| "The Fruits Of Having Faith" Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – August 12, 2012 Centenary United Psalm 112; Hebrews 11:29-40 It would be
interesting if one day we decided to have something similar to a
town hall meeting as a
congregation. We could sit
around and discuss topics of mutual interest.
What would you personally disclose if the topic was, “What does
it mean to live by faith?”
Would we sit there quietly wearing an “I am thinking” expression
on our faces? Would we be
one that provides a safe, general answer that had been given to us by a
Sunday school teacher or our moms and dads?
Or, would we have an answer that has worked for us so far in our
lives? Once I gave this
topic to a group of senior highs as we sat around a camp fire.
We had been hiking for most of the day and some of the kids had
blisters. Some of them were
tired because they had walked more miles than most of them had all year.
One of the kids said, “So, is this the time we do
church, roast marshmallows
and sing campfire songs?” I
said, “No, this is a time designed to help us unwind and to talk
casually about our life-experiences.” A number of them
immediately started talking about their personal beliefs.
While it was interesting to hear what some of them believed,
beliefs were not the topic. We had to define
faith as being different from
our beliefs. After a few
unsuccessful starts, one of the kids said
the magic word that I was
looking for. She said,
“Trust. Faith is having
trust in some thing or someone.”
Another young man said, “Faith is knowing that you are always
going to be okay in spite of what happens.”
Both of their comments opened the door for a lot of honest
sharing. The young man
followed up his answer by revealing what had happened to his family
several years before. His
mom and dad sat down with him and his sister and told them that they
were separating and would probably be getting a divorce.
He told us that there had been
no signs in their family that his parents were not happily married.
After a long
silence he continued,
I could not get
past the idea that our lives as a family were over.
My sister and I went for long
walks every night trying to piece together as if we were partly to
blame. The toughest part was
realizing that we were never going to be together again as we had been
all our lives. Our trust in the security of our family was shattered. The group sat
motionless and stunned. I’m
sure they were all thinking of what their lives would be like if this
was their story. After the
long deafening silence he
said, “My sister and I were angry at first, but we came to the
conclusion that we were not going to allow what our parents decided
to rain on our parade.”
Then, this 17-year old that sounded like he had the experience of
a 60-year old said, “Life can be trusted to take us safely into the
future when we always ask ourselves, ‘What can I take from this
experience that will make me a more confident person?’” With that comment,
the kids all jumped on the
bandwagon and started sharing. We finally crawled into our sleeping
bags around 3:00 a.m. I
doubt many of the kids slept.
The evening had been most intense.
The conclusion reached by
that group of young people was that faith is remaining confident when
people are in circumstances where the outcome is unknown. Our lesson today
comes from the Book of Hebrews.
Chapter 11 opens with words that may be familiar to most of you:
“To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, and to
remain certain of the things that we cannot see.” The entire chapter is
a historical overview of the personalities in It is comforting
and reassuring for us to hear faith stories from others, but those
stories really do very little to prepare us to walk through
the door of uncertainty with
total confidence that we are going to be okay in spite of what happens.
Such faith, however, allows us to deal with what is actually happening
rather than being overwhelmed with worries over all the fearful
possibilities of what might happen.
Many of us do not
have a lot tolerance for uncertainty.
Why is that?
It may be that we have not had to face a lot of uncertainty during our
lifetimes and we have not had the practice time to deal with such
events.
If we understood the external
world as a mechanism for refining our skills of spirit, we would have a
solution to one of life’s biggest mysteries – what is the meaning of
life? However, a
good number of people become frazzled, upset, frustrated and fearful the
moment they find themselves an
inch outside of their comfort zones.
In his book,
The Shoes of a Fisherman,
Morris L. West wrote:
It takes so much to
be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment
or the courage to pay the price. One has to abandon altogether the
search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms.
One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain
and loss as conditions of existence. One has to court doubt and
darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in
conflict and courageous enough to accept every consequence that comes
from living and dying. These are words
that come from someone who has learned how to remain fully alive rather
than hiding in the corner or staying on the sidelines of living by
playing it safe.
Only by taking risks do we learn
who we are. Far
too many people content themselves by remaining passive.
They never rock the boat, they never make waves and they seldom
protest the misguided decisions made by others.
Rather, they join the legions of
pleasers by not getting
involved with anything controversial.
Until we face our worst
fears, we will never develop the power to dismiss them. Let us return to
the backpacking experience with the group of teenagers. The reason I
wanted the kids to talk about what living by faith looked like to them
was that I knew what we were going to do the next day.
One young woman in the group had been so empathetic toward the
young man whose parents divorced.
She admired him so much for responding with courage to go on with
his life in spite of his parents’ decision. Now it was her turn
to put into practice what she admired in him.
The exercise for the day was to rappel down the face of a 100
foot cliff. All the kids
had to do it. She had to
trust her equipment. She
had to trust the people who were holding her rope on the other end.
She had to see how she would perform walking backwards off a
cliff. She would have to
learn what it is like to have faith – to trust, to let go without
knowing for sure the outcome. She froze.
She refused to do it. Her
knees and legs had turned to
rubber. I told her
that she did not have any other option; she was going to rappel off the
cliff. She became angry and
said, “This is not funny, Dick!” When I would not let her quit, she
began telling me how disappointed she was that the image she had of me
had been so wrong. I told
her that I was not in any popularity contest but I was into helping her
build character and courage to face the unknown. During this drama,
I reminded her to take charge of her fears rather than being ruled by
them. I said, “Remember
Jimmy’s comment last night that life can be trusted to take us through
life safely. Reach down
inside of yourself and let go of your fear.”
She screamed that she was going to die as she took the plunge.
She jumped off the cliff backwards as instructed.
She did a masterful
job for a first-timer going
down the cliff. When she
got to the bottom, all of us that had listened to her emotional meltdown
applauded. When Lois
came down the same cliff not far behind her, she had tears in her eyes.
When I asked her if she would like to do that again, she said,
“That would be a No!” Having faith gives
us a grounding to face nearly anything.
In order to behave courageously in life, we have to grab onto
living with both hands and trust that God will always be our
safety net.
God will always be on the other end of
our rope.
Once we learn to take little risks, we develop the confidence to
take greater ones. This is how
faith evolves from providing us with a little confidence to giving us a
rock upon which to stand to face anything.
Remember, all the
disciples but John had run away.
After Jesus’ death, they came back to their mission and remained
even more committed to spreading the teachings of Jesus with greater
boldness. They became
living proof that what Jesus taught works.
They gave up their fears and worries just like Jesus had done.
After all, God is the creator of where humanity is headed.
We are blessed and fortunate to be both spectators and
participants as our faith evolves. A woman in my
former church, Louise Mott, gave me a quote that I have hanging in my
home office in the States.
It reads: Life is not a
journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty
and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly
used up, totally worn out, and proclaiming, “Wow! What a ride! We need to remember
God is always telling us, “Get out there and see what you can do with
what I’ve given you! I’ve
shown you a very small part of what I have created; now show me what you
can create as your life continues to unfold.”
If all of us could
remember the wisdom from that 17-year old boy in the youth group, most
of us would be able to look at every uncertainty as an opportunity,
every mountain as a test of our skills, every loss as a stepping stone
toward a new tomorrow. His
words again were these:
“Life can be trusted to take us safely into the future when we always
ask ourselves, ‘What can I take from this experience that will make me a
more confident person?’” Every pastor has encountered countless colorful experiences during the weddings they have performed. A colleague of mind told me what happened during one of his weddings. It was not until after the wedding that he learned about the drama that took place prior to the bride coming down the aisle. The bridal party
had all processed into the sanctuary and was facing the congregation.
The organist began playing the processional, Here Comes the
Bride, but she did not budge.
The minister’s wife having remained in the back quickly
recognized the tell-tale symptom of
cold feet and ran to her side
and said, “Okay, honey, this is your moment.”
The bride said, “I’m not sure I want to do this.”
Of course, Daddy’s
eyes got as big as saucers as he saw, financial disaster!
financial disaster! flash across his mind’s video
screen. The pastor’s
wife was quick with a response.
She said, “You can never be sure about anything in life.
Step out on faith and trust God to fill in the blanks.”
She cued the father who took that first important step and the
bride followed. The wedding
unfolded as they normally do. This is the way it
is with most of life. If we read every reference in chapter 11 of
Hebrews, none of those victories
in What makes life the remarkable adventure that it is are the surprises that come, the disappointments that teach us the art of coping, the detours that take us to an opportunity we would have never recognized, the death of a marriage that enabled us to graduate from the school of neediness, or the injury that caused us to renew a commitment to exercise every day for the rest of our lives. If we want to make
God smile, take what we were
given and run the race before us.
God wants us to find our
treasure and use it to make our world a more loving and wholesome
place for men and women to live. God knows that our
only two choices are to grow or to engage in activities that cause delay
in our growth. In spite of
which choice we make, God’s love will never waiver toward anyone.
Nothing we do is powerful enough to separate us from the love of
God. (Romans 8:39) With that
assurance, what is there to fear?
The absence of fear is the major fruit produced by lives that
live by faith. |