7/31/24

When I was in Athens, Greece, the hotel we were staying in had a spectacular view of the Acropolis, especially at night when the Parthenon was lit up. I couldn’t wait to get up to my room, throw open my window and take in the sight of that ancient wonder! I dropped my bags at the door, walked directly to the big picture window, swept open the curtain and drank in . . . the block wall of the building across the alley. 

The point of a window is to look outside. And, of course, there needs to be something outside to see!

You can have a small window or a huge picture window – the size of the window doesn’t matter – what does matter is what you’re looking out on. 

My favorite New Testament scholar,  N.T. Wright says that faith is like a window and what we’re looking out on is our powerful, holy and loving God! It doesn’t matter whether the faith is small like a peephole in a door or a big picture window. We might have a small window, but it’s a big outdoors! 

We might have small faith. . . but we have a big God!  

Windows also let light in, and the light our faith windows let in shows us up for who we really are – it shows up our weaknesses and frailties. BUT! What we’re called  to do is get our eyes off our weakness, fix our eyes on Jesus and boldly run the race! 

When we started this congregation, we started it in faith. We didn’t know much at all about starting a new church, and, frankly, the books I read were not very helpful. But we knew what we wanted to be: faithful. 

When I quit my last church gig I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do. The wisdom of the world would look on that as foolish. No intelligent 50-something year old man – who normally would be thinking about slowing down or retiring – is going to quit a fairly well-paying job with no sure prospects!

Not putting myself in the same category at all, I was reminded of Noah when God told him to build a boat although there was no water to be seen and 70 year old Abraham whom God told to leave his home. God said to Abraham,  “I want you to leave the place where you’ve been born and bred, and head off somewhere else; never mind where for the moment. I’ve got plans for you.” Abraham abandoned his security and walked by faith, not sight, to the land that God was going to give not even to him, but to his descendants. 

Hebrews 11 is full of examples of people who lived in faith  – these people are not some sort of super humans who lived on a different spiritual plane from the rest of us. No, they were ordinary people who were given bare promises – promises that if they would go up what might look to them like a dead-end, God would open for them a door that they never would have dreamed.

Paul tells us in I Corinthians 2:9, “God has prepared wonderful things for those who love him” ( and that’s GREAT!) but the rest of that passage says, “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived“ just what those things are! We have to go on faith. 

We stepped out on faith when we started this congregation, and God supplied every need. Almost every piece of furniture we have was given to us. The organ, the altar table – even the piano were gifts. The copy machine, the conference table, my shelves, my printer were all gifts. Even during a pandemic, when churches were struggling and some even closing, God blessed us and met every need. When we renovated our current building, we ended up with more money afterwards than we had when we started! 

We trusted God then. We trust God now. 

What does God have for us next? He knows! We might not at the moment, but we’re going to trust God. We’re going to stay in His word like He wants us to. And we’re going to be faithful to it. 

Hebrews 11 tells us “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Or as another translation says, “being certain of the things we do not see.” Abraham didn’t know where he was going when he set out. But by his obedience he showed that he was utterly confident that God would be true to his word. As the Hebrew writer says a few verses later, these people died in faith, not having yet received the promises but having seen them at a distance, and being persuaded of them, they embraced them. 

A Sunday School teacher once asked a student to define faith, and the little boy said, “Believing what you know ain't so except on Sundays.” We may not say that openly, but do we live like it? That “faith” is just a Sunday sort of thing we talk about but never really put any weight on. We want the certainty of what we can do on our own!  Or worse, we put our trust in the government or some outside agency . . . anything other than trusting in God. 

People who live by faith may not know where they are going, but they do have certainty – and that certainty is in the God who called them and who leads them.

Already I’ve had conversations with several members of our congregation who are stepping out on faith! It’s not easy taking those first steps of faith, but there’s nothing that matches the exhilaration of seeing God at work in your life. 

If you were here on Sunday, you received a prayer card. If you didn’t get one, we’ll have more available on Sunday. We’re asking that you write down a prayer request and bring it back this Sunday, August 4. We’ll spend the next year, praying over these cards (we, that’s you and me – you have to be invested in this as well), and then we will share with the congregation as (not if) God answers the requests.

They can be personal requests – it might even be something too personal to write down, so feel free to simply write, “Personal Prayer Request.” But I’d also like to see some “BHARs” – Big Hairy Audacious Requests: prayer requests that demand faith – prayer requests that can only be answered through the unmistakable action of God’s divine hand. 

I’m excited to see what the Lord has for us in the upcoming year! 

Blessings,
Pastor Terry