"Following the Call"

Sermon by Pastor David Layman

June 5, 2005

Genesis 12:1-7 Romans 4:13,18-25

God often chooses unlikely people through whom He fulfills His promises. When God chose to create a special people to communicate His ways to the world, instead of beginning with a nice young married couple, He called childless Abraham (who was 75 at the time) and his wife Sarah. Then God promised to give them descendants, and that through them, "all the peoples of the world would be blessed." Such a promise was hard enough for septuagenarian Abraham to believe, but then God made it even harder by waiting a number of years before enabling Abraham and Sarah to give birth to Isaac. If I was trying to get someone to have faith in a hard to believe promise, I'd start fulfilling it immediately. But not God! When God calls people to faith, there can be plenty of time for doubt and second guessing to creep in!

In writing to the Romans, Paul wrote that Abraham "did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead,... or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb." The living God not only called Abraham and Sarah, the disciples and the Apostle Paul to such faith. He calls us to this faith today!

I've heard people say "All you've got to do is believe..." But I don't hear God saying to Abraham "All you've got to do is believe " God called upon Abraham to believe and leave his home and familiar surroundings, to set off to a new place, not knowing where he was going. The faith God called Abraham to was no easy journey. God didn't call Moses, or David, or Jesus, to do something easy, but something very hard. But in every case, over a period of time, God eventually fulfills His promises. Yet those who followed him had to face times of doubt, struggle and hardship along the way!

God is calling us to ventures in faith today. Not to an easy stroll down memory lane. Because, truth be told, even nostalgia isn't what it used to be! As a congregation, we might not look like the most likely candidate for God to work out His promises thru. We're actually part of three different congregations which have merged, and others that have chosen to join us. We're part of a denomination that has seen considerable decline, living in a part of the midwest that to many appearances, has seen better years. We've got pieces of stone like this falling from our building, we have more funerals than baptisms and marriages. While some today are considering an early retirement, Abraham was getting ready to begin the greatest adventure of his life at the age 75!

God continues to do great things in amazing ways in our day and time, often working through unlikely circumstances. When Second Presbyterian and Earlham Heights reached Abraham's age, their prospects did not look good. Yet instead of giving in to despair and dissolution, like Abraham Second and Earlham Heights chose to leave their familiar surroundings and follow God's call into the future with hope. Second Presbyterian had long had a mission outreach in the Starr Parkside neighborhood, and this continues through the Interfaith Mission Center. Sometimes, the seeds God plants take a while to germinate. Second had a Sunday School teacher named Sam Harsh, who found that he could get unchurched neighborhood boys to attend Sunday School if he offered them the incentive of something fun to do after church, such as going swimming. One of those boys, Chuck Clark, now a man, is publicly affirming his faith in Christ for the first time this morning! And instead of choosing to close their doors and leave the proceeds to Presbytery, Earlham Heights chose to merge with First. The money from the sale of the building has been designated to encourage the cause of Christ in various ways. Some has gone to aid disaster relief, such as from recent hurricanes in Florida. Some has gone to aid new church development in Mexico. $ 24,000 went to the Community Food Pantry at the Interfaith Mission Center, badly in need of support due to increasing demand. And $ 24,000 went to Hope House, which helped keep it alive until an appeal at Thanksgiving resulted in significant public support. Hope House, in the second half of 2004, was like a still childless Abraham on life support! As Thanksgiving approached last year, I was really discouraged. Hope House was in debt, ancf some who could have given feared they'd be pouring money into a lost cause. Paul speaks in Romans of Abraham being "as good as dead", and Hope House was about ready to flat line, living a significant medical bill! I'm not proud to say I

had lost Hope for Hope House! And then the turnaround carne. Earlier this year, an anonymous donor pledged a $ 50,000 matching gift. And Hope House is producing offspring which brings laughter and joy to the Abrahams and Sarahs of our world!

This afternoon at 4, we will begin a series of three meetings to consider the state of our church at this time in history: where we are, what God is calling us to do and where God is calling us to go. Like Abraham and Sarah, many of us are getting up in years! But God can do great things through us if we're willing to venture forth and follow His call. God does His best work when He has the faith of a community of believers, for the faith of an individual sometimes wavers. That is why God is calling us to work together as we seek to follow His challenging call into the future!

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