Fearless Faith

When you fear God, you can face anything. From Abraham’s long wait to Jesus’ call to “be ready,” discover how faith frees us from fear and keeps our hearts anchored in heaven.

Transcript

Turn with me to the Gospel According to Luke, chapter 12 for our gospel reading. And you'll remember that last week we were also in Luke 12. Well, this is just a few paragraphs here underneath where we were just last week. Excuse me. And when you have found Luke 12, go ahead and stand with me for the reading of the Word.

Notice these words here this morning in Luke 12, verse 32. This is the word of God. Jesus said to his disciples, do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out an unfailing treasure in heaven where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit. Be like those who are waiting for for their master to return from their wedding banquet so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes. Truly, I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat.

And he will come and serve them. He becomes during the middle of the night or near dawn and finds them so. Blessed are those slaves. But know this. If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.

You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Jesus, thank you for your holy word and these words that you yourself spoke to the disciples roughly 2,000 years ago. Lord, would you speak anew and afresh to us in this room, to me today we pray in your name. Amen. And you can be seated.

Well, as Derek pointed out in our lectionary readings today, it's quite clear they all have something to do with faith. Something to do, in fact, kind of with Abraham. And you remember Abraham is known as what in Christianity? Well, the father of faith. Right.

Anybody remember the song, Father Abraham, how many sons many sons have father? You know, I am one of them and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord. Right arm, you know. You remember this?

No. Anybody ever done that? Surely if you ever went to a VBS, everybody should know that, okay? Big, big deal. In the 80s 90s, okay?

But you know, I was. I was in a books a million years ago. I mean, probably 2005, okay? And. And lo and behold, in the periodical section.

None other. On Newsweek magazine, the front page of Newsweek, which is not A Christian, you know, magazine was none other than Abraham in this beautiful flowing red robe, you know, front cover. And you remember this is a little bit after 9, 11, and everybody's learning about Islam for the first time apparently. And so it was an article speaking about Abraham and really him being a father of many nations. And I think back on seeing Abraham like that and then today's text where we see him in Genesis 15.

And do you remember Abraham's story? Just a little bit. And not to go to the whole thing, but Abraham's story is kind of ground zero for understanding, saving faith or what it means for the type of faith that will lead to salvation. In fact, in the New Testament, when Paul has an opportunity to speak about faith, guess who his premier example is? Every single time.

It's not Moses. Hint, hint, it's not David. Nope, it's actually Abraham. That's fascinating. Why?

Why? Well, I'll just remind you briefly that God comes to Abraham for the first time that we are given in Genesis 12, which, by the way, that's the whole thing, because Genesis 12 is a shift within the book of Genesis where now all of a sudden the ball gets rolling on salvation. Up to that point, everything's been spiraling down the toilet, to put it frankly, okay, from Genesis 3 all the way to 11, it's getting worse and worse until God comes to Abraham and he calls Abraham. But you got to understand, when God was ready to save the world, okay, when he's ready to start his plan of salvation, all right, that we now are benefactors of, he started with a geriatric couple that was barren.

Abraham was 75 years old, all right? And Sarah wasn't far off of that either. And they had no children and they're past childbearing age by all biological standards, all right? And so when we're fat, we're told Abraham couldn't have a child, you know, with, with Sarah, because Sarah was actually barren. And that's important in the Bible.

You ought to just look it up sometime, all the barrenness and how God uses barrenness to turn it into fruitfulness. Or we can say it this way. Her womb was a cave, a tomb if you will, but a tomb that then produced new life. Does that sound familiar at all for us Christians with the resurrection and what Easter is all about? Absolutely.

And so God begins with a 75 year old man, says, you know what, I want you to set out from your father's house and I'm going to give you three things, I promise you, three things here, you remember what they are a family, right? To make you famous and land. That's not a bad gig, is it? And you know what? Abraham doesn't have to do anything except for set out like leave where he's at and sojourn to a place that he doesn't even know.

And that's what we're told in Hebrews. He actually didn't know where he was going, except that he saw a city that's foundation was not of man, but rather of God. And so we have this 75 year old man that gets these three promises. And on the front page of that Newsweek magazine article, I just had to almost laugh because those promises are fulfilled right here in the news cycle today. In fact, I bet if you watched an hour of news you would hear of a place called Israel.

Yes, a land known as Israel, where. Where these elect people were. Where in fact this is the Abrahamic promises to give that land to Abraham and his descendants. Interesting, isn't it? We can literally check that one off.

What about a family? Well, there's a people, a Jewish people that still today are known as the Jewish people and trace their roots back to Abraham. But also of course Muslims do as well. And that's correct because Ishmael. Right, and that's who they go with on this matter because he's the firstborn technically, but not the son of promise, which is a whole other thing by the way, that we won't get into.

But have you ever noticed in Genesis also it's the second born, not the firstborn. This is why Paul will then say, you know what, it's interesting that Jesus comes as who? The second Adam, not the first. The first failed. The first was not the son of promise, but rather the second.

The second Adam is the one who corrects the things and receives the blessings of God. And of course we know that second one, so to speak here is really the first who is Jesus. He's the first and the last, which is a beautiful thing here, all coalescing together. And so yes, there's a family out there. In fact we just sang it a moment ago.

Well, kind of. I did. Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had father Abraham. And I am one of them.

And guess what? So are you. Because here's the thing. Thing. Those who believe in the God of Abraham are sons and daughters of Abraham.

You see how this works? It is not the blood that flows through our veins that brings us together, but the blood that flowed from the cross that brings us together. That's how we're family.

Well what about that. That last thing? Is he famous? Well, of course he's famous. He's on the front of Newsweek, right?

Somebody grabbed a picture of him. They didn't take pictures, of course, but someone painted something of what Abraham might have looked like. And there he was. He's famous, and all those promises are realized. But do you think that Abraham saw all those promises fulfilled in his lifetime?

Of course not. Of course not. And we're actually told in the Hebrews passage, are we not? All of those died in faith when, without receiving the promises, notice. But from a distance.

Think about this. But from a distance, they saw and greeted them.

There's. There's a story about Walt Disney. I don't know if you. Some of you are like Disney, you know, addicts or whatever you call those people that do that Disney thing all the time. And Walt Disney, interestingly, died five years before Disney World opened up in Orlando.

And at the inaugural day of the opening, his wife was there. Lillian, Dizzy Disney. And a reporter said, I hate that Walt couldn't see this. And she said, oh, but he did see it. That's why it's here.

You see, that's what faith is like. Faith doesn't require something tangible and visible through the senses, but rather, as our passage here says in Hebrews 11, which is known as the faith chapter or the whole of faith. Now, faith is the assurance, think about this. Of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

Indeed, by faith, our ancestors received approval. By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God and that what is seen was made. Notice this, from things that are not visible. So the material world is not eternal in this regard. Instead, what is eternal is immaterial because what is eternal is God himself.

And God is not material. If God were material, then we could control God in some fashion, just like we do all material things. And God help us if we were in control of God. Some of us think we are. Some of us have a God in our mind that is not the true and living God.

And we must always be iconoclastic, which is to say idol smashers in our own life, to make sure that we're not fashioning God and then worshiping the God that we're fashioning. That's an ego loop that leads to nowhere. It leads to death. And in fact, it's demonic.

Well, here's Abraham at 75, and he gets this call and he heads out. And that's the beautiful thing. He rolls out even in his old age and believes God. And it was accounted to him as righteous. Now, in our text, in Genesis 15 here, he's actually 80 now.

And God revisits him, and he's saying, hey, it's been five years. Like, I thought you said you were going to give me a son.

And he says, you know, I've got a servant son over here. But God says, no, that's not the one. That's not the one. And notice what he says to Abraham. He says, do not fear.

That's the first thing he says to him. And he says, I'm your shield. And he says, you know what? The promise is going to heaven, going to happen. And so here's what he said.

So he brought him outside, said, look at the heavens. Look up. You know, God's promises always have us looking up, not down. And so if you get this premonition to look down on who you are or where you've been, like, that's not from God. He's wanting us to look up and look forward.

In fact, the devil comes to accuse us. Remember, he's the great accuser. Accuse us of what? Our past. But if it's under the blood, if it's forgiven, then the scripture says, it's cast as far as the east is from the west, deeper than any ocean and higher than anything that we could ever reach.

In other words, God chooses to forget it. And although we can learn from our past, we must not live in the past. We can look back to the past for instruction, but we march into the future looking up toward God. And Abraham, after this visit here, he believes God. And again, it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

But again, notice, here's this old dude, right? And now he's 80. And, you know, getting. Getting older has all these things that come with it. Like when you nick yourself, you just bleed out, you know, like, it's.

It's insane. My papi used to. I would always say, what happened to your hand? He's like, I don't know. And, I mean, I literally cut my thumb on the microphone thing here, you know, this morning, like, I just bumped it.

And it's like, oh, man. I guess, yeah, I'm headed there, right? And I'm sure Abraham was thinking, lord, I know you said, like, you're gonna give me a son, but you realize, like, we're barren, number one, okay. But number two, we're both continuing to get older. But you know what?

Abraham believed God. Now he has a moment of unbelief. You remember, that's the whole Ishmael story, right? Tries to do it his own way. Doesn't work.

God says, nope, that's not. Still not it. Nope, don't have it right. And makes him wait and revisits him at 99 years old. Now 75 to 90, that's a long time, like, to be waiting for a promise.

Especially when, like, you've literally been waiting all your life. And you know what I mean, like, it hasn't happened. And God says, you know what, Abram? And you have to kind of understand the play on words here because Abram actually means exalted father. So here's this guy who now for 99 years of his life, has been known as exalted father.

It's like, well, buddy, where's your kids then? It's almost like, joke. His name is a joke. In fact. And in fact, if you know what barrenness meant in the ancient world, it meant something was wrong with you.

Not just medically, but it meant like, I don't want what you got, so I can't come over to your house because I might get it. Just like, if somebody's hacking their brains out, you're like, bro, I can't. I don't want to shake hands. Let's keep our distance here. Same thing.

In the ancient world, barrenness meant you didn't have many friends at all.

Barrenness was a stain. Barrenness was an issue because what is normal and natural is to produce fruit, to produce offspring, and they had none. And for 99 years, he hears his name, exalted father, like, high and lifted up father, and he has no children of his own. And God comes to him and says, you know what? Here we are at 99, buddy, I'm going to change your name to Abraham.

And Abraham also has its own meaning to mean, like, you're the biggest sort of father there is. Okay, so again, he gets more fatherhood, but he has no child. But he believes. And within a year, Isaac is born. God actually comes through with what he says.

A hundred years old for Abraham. Now, we see here in Genesis and in the psalm reading, also about faith, but also about fear. Fear not. Have you noticed when God shows up, it's like, fear not. And I've always kind of been confused about, like, okay, so we're supposed to not fear, fear, but we're also supposed to fear God.

How does that work together? Anybody ever had that kind of thought? Like, you're like, okay, so we're supposed to fear God, but not fear anything. And I think, yes, that's the right order. Though, if you think about it right.

Because if you fear God, what would there be to fear? What is there to fear? In fact, now, fear of God means to honor him or to be in awe of him, to have this holy respect for God above all else. And if we truly fear God, then the point is we won't fear anything else. The issue is that it takes faith to fear God.

Back in the day, when I was actually in high school, I was thinking about this. This morning I went rappelling. You ever been rappelling before? And I did it over here, Palisades State park in Alabama. I don't know that I would let my kids go rappelling, by the way, by themselves, which I did.

And if you knew some of the people I went with, then you'd be like, really questioning my judgment, which now I do question the judgment of what I was making that day. This is our first time to ever do it. And we just rigged it up ourself, right? And it repelled like 90ft down. And I don't know if you ever rappelled before because it's this funny thing, you know, that you have to hold into tension resting on the rope.

Like, in other words, you're actually starting out and you're kind of like. And they're like, just lean back, you know, just like, lean back and you're like holding onto the rock. Anybody ever done. You're like, no, no, no, it's not gonna work. If you hold onto the rock, you can't scrape your way all the way down.

It's not gonna work like that. Okay. And then. And then, you know, when you kinda let go of the rock, you start holding onto the rope. Let go of the rope, right?

Because again, it's the tension going down that actually holds you up. But you have to rest all of your weight into that. And you can see, I hope that fearing God has this interesting tension that then produces faith in us. For when we fear him, fear his word over the word of man, then all of a sudden we find faith rising up. In other words, when we rest in what he has said, and not what we tell ourselves or not what other people have told us, but rather his word, when we rest in that, then all of a sudden repelling becomes fun.

Like, all of a sudden, you know, I was doing that thing where you, like, jump off. You know what I'm talking about? You know anybody? Okay, maybe some of them. That's a bad example.

Think about a kite then, right? Like, a kite doesn't work unless it's the tension, right? Of having it open and not flailing around or no wind at all, but rather, and you know what? The winds of life will come, the scripture says. And that's when we're actually supposed to catch the wind and soar.

But so many times we flail around because we don't have faith in God, because we don't actually fear God. We fear what other people say. And, you know, there's just. There's just this ungodly. Could I call it what it is, demonic influence in this next generation, which has crept into all of us, which is anxiety, depression and fear getting stuck in your own head.

Anybody ever been there? I have. And you know what? That kind of anxiety, debilitating, blinding anxiety is not of God. Let's just call it for what it is.

And could I say this without you just crucifying me? It's also not just medical. It's actually from Satan. Now, there's often a medical piece to it because guess what? We're both soul and body.

A composite that you can't get one off of the other. But I'm telling you this. When you're stuck in your own head believing the doubts and fears that we think up and imagine and all these things, like, it's so interesting. People like, you know, I can't really believe in things that I can't see, and yet they do it all the time in their own head. I'm so worried that this is going to happen or this.

And look, I've been there. I've been down to the top. Like, this dark cloud just came over me for like a year and a half. It wasn't some short time. And I remember.

I remember all of a sudden realizing one day, like, oh, I'm finally out of that dark wood. I praise God for that. But you know what? There may be another cloud that comes over me at some point. But here's the good news is we don't have to fear even the things that come into our mind.

But we can take every thought captive and give it to Christ and say, what's the worst thing that could happen to me? I die. Okay?

People make fun of me. Okay? I'm embarrassed. Okay? Like, it's helpful for me.

It's sometimes just to think, what? Like, I'm worried about this. What's the worst thing that can happen? You know what? God can still take that.

Think about some of the people of faith that's mentioned in the hall of Faith. They did some pretty nasty stuff. Moses murdered somebody.

David murdered, adulterated. And yet God didn't give up on him. And in fact he turned it around. In fact, it's a lesson for us today. He's not done with you.

It doesn't matter if you're old or if you're young or if people don't believe in you or if you don't believe in you. God has a calling for you that we need to hear. He has a city that's foundations. We're going somewhere. In other words, that is not made of man, but of God that can't be touched by a thief.

And you know who the thief is? Comes to steal, Steal our time, steal our children, steal our headspace.

Kill and destroy. But you know, God comes to do the opposite in us, doesn't he? He comes to give, not to steal. Think about that, right? Instead of kill, he gives life.

And instead of destroying, he transforms us into what we're supposed to be. And we all feel that tug because it's the Holy Spirit moving in all people to point us toward the light. We are creatures of the light but because of sin we've loved darkness rather than the light. But we're still. It doesn't change the fact that we're still made for the light.

And it's like little moments like this maybe in a sermon or maybe in a conversation or maybe in something you hear or something you read. When you're reading or praying that all of a sudden it's like the Lord's just bumping. You say hey. That's right. When you hear that, like, follow that light.

And I promise you, like, you'll never know where it leads. That's the cool thing about faith is it's a journey that we're not in control of. You know, you think about like Frodo. Not Frodo, Bilbo Baggins. You know, and so Bilbo is like this little homebody, right?

He's in Hobbiton, you know and he's got his little. In his little hobbit hole. If you don't know, you really should know. It's not one of these things. Like I'm just like, yeah, don't worry about it.

But you actually should know the Hobbit. And you know what? He, he. You remember what happens. Gandalf comes.

All these dwarves come and they mess this place. And he's mad about it. And he wakes up next morning but he goes on the journey anyway even though it's dangerous. Like that's not even in his nature to be. But you know, there's something about us that Wants that safety.

But there's also something like if we really listen, just take some time and really think about what it is we want. We want that adventure. Some people blow up their lives looking for that adventure. You know what I'm talking about. Let's do something crazy and dumb and mess it all up.

Just trying to get some. Trying to feel something. Let me tell you, the journey of faith. That's what you're looking for. He's calling us on a great adventure, one that we're not.

And you remember what Gandalf tells Bill about. He goes. He goes, listen, I can't promise that this is going to be safe for you. I can't even promise that you're going to return. But if you return, you'll never be the same.

You know what? Here's the good thing about God. He's in control of it all.

As the scripture says here, he's our shield. Did you catch that? Both in the psalmist reading and in Genesis, he's our shield. What does that mean? It means that nothing comes into our life that doesn't first pass by Him.

You say, even that thing in my life. Even that thing. Now, he doesn't make you do stuff, certainly sin. God would make no one sin sin. But my point is, if there's suffering in your life, you know what?

God permitted it. And he's don't listen to this. He's asking you to walk with him through it.

It's funny that every time we suffer, we always ask why? You see some tragedy? Why? Because we always are looking for causes. It's Aristotle, right?

We're always looking for causes like why? Why did this happen? Okay, well, we're not able to know always why. But instead we're supposed to trust who? And it's God.

And here's the kind of God that we're supposed to trust is not one that is immaterial and does not suffer impassable, as we say in theology. No, no, no. Rather, he took on human nature to receive the passion. We even call it the Passion of the Christ. Because God think about this, became emotional.

The God who has no emotion, is unaffected by the things of this world, became by his own doing in Jesus Christ, affected by this world. Now, not infected, but affected. And really, here's the thing that you gotta understand. When Jesus touches what is unclean, guess what happens to it? He becomes clean.

So in other words, rather than him being affected, he effects the world. And he affects all things by suffering. And he counted it joy to suffer, to go on this journey, just like each and every one of us are called to do.

You know, the other day I was.

I had to. My son started doing these triathlons, right? And I used to do them. And then I got out of shape and old. It was only three years ago, but I was like, hey, let me ride that road that you want to ride on.

Because, you know, I was nervous about him getting it. You know, he's been riding in the neighborhood, he's going to get on a real road and all this kind of stuff. Let me ride it for. So I got out there and I'm starting to cycle, you know, and I'm like, man, this is good. And I'm like, I'm rolling.

I mean, I'm doing pretty, pretty good not to. I haven't ridden that road bike in seriously, like three or four years. Okay. And I'm like, I'm doing pretty well right now. Man, this is great.

You know, beautiful day, all this kind of stuff. And then I got to where like, the road ended, that I wanted him to sort of turned around. I started going back and I realized why I was doing so well. The wind was at my back, which meant that the whole ride back I wasn't having a good time, you know what I mean? My legs were burning.

I wasn't happy anymore. The same field that made me happy was not really doing it for me, you know. And I got up to a pace of about.03 miles an hour. I could have walked faster, no joke. And I got back exhausted and all that.

But I thought to myself, you know, that's life, isn't it? Like, sometimes things are just hitting. They're just boom, boom, boom. You're like, man, that's pretty awesome. Like, things just kind of come together for me.

I don't know about everybody else, but it's very nice right here for me. And here's the danger in those moments, as we say. Well, I did that. Like, I line those things up. Like I'm the one who, you know, did that work to get there.

I see these influencers. That's what they sound like, isn't it? Like, yeah, you know, I mean, you just work out every day at 5 o' clock and you'll be buff like me. Let me just say, that ain't gonna happen for me. It's not in the genes, you know, for me to do that.

Okay. No, sometimes we. Well, maybe all the time when things are going well, we need to give God thanks because the spirit, the wind of the spirit is behind us. And he's blessing us in this way. But you know what?

Equally, when we turn to tough times, when all of a sudden the wind is against us, you know what? That makes us stronger. Like, the way to get better and faster and build muscle is actually to tear it down and continue to get those fibers back tight as they grow back. And he also sends the wind that way. And listen, you're right now, either in the turn, you know, kind of in the middle area, or you're cruising along, or either you're.

You're against the wind. Listen, that's okay to be in any of those places, because at any given moment, all of us are. If we're honest, all of us are. And we ought to treat people even like that, like, everybody's got a bad day. Everybody's got.

I mean, if you'd have seen me at the peak of that little hill, I was. I mean, you know, I saw this dog over there. I was like, bro, if you want me, just get me, because I'm out of breath. I don't know what else to do right now, but just kind of keep edging and pedaling along. And you know what?

That's what we do. Sometimes it's not sexy to be a Christian. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes just downright painful and not enjoyable sometimes. If we're honest, friendship's like that.

If we're honest, marriage is like that. If we're honest, all good things are. And when we act like they're not, what kind of facade is that? But demonic, it's a lie. And I'm afraid that our children receive a lie all the time.

Just feeding their face constantly with the demonic. It's not reality. And they wish their life away for what? A lie. And the enemy's stealing that.

We, as parents, we've got to do our part to come alongside them. You can't make your child have faith, but you can certainly ground their person in Christ in this word. This is reality. His voice is what is real. And I've had all those voices in my head.

Trust me, it was a bad day for me. You know, I just remember even, like, looking out the window, I saw some garbage guys. I was like, lord, why didn't you call me to be a garbage man? I could do that really well. Do it and, like, change everybody's life.

Because garbage people, they change their life, my life. At least we have a lot of garbage that we get rid of. That's a wonderful service. I love it, truly. And I was thinking, these guys are changing the world.

What am I doing God? What am I doing? You ever felt like that? Keep doing the right thing. Abraham, 75 to 99 years old.

And God changes his name. And the next year, Isaac comes. The next year the promise began to be fulfilled. Now, did he see as many children as the stars? Kinda.

He saw it with the eye of faith. What do you see with the eye of faith? Are you even looking with the eye of faith in this life? We should be. We're sojourners.

We have a city that is prepared for us. What does Jesus even say here in our text? Be ready. Why? For the Son of man is coming at an unexpected time.

So here's the challenge for us today. Fear God. Above all else. Fear him and what that makes us. Then is able to do what he tells us right here.

Fear not. In other words, by fearing God, we become fearless.

The future is wide open for all of us. I know it doesn't feel like that sometimes, but no matter where you are on the spectrum of life, God is not done with you yet. He has a plan for you. And his plans are good. Like that's what's so good about this.

And here, the other side of my dark time. And man, I'm so thankful for all the people that stood with me during that dark time. The other side of that I now can identify with other folks. I couldn't before, to be honest with you, but I can now. And you know what it did?

By the scars that I have from that, it actually made more room to love. It was like God carving out. And that's painful, but it created more room to love.

So fear God. Be fearless. And then live ready.

Live ready to move at his call.

There's a city prepared for us. Do you see it? Do you desire today a better country than this? Because there is one, and that's the one we're headed to.

Is the wind to your back? Then praise God. Don't think it was your doing if you're facing the wind. Pray to God, because he is with us.

Seek not what is of this world, but treasures Heaven. Remember, make purses that never grow old. That's the treasure we're looking for. Because where your treasure is, that's where you'll find your heart. So make it in the highest.

Let's put it this way. Goodest treasure of all. Who is God? In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.