Sunday when they rode bikes to church, Olya fell and put a big hole in her white tights, poking through was a bright red-skinned knee. Later that day, I told her brother Danny that she was learning to ride. He laughed and said, "I saw her progress on her knees!" The hardest thing to get both Johnny and Olya to do was to look up. Since they were uncertain about how their legs and arms would find balance on the bikes, they constantly looked down and, therefore, fell. I'll never forget Olya running into the house to tell me she had looked up while riding her bike! After that, she quickly became a confident bike rider. We have to look up, too, beyond our sometimes petty problems to a world where God has placed us to be His hands. It takes practice to grow a faith that is ready for adventure, a faith that is patient, and a faith that looks beyond this world, but we can do it. We can do it because Abraham, the Father of our Faith, has shown us how. As William Barclay writes: "To Abraham was given the vision; and, even when his body was wandering in Palestine, his soul was at home with God. God cannot give us the vision unless we permit him; but if we wait upon him, even in earth's desert places he will send us the vision and with it the toil and trouble of the way become all worthwhile." [Barclay, Ibid., 145]