Faith Tested

June 26, 2011 2nd Sunday of Kingdomtide

Genesis 22: 1-14, (Sermon Text) Psalm 13, Romans 6: 12-23, Matthew 10: 40-42

The story of the life of the patriarch Abraham comes to us from Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Today we have read the story of how God tested Abraham's faith. Since all of us go through times when our faith is tested we can certainly relate to being in Abraham's shoes, even though I'm sure none of us have been tested in exactly the same way.

I have a friend whom I met in college who had a terrible fear of taking tests. It was a true disability for her, especially during exam time. If a test was involved at the end of the class she would develop a full-blown panic attack. On most occasions during exam time, she had to get special permission to be given a paper to write, or some other means of evaluating her progress. She was required to have a psychiatric evaluation in order to avoid taking tests and graduate.

I don't like tests either. Maybe you don't too. Fear of test taking is called testaphobia, and is an actual diagnosis for some people who have the kind of performance anxiety that goes along with taking a test. However, tests are a part of life.

I remember being present when my granddaughter Jessy was born. The nurses let me go with her into the newborn nursery to watch her get weighed and cleaned up. One of the 1st things that happened to her was that she had to have a test. All newborn babies get what is called a heel-stick test. That is the test that checks for many different kinds of metabolic abnormalities in the newborn. And when these are done and those things are caught early, with correct treatment, the baby can thrive.

Olives are filled with tests. They may be a physical test, a psychological test, a mental test, an academic test, and a spiritual or faith test. Abraham's life was filled with tests, which he sometimes past sometimes did not. The test that is recounted in our Scripture passage this morning happens to be one that Abraham passed.

How Abraham came to be the chosen patriarch of the Hebrew people and other Arab peoples is a very interesting story and is told in Genesis 10-25. His family came from a place called Ur of the Chaldeas, Mesopotamia, (Southeastern Iraq). When he was a young man his father, Terah, took him, his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot away from the place of their birth. They were headed for Canaan, the area we know today as Israel/Palestine, including the West Bank, western Jordan, southern and coastal Syria and Lebanon continuing up to the border of modern Turkey.

The family did not make it all the way to Canaan but stopped at a place near Haran, where they stayed until Abraham's father died. Then Abraham was called by God to take his family and possessions on to the land of Canaan, which he did. Abraham and his family were nomadic which meant they moved around from place to place so that their herds were able to graze different places, but basically he lived in Canaan.

Because Abraham was obedient to God's call on his life, God made a covenant with him and promised him that he would be the father of many nations; that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars or as many as the dust of the earth.

As Abraham grew older he was faced with many challenges, many tests. One important test involved waiting for the promise of a child. It wasn't until Abraham was 100 years old, and his wife Sarah was 99, that the child of the promise, Isaac, was conceived.

Isaac was the child through whom Abraham's descendents would come. Can you imagine how you would have felt if you had been asked by God to sacrifice the child who was the fulfillment of God's promise to you? It is difficult for me to imagine.

As we read this story we want to keep in mind that Abraham lived in a culture very different from our own. Child sacrifice was practiced by at least some of the cults of Caanan who worshiped Moleck, Ba'al and other Eastern god's. The practice is certainly abhorrent to us today, but in Abraham's time to sacrifice a child meant that you were completely faithful to the god you followed.

The test that God was asking of Abraham had less to do with child sacrifice as it had to do with faithful obedience. Of course, the sheer magnitude of the test causes us to want to turn our heads away. We want to ask the question, how could God ask Abraham to give up, take the life of, not just a child, not just his son, not just his promised future, but everything that had meaning and value to him. The enormity of God's request is almost too much for us to imagine.

God was asking Abraham to give up everything. That was Abraham's test, to trust God enough to be obedient even in the face of such a thing. Have any of us ever been tested in such a way? Have any of us ever been asked to trust God with the most important things in our lives?

You moms out there, do you remember your little one's 1st day of school? You dads, do you remember the day when you handed your keys over to that teenager for the 1st time? In reality all of us trust God with the most important things in our lives on a daily basis. And on a daily basis we are given tests of faith.

In the case of Abraham, the patriarch attends to the details of his test with what one writer calls a "speechless concentration of the sleepwalker." Compared to times past, for example, when Abraham argued for this salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah, in this story Abraham says nothing in response to God's request. He seemed to have a blind faith, an ultimate faith, the kind of faith that goes forward without knowing the outcome, or what God might have planned.

There are moments in our life as well when our faith is tested in such a way, that we must also go forward, and we don't know for sure what the outcome will be. There are times when we must continue to believe God has our best interests at heart. Those times when we have heard a bad diagnosis, or that our job has been eliminated, or our spouse has asked for divorce, these are all tests of our faith. These are times when we are asked by God to trust God with the most important things in our lives.

So, how is our faith developed? How do we get to a place where we, like Abraham, can say when God calls us, "Here I am." When we look at the life of Abraham we see a man whose faith develops over time. Abraham often makes mistakes, as when he continually passes off Sarah as his sister instead of his wife, and when he takes Hagar as a surrogate mother for his child. Yet all during his life, regardless of mistakes, Abraham continues to maintain his faithfulness to God, and God remains faithful as well.

Like Abraham, our faith will become stronger the longer we trust in God. I remember many years ago when I was given a serious diagnosis, one that could potentially have a deadly outcome. I remember as I prayed to God about this news that I had many emotions, anger, disbelief, fear, anxiety. But mixed in with those emotions I remembered that I should have a tiny molecule of faith. In those desperate moments, the thought came to me: this is where I'll find out how much faith I really have. It was in those moments, that I was being asked by God to trust God with the most important thing to me, my life. Thanks be to God, God provided for me.

Abraham and Isaac finally reached the mountaintop that God had led him to, Abraham was still willing to trust God. At the last minute the Angel of God stopped Abraham from doing the unthinkable. It was then that Abraham was able to see clearly that God had provided for the sacrificial worship that Abraham wanted to give to God.

The Bible tells us that Abraham named the place "Jehovah Jerah," which means the Lord will provide. As I studied this Scripture this week I was interested in that word Jehovah Jerah, and it's full meaning in the Hebrew language. The word actually means more than, "to provide," it also means, "to see." As I studied further I began to realize that what Abraham was announcing was that, at this place, God would see Abraham's faithfulness. Moreover, the faith that Abraham had, had been provided by God.

I believe that it is indeed God who provides for us. God not only provides the things that we need in our daily lives, but God also provides the faith we need to be faithful. It is true that our faith grows over time as we witness God's protection, love and care, but all of our faith is indeed provided by God. This is true for us as individuals and also as a church.

Not only are we tested as individuals, we are also tested as a church. Over the last 6 months, leaders of Pisgah UMC have been involved in discerning, visioning, and planning for the ministries that God is leading us to be involved in.

Part of that process involved looking at the history of Pisgah UMC. It has become apparent to me that Pisgah UMC is a church that has been tested many times. Pisgah has been asked by God to take on projects, outreach programs, and community ministries that must have seemed impossible at the time. For example, Pisgah UMC was asked by God to build a new church building during one of the most depressed economic times of the 20th century.

It must have been a great challenge for the members to make the decision to follow God in such an endeavor. Yet, they had a history of building churches. They have seen the outcomes of what God was able to do through them. It has built up their faith in God. Every generation is called on to trust God.

This building we are seated in today is the 3rd Pisgah church building. Apparently Pisgahnites have always been unafraid to place their trust in God for an unseen and uncertain future. I believe it is because they had faith that God is Jehovah Jirah!

Well, God is calling on us again. We are being asked to trust God and the vision God has given us. Those who have been praying, studying, and listening for God's direction have put together a vision statement, which outlines how we will go about being in mission with God. (Read vision statement)

You will remember from last week what our mission is: Our Mission Is to Connect People to Christ. And the way God is leading us to being in mission is contained in our vision statement. Hopefully, everything that we will plan to do over the next 5 to 10 years will connect back to this vision.

I am tremendously excited about what God is doing in our midst. The vision and planning group is working hard on the planning for the church. For some of us it seems like the process is taking an inordinate amount of time. But that is okay. The more time we take, the more prayers we lift to God, the more we conference together, discussing possibilities, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses, the more God inspired our planning will be.

I am asking you today to be in solemn prayer for this group of people who are planning. Please ask God to be Jehovah Jarah for them as they plan. Ask God to give them faith, vision and above all boldness. And ask God to provide clear direction. Our hope is that by the middle of August, we will have put together a 5 to 10 year plan for the future that God has for us at Pisgah.

I wonder how God may test us, and how God will be our Jehovah Jarah, not only providing us with the faith we need but also the passion, the provisioning, and the faithfulness to follow God, both in our individual lives and as a church.

I do believe that God is our Jehovah Jarah. May God bless us in our endeavor's to be mission ready and faith tested. Amen.