TIME FOR A FAITH LIFT
Genesis 18:1-15; Luke 1: 5-25
1. There’s a company on the Internet called Face Lift, aggressively marketing their non-surgical rejuvenating product. Their web page states:
• Think about it . . . you can look younger in just 15 minutes. Simply apply our formula, and lift 10 years from your face anytime you wish! Our revolutionary formula is guaranteed to make you look 10 years younger in just 15 short minutes! No expensive, painful surgery! 100% money back guarantee! For more information, click here…
• WOW! Sounds incredible doesn’t it – and so simple – just rub some lotion on your face and in 15 minutes you’re looking 10 years younger!
• Well, if I put some of that stuff on every 15 minutes for just an hour you could have an 18 year old looking youth pastor! You think it’s worth it?
2. Sorry, that’s not for me – you’re going to just have to get used to this face as it is.
3. Of course, what I want to speak to you about today is getting your FAITH lifted – not your FACE – I’m not lithping - but I can make you this promise – this 100% money back guarantee – well, let’s just go with 100% guarantee – that when you get your FAITH lifted, it will most certainly have a beneficial outcome on your FACE as well.
• Your FACE will glow, the worry wrinkles will begin to disappear
• You will become more accustomed to smiling than frowning
• Abraham Lincoln apparently said that by age 40 a person is totally responsible for the look on his/her face
• So, are you ready to get your FAITH and your FACE lifted?
4. The two Scripture passages we read both deal with elderly people struggling to reconcile their longings, their hopes, their dreams to have a child with the promise of God to soon deal with their situation. They both face the gap between what they desire and what their minds tell them is humanly possible with a good dose of skepticism and doubt.
• Sarah laughed and said to herself: "An old woman like me? Get pregnant? With this old guy of a husband?" – You could imagine her just dismissing the thought by saying, “Yeah, right! Tell me another!”
• Zechariah responds to the promise of the angel that Elizabeth will fall pregnant and give birth to a son by saying, "Do you expect me to believe this? I’m an old man and my wife is an old woman." So God mercifully shut him up for the next 9 months so that he wouldn’t go speaking his doubt to his wife!
5. I don’t know if any of you are still hoping and longing for a child, but together we are facing a somewhat similar daunting and doubt producing challenge – that of replacing the roof on this sanctuary and all the additional renovations that will be required to make it a safe place for worship. Whatever way we look at it, it is going to be a costly venture.
• Many or most are older and on limited financial resources
• We no longer have the strength and energy to do a lot of the stuff ourselves that we had in our younger days
6. So how do we respond to this challenge before us?
• Leaving it as it is in the hope that the building will not collapse – after all it’s been that way for quite some time now.
• Hoping that another and younger generation will deal with the problem
• Trying not to think about it because we have enough other problems – our health, our children and grandchildren, whatever to deal with
7. I want to ask you this morning – how do you respond to the question the angel of the Lord put to Abraham - Is anything too hard for GOD?
• If your response is anything other than a straightforward and confident NO – if it is a “NO, …but…”, then you are needing to have your FAITH lifted.
• How will God handle it? I haven’t the foggiest idea – but that is not my or your problem. That is His business. Our job is simply to bring our need before Him in the confidence that He cares for us, that He knew our need BEFORE we were even aware of it ourselves, and that He has a solution already worked out.
• And we make ourselves available to Him in whatever way He chooses to be the channels through whom He works to bring about His purpose.
• Do I need to underscore the fact that there was no immaculate conception in the case of either Sarah or Elizabeth. Both conceptions still took place as a result of regular sexual activity. There was still something for them to do in the process of God’s answer being provided.
• And there will be something for each of us to do in the process of God’s answer to our need becoming a reality.
8. The first verse of Hebrews 11 in the old King James version states, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The NIV puts it this way, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
• The world’s philosophy is that “Seeing is believing”. How often haven’t you heard people say, “You’ve gotta see it to believe it”. It tells us that the only things we can be absolutely certain of are the things we can see with our eyes, feel with our hands, and weigh or measure with our scientific equipment.
• Well, faith is the exact opposite – Faith says, “You’ve gotta believe it to see it.” It says, “Believing is seeing”.
9. Now this ought not to be such a hard concept for us to grasp because it is the kind of thing each one of us does in countless numbers of ways every day of our lives. We exercise faith so often without even thinking about it – it’s become an almost natural part of our lives. And we exercise faith when we put what we believe into action.
• If you drove here to church today, you had faith that your car would start and the motor turn and get you from your home here to the church. Saying you have faith that your car will get you to church without getting into your vehicle and turning the ignition and driving it is what the letter of James calls “dead faith” – “faith without works.
• You exercised faith when you sat down on the pew believing that it would hold you up and not collapse under you.
• You exercise faith when you deposit your money in the bank that they are going to take good care of it for you and not steal it.
• You will exercise faith just now when you pour a cup of coffee that no one has put arsenic in the water
10. And your faith has been built up and strengthened throughout your life by risks that you took and trust that was developed along the way as you experienced enough favorable outcomes from taking those risks – otherwise you would be totally paranoid – trusting no one and no thing.
11. In Romans 12:3 Paul writes that God has given to each of us “a measure of faith” – some more and some less. Just as God didn’t make any of us carbon copy templates of one another in our looks or personality or character – so in the measure of faith, we differ from one another.
• Two people can each be "full of faith", but one’s capacity is greater than the other’s.
• The issue is not the quantity we have, but what we do with what we have.
12. We were not all born with the same physical attributes. Some of us are skinny and some are heavier. Some are tall and some are short. Some are naturally stronger than others…and so on.
• But what we all have in common is that we all have muscles. Without muscles we would be like blobs of jello – unable to move ourselves or move anything.
• The degree to which we work out and exercise determines to a large degree how much we can do with our muscles.
• So we can increase our muscular capacity and endurance through regular exercise. I remember in my younger days – and until we moved to our present home where we didn’t have room for a large weight machine - doing some weight lifting and my goal was always to keep adding a few extra pounds and to keep increasing the number of reps with which I worked the increased load.
13. Guess what? The same is true of faith. We were all given a measure of faith by God and we all have the ability to grow and strengthen our faith by applying our confidence in the word and promises of God. Romans 10:17 states “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
• The more we feed our minds and our spirits with the word of God, and act on that word, the more we strengthen and increase our faith as we discover that God is absolutely faithful and totally trustworthy.
• And hearing that word, but never acting on it – Jesus compares to the foolish man who built his house on the sand that will never stand in times of trial.
14. So just as the person who is intent on working out and building his or her muscles does not shy away from the gym, but welcomes the opportunity to get on the machines – and even though it is often tough going – doesn’t quit – because they are looking beyond the present sweat and huffing and puffing and sighing to the slimmer, trimmer and more muscular physique and the sense of well-being that goes with it…
• So, we do not shy away from those moments that stretch our endurance and produce resistance – that cause us sometimes to huff and puff and toil and sweat - because we know that our loving heavenly Father in His mercy and grace has permitted this endurance test not to crush and destroy us, but to grow and strengthen our confidence in Him.
• And there is a great prize and reward for faithfulness that lies beyond the test
• A prize that outshines and surpasses any material gain we might achieve this side of eternity
• And that prize involves beholding the smile on the face of our Lord Jesus Christ as He says to us on that final day, “Well done good and faithful servant! You have been faithful in a few things. I will now set you over much. Come, enter into the joy of your Master.”
15. So as we face the challenge before us, in closing, I put to you the same question that the angel put to 99 year old Abraham somewhere around August 1, 2200 B.C. – “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
• And I invite you now to take an initial step of faith as you affirm your belief “NO, Lord! Nothing is too hard for you” – by standing where you are – or raising a hand if you cannot stand – and let’s declare to the Lord our trust and our confidence in Him.
AMEN.
