Sunday, July 7, 2019
What gives you calm assurance? How do you find a feeling of security?
Of course the church answer to these
questions is “God.” But, what’s your
actual answer? Maybe it is God that you
turn to and in turning to God, you find assurance. The important point is your honest
answer. Not what you’d say to sound religiously correct in church, but when,
in actuality, do you feel truly safe and believe your hopes will come
true? What gives you that feeling?
A friend from my seminary days,
John, remembers growing up in Hawaii, fearing hurricanes. He was 9 years old. Schools were closed early because the island
was in the path and a hurricane warning was issued. He and his siblings hurried home and began
boarding up windows and filling containers with water. Out the window, they saw trees bending over
in the wind. An eerie, pre-storm
darkness settled over the early afternoon sky.
Their mom arrived home and
complimented her children on their hurricane prep. Still, they were scared. Then, their dad walked through the door. John’s fear evaporated into assured
confidence. The storm eventually changed
course. The island was not hit. Nine-year-old John was completely convinced
that the storm dare not harm them, not while their dad was home. His assurance came from his faith in his dad.
Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for. What prevents us from having
this assurance? The demon of uncertainty.
What will the test at the doctor’s office reveal? My daughter isn’t home and it’s really
late. Where is she? They’re announcing layoffs at work. Is my position safe? What will I do if it isn’t? The demon of uncertainty nips constantly at
the edges of our consciousness.
The assurance of things hoped for;
faith is also the conviction of things not seen. My served in the infantry in the Vietnam
War. He was one of only five Americans
in his unit. They were advisers with
America’s allies, the South Vietnamese.
Deep in the jungle, in the midnight darkness that swallows men up, it
was impossible for Dad to distinguish between his own soldiers and the North
Vietnamese enemy.
The first time he was in that
situation, he had to completely trust in his training, his God, and his fellow
soldiers. With bullets flying over that
head making the whizzing sound only those who have experience combat have
heard, listening to shouts from all sides coming in a language he did not know,
and with the deafening cacophony of gunfire, Dad did not panic. Faith enabled him to maintain his
composure. He had a moment where he
stepped outside of himself and remarked, “Oh! This is how I’ll react when it
gets real.”
No half-hearted effort would
do. For survival, he had to be confident
and to be confident, he had to have faith.
Twentieth century theologian Howard
Thurman had a similar moment of clarity in his life in ministry. Like my dad, only in different circumstances,
he too realized, “Oh! This is how I will
react when it gets real.”
A first year seminary student, he
was serving as a chaplain’s intern and on this particular night, he was the
only one in the chaplain’s office when the extremely concerned nurse
called. “Are you a minister?” She asked.
Thurman writes, “In one kaleidoscopic moment, I was at a crossroad. A decision of vocation had to be made.” Oh!
This is the moment. “Yes,” he
said, “I am a minister.” “Hurry,” her
worry rising, “A dying man has asked for a chaplain. Hurry or you won’t make it.” He did make it. That man died hearing Howard Thurman’s
prayer, holding Howard Thurman’s hand.
In that moment, a minister was born.
Faith is the conviction of things
not seen. What prevents us from having
conviction? The demon of ambivalent indecision.
“Are you a minister?” Howard
Thurman did not mumble, “I guess so.” He
said, “Yes, I am a minister.” My dad and
fellow soldiers didn’t say, “Well, we’ll try to win the battle tonight. We’ll do our best.’ They went out in faith to face very difficult
challenges.
Forced with severe trials that
impose stress on us and threaten us, we can’t sort of believe in God or vaguely
hope that some undefined help is coming from some nondescript somewhere. We need utter confidence in the God we know
through our faith in Jesus Christ. He is
the crucified, resurrected one. His Holy
Spirit fills this room and fills our hearts.
We live as if our lives depend on his help because we know they do. We live confidently because we know He is
dependable. God can be trusted.
How?
Where do we find such confidence?
What gives us the “assurance of things hoped for” and “the conviction of
things unseen?” The unseen God and His
pull on our lives.
From the 1890’s into the early 1900’s,
American mathematician Percival Lowell was observing the stars using the best
telescopes available at the time. He
sensed a gravitational pull on the planet Neptune, but he couldn’t see the body
exerting that pull. From his
calculations, he knew it was not the planet Uranus. He couldn’t see what it was, but he knew it
was there. He believed in his
understanding of how gravity and orbits work.
In the 1930’s astronomers confirmed his observations with the discovery
of what is now known as a dwarf planet, Pluto.
God’s gravitational pull on our
lives is much more potent than that of Pluto on Neptune. The writer of Hebrews was so convinced of God’s
reality and God’s goodness that he saw God’s hand guiding history. Because of his own experience in following
Jesus, he could feel God as he lived his life.
Have you felt the pull of God in
your life? During trying times, it can
be hard. The oft-quoted “assurance of
things hoped for, conviction of things not seen” can feel like wishful thinking
when life is falling apart and everywhere we look all we see is disappointment,
heartache, loss, and despair. The writer
of Hebrews does not deny this.
In 10:32, the passage that leads
into the word about faith in chapter 11, he writes, “Recall those earlier days,
when, after you had been enlightened [read saved
by faith], you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Believers in every age face trials. Thus the Hebrews author cautions Christ
followers, when facing tests, to not abandon the confidence we have (10:35).
In chapter 11, after the opening
words about faith, he moves into numerous examples of people who have
exemplified the kind of faith he’s describing.
Of all the names he references, I find Abel, son of Adam and Eve, quite
interesting.
Hebrews 11:4 refers to the story
originally told in Genesis 4. God
receives Abel’s offering but not Cain’s.
God does not reject Cain as a person, just his offering. Cain is enraged. God warns Cain telling him to master the sin
that is trying so hard to master him. He
doesn’t. He gives into the rage and murders
his brother Abel. When questioned by God
about what happened, Cain lies. Then he
reverts to bitterness. Am I my brother’s keeper?
The Hebrews author, like the Genesis
author does not specify why one offering was acceptable and the other was
not. What the writer of Hebrews does say
is Abel gave the offering in faith and his faith made the difference. Note,
faith did not save Abel. He was murdered.
Even when we display great faith, we can
and will face serious, dangerous opposition in life. What Hebrews tells us about Abel is “he died,
but through his faith, he still speaks” (11:4d).
When we receive faith as we yield to
God’s pull on our lives, and when we grow in faith through prayer, study,
worship, and a deepening relationship with God, our lives speak too. In good times and bad, when we walk in faith
like Abel and all those listed in Hebrews 11, God speaks in us; and, through
us, God reaches the world with His invitation to salvation.
Of course the key is walking in faith. Are we? Are we walking in the orbit of God’s
gravitational pull? Does the Spirit that fills us speak in our Monday-Saturday,
everyday lives? Does the truth we
discover when we comb through the pages of the Bible characterize how we
live? Do the decisions we make in life
reveal that we are listening to and trusting the Holy Spirit?
When he was asked, “Are you a
minister,” Howard Thurman said, “Yes, I am a minister.” When Cain had his moment, he raged at Abel,
abandoned his faith, and turned bitter toward God. How will you react when life confronts
you? Will you yield to the demons – the demon
of uncertainty and demon of ambivalent indecision?
Or do we remember? “By faith” the Hebrews author writes in verse
2, “our ancestors received approval.”
Will you and I join that heraleded role call – Abel, Enoch, Norah,
Abraham; Peter, Paul, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Billy Graham, Martin Luther
King Jr., Howard Thurman? Will we live
such a faith that our names are on the list?
God doesn’t care how small our congregation
is. God wants to see how big our faith
is. When Gideon went to battle against
tens of thousands, God whittled Gideon’s army away until all he had left was
300. The victory came not by military
might or genius strategy, but by faith.
We are orbiting the same God that delivered Gideon and justified Abel
and brought Jesus out of the grave, alive, resurrected. He will do the same for us.
Trust Him. In the battles you face in life, look to him,
unseen as God sometimes seems to be; look to Him and have faith.
AMEN
