March 7, 1993
Romans 4:1 "What shall we say that Abraham ... has found?"
The question of our text, "What has Abraham discovered?" comes between two Bible stories in our lesson for today; one from the Old Testament, one from the New. Both of these stories touch on the profound mystery of life itself. Let us start with the Old Testament story. I hope that you can come to it with "fresh eyes."
I. THE CALL FOR 'A RADICAL DEPARTURE'
(A story. A true story.) Once upon a time there was a good man. He had a good family. He had good connections. He was living in a reasonably comfortable manner. He was abreast of the latest modern technology. His life was not in crisis. But deep in his heart there was the nagging uncertainty, the question he could not put into words:
"IS THIS ALL THERE IS TO LIFE?"
Then one day this good man became aware that Almighty God was talking to him. Just how this awareness came about I can not tell you. [ We're so sophisticated... we "know" God doesn't talk to people ... now! Or does He? ] But Abraham heard a call from God that sent him packing. It was a call of a loving God, calling a seeker to Himself.
We usually miss this basic fact in the telling of this great story. But God was answering the question that sooner or later we all come to ask: IS THIS ALL THERE IS TO LIFE? God was saying, "Well, no, as a matter of fact THIS isn't all there is to life! And if you are willing and obedient, I will show you what your heart is seeking! I want you to "come home" and live your earthly life WITH ME as your closest Friend!"
In order to find his true home in God's Presence, Abraham had to LEAVE all false security behind. ("Entering" almost always also means "leaving.") God said, "I want you to LEAVE... your country your people your father's relatives and above all your right to control your own direction!"
But never lose sight of the fact that this was (1) a call from God (2) inviting Abraham into a one-on-one relationship with Himself!
II. QUESTIONS THIS PASSAGE RAISES:
1) Does God still call people like He did Abraham?
2) How would God get your attention if He wanted to speak to you?
3) How might we respond to a call from God in 1993?
Does God still call individual people?
My 'message' is "yes:" I am convinced that God is thundering His call to a "radical departure" ... all the life stories of conversion and salvation, from Noah, and Abraham, and the Exodus, and the prophets are being echoed today in one great call "Save yourselves from this reprobate civilization!" In a society where it is a criminal offense to hand out Bibles in the schools - while it is commendable to teach perversion and hand out birth control devices; where millions of people use abortion as a means of birth control after the fact; where public media does its best to ridicule anything supernatural that has to do with God Almighty, while at the same time promotes the worship of Mother Earth and in the name of Pluralism makes Jesus Christ sound like a bigot when He declares:
"No one comes to the Father but by Me!" ... still in all this God calls, "Leave the prison of your self-made gods— come away from a Scripture that YOU edit and cut and pick and choose and stand in judgment over — leave the bondage of "what so-called sophisticates might think," — and step out on a journey of faith with Me!
My personal testimony is "yes:" I know you would expect an evangelical Christian minister to answer in the affirmative. I can answer that I am certain, convinced, sure, that God spoke to me when I was living selfishly and out of fellowship with Him. He spoke to me by both love and fear; by what I might call "Behold the goodness and the severity of God" (Romans 11:22)
How would God call YOU, if He wanted to call you?
God speaks through dramatically unspectacular, quiet "means of grace," through a regular submission to the Word; by an habitual obedience in prayer; by the sacrifice of praise and worship in the corporate worship of the church.
It might just be that God has a quiet but absolutely vital message for you during this next week of revival services. I ask you now if you have re-arranged your schedule even one little bit in order to give God a chance to communicate with you during this Lenten Season— and even perhaps through Floyd and Barbara Flemming, who have been praying and preparing for their ministry in the Word to us? It doesn't make much difference HOW God is calling if you are not listening, or tuning in on a completely different channel.
[I toyed with the idea of just reading Wesley Tracy's editorial in last week's Herald. It really challenged me. So here it is:]
[begin editorial]
COME ON HOME[1]
Isn't it time for you to come home? Haven't you had enough of the world's shallow gratifications? Haven't you had enough counterfeit answers to your heart's deep needs? Haven't you leaned your ladder on the wrong wall too long already? Aren't you tired of trying to be a classy sophisticate who knows all about things timely— progressive education, career enhancement, political correctness, next season's fashions, and the done thing?
Are you not tired of having just enough religion to make you uncomfortable at a cocktail reception and yet ill at ease in the presence of the Holy?
There is time to come back to simple holy living. A time to come back to self-control, Christian simplicity, and spiritual discipline energized by God's grace.
"Now is the time. We have been through it all— the grasping, the looking, the searching. We have lived as people who try to serve God and mammon, and we know now that it cannot be done.[2]
Too many Christians have drifted into letting the world tell them how to dress, what to drive, what songs and entertainment with which to saturate the soul, and just how to put me first at the expense of other people whom nobody puts first. Some who take the name of Christ seem owned by their ambitions, chained to a success formula, enslaved by the hunger for prestige— diseases they have caught from our sinful culture. They fill up the ranks of the Christian jet set. Visit any important Christian conference and you will see them— "dressed alike, talking alike, smiling alike, looking over the shoulders of the people to whom they are speaking in order to see who else has come into the room."[3]
The world has taught us to reach for the things that matter least while neglecting the things that matter most. Prayer, Bible study, devotion, and obedience have been elbowed to the margins as Christian self-help propaganda taught believers to dress for success, win through intimidation, fulfill themselves, enjoy sex, and lose weight. Richard Baxter's 17th-century description fits today's cosmopolite evangelicals like a glove:
When we should study God we study ourselves; when we should mind God, we mind ourselves; when we should love God, we love our carnal selves; when we should trust God, we trust ourselves; when we should honour God, we honour ourselves; and when we should ascribe to God and admire Him, we ascribe to and admire ourselves: and instead of God we would have all men's eyes and dependence on us, and all men's thanks returned to us, and would gladly be the only men on earth extolled and admired by all. And thus naturally we are our own idols.[4]
Even spirituality has become something to be utilized. We were coached to practice the spiritual disciplines in order to achieve self-fulfillment, discover happiness, become fully human, and overcome stress. Such behavior is a lilac-scented blasphemy. The only reason to practice the spiritual disciplines is because of who God is.
Not even Hollywood has "out-glitzed" evangelical religion. Popular Christianity has been polled, charted, televised, and made "user friendly" by the best ad crews in the world. But now we know that making Christianity compatible with the loose living and undisciplined conduct of our culture does not work. The popular church "has lower standards for membership than those for getting on a bus."[5] But we have learned a few lessons, haven't we? "Now we can see . . . where uncontrolled living goes. We know the misery. We have felt it."[6]
It is time to come home. Time to stop trying to be citizens of two countries. It is time to stop trying to blend God's way with our own wants and lusts. Come home to Christian simplicity, discipline, and holiness of heart and life.
The journey is not easy. The worldly culture will try to sweep you back into its whirlwind of shallow gratifications, its conscience- deadening maze of greeds and lusts, its "cosmetic diversions and plastic pleasures."
Resist them in the power of the Spirit. They are vapors of fantasy that lead only to emptiness. On the other hand, the holy life to which God is calling you is "astonishing in its completeness," as Thomas Kelley writes. Of the holy life, he says,
Its joys are ravishing, its peace profound, its humility the deepest, its power world-shaking, its love enveloping, its simplicity that of a trusting child ... It is the life and power of Jesus of Nazareth.7
[begin editorial]
Yes, God calls! The last question, is How can we respond? :...
III. WE CAN RESPOND WITH FAITH
The other story of the morning is from John 3. Here is another wealthy, successful, respected man, a leader in society, who is asking himself:
IS THIS ALL THERE IS TO LIFE?
He comes to Jesus by night. He says, nice things to start the conversation, but Jesus almost interrupts him to say: "Unless you are BORN AGAIN you cannot even SEE the kingdom of heaven!"
Nicodemus was a sort of "literalist." "How can such a thing be?"
Right at this place Jesus reminded Nicodemus of an Old Testament story every Jewish child knew— and ever Christian child ought to know, too. You know it, too— remember the Children of Israel had been disobedient, and as a judgment an invasion of poisonous snakes began a fatal assault on them, left and right. God had Moses fashion a serpent of brass and lift it up on a pole. As many as looked to the serpent recovered. Those who refused to look died.
Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Your journey into life starts with a look! It begins with faith in what I am going to do on the Cross of Calvary! Faith is trusting ME!"
Conclusion:
Our text tells us that Abraham, the father of faith, discovered something. Just what was it that Abraham discovered and passed on to all people of faith?
It is the answer to the question so many have asked through the ages:
IS THIS ALL THERE IS TO LIFE?
Abraham discovered that real LIFE is about walking with God! Getting to know God! And in the text Paul tells us that God still wants people to walk with Him by faith.
God still calls people to come HOME into the growing assurance that we can live in the will of God, and we can KNOW it!
I'm convinced that if we answer this call, two things are necessary:
We need to deliberately break the insulation that separates us from entering into God's Presence, the "Shekinah." God's Presence is life-giving. We must enter into the Presence and worship, wherever we are coming from.
We need to break the bondage of self-consciousness before the judgment of other human beings. "If I buy into this radical response I will be stepping back into the '30s— I will be an ignorant sheep—-" NOT if it is truly GOD who is calling you to come HOME to HIM!
Footnotes
[1] Editorial by Wesley Tracy (WT) in The Herald of Holiness, March 1993, 2,3
[2] WT quotes Roger C. Palms, Enjoying the Closeness of God
[3] WT quotes Palms, Enjoying, 20
[4] WT quotes Richard Baxter, The Saint's Everlasting Rest
[5] WT quotes Harry R. Rudin, Christian Century, June 4,1952
[6] WT quotes Palms, Enjoying 30
[7] WT quotes Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, 29
