This Week's Light Service Sermon

Light Service Sermons for the Month
Developing the Quality of Character
Faith
DATE: March 22, 1998
TEXT: Genesis 22:9-14

A young girl was walking around in a toy store when she noticed a big clown-punching balloon. She looked at if for a minute and then hit it in the nose. The clown fell over and then popped right back up. It caught the little girl by surprise. So she hit it again. The clown fell over again and again popped right back up. Her dad happened to be watching her and asked, "Why do you think the clown comes back up when you knock him down?"

The little girl thought for a moment and said, "I don't know. I guess it's because he's standing up on the inside."

We live in a society today that longs for people who stand up on the inside—people of character—people who can be counted on to do the right thing; to stand up for what's right. People who we can look up to as role models.

Unfortunately, much of what we are seeing in the media today suggest that people of character are hard to find. Leaders make promises only to break them. Politicians live private lives that model anything but character. Hollywood stars often seem to stand on the side of that which devalues and demoralizes character. The loss of our moral compass, the loss of any kind of moral standard, has robbed us of the fiber of character.

Yet, deep down inside each one of us is a God-given desire to live life with character—live the kind of life that we can feel good about.

Thankfully, God is in the character-building business. He created us to live life with character, and as we live in a relationship with him, he lovingly and patiently molds character in us.

Today we're beginning a new three-part series on developing the qualities of character. Over the next few weeks we're going to look at how God shapes the character traits of joy and compassion in us. But today, as we begin, we're going to talk about how God can shape the character quality of faith in us. But before we talk about it, let's pray together.

Dear God in heaven. Thank you for valuing me. Fill me with your worth. Help me be a builder of worth in others as long as I live. And let me begin today. AMEN

Character is a matter of the heart. It's shaped in us as God captures our hearts and changes them. As one writer put it, when God measures people he puts the tape measure around their hearts, not their heads. So God builds character in us by capturing our hearts and remolding them with his love. And one of the character traits he molds in us is faith.

Faith people are dependable people. They're trustworthy. They're people of integrity because they live their lives in relationship with God. Like the clown balloon, they stand up on the inside. Because they know that their future is secure with God, they live life with confidence. They have a can-do attitude because they serve the God of the possible. And that can-do attitude brings out the best in us because of their belief in our God-given worth.

God wants to instill in us the character trait of faith. And in our Bible reading for today we have the story of how God shaped the quality of faith in a man by the name of Abraham. And what God did in Abraham's life he can do in ours as well.

Abraham had been chosen by God to be the father of the nation of Israel. But there was one serious problem. Abraham had no children. And it's pretty difficult to start a family, let alone a nation, without any children. Yet God continually assured Abraham and his wife Sarah that they would have a child of their own.

But now it was starting to become a joke. Abraham was almost 100 years old and Sarah was in her early 90s. Surely God had made a mistake.

And yet, at the age of 90, Sarah gave birth to Isaac. At 99 years of age Abraham was a new father. That's one way to keep young. Things were looking up.

But then, one day, many years later, God said to Abraham, "Abraham, I want you to take your son, your only son Isaac, and sacrifice him to me."

The request absolutely caught Abraham off guard. While the other religions of the day practiced human sacrifice, Abraham thought his God was different than the other gods. And yet here he was being asked to sacrifice his only son, the child promised to him by God. By sacrificing Isaac Abraham would not only lose his son, he would lose his dream of being the father of a new nation. And though the Bible doesn't say this, we can surmise that such a sacrifice could cause him to lose his trust in God.

For three days Abraham walked over 60 miles with his son to the place where Isaac was to be sacrificed. You can imagine the pain, sorrow, and absolute dread he must have experienced. You can imagine the battle he had with God in prayer those three days. In fact, the Bible says that after three days of walking Abraham looked up—giving us the sense that for three days he walked with his head down in deep pain and contemplation.

But just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God stopped him and provided another sacrifice in his place. The promise was safe. And God had accomplished his mission. He had called Abraham to lay it on the line so that he could prove himself faithful to Abraham. And in the process he transformed Abraham into a man of incredible faith.

Even though in our culture today we can't relate with stories of human sacrifice, there are some insights in this story on how God builds the character trait of faith in us.

1) First of all, as we look at the story of Abraham, we see that God builds faith in us by proving himself faithful.

Whenever God wants to deepen our faith, he stretches us, as he did with Abraham. He calls us beyond ourselves. He moves us out of our comfort zone and calls us to do the impossible. In other words, he invites us into situations that forces us to depend on him that he might prove his faithfulness to us.

A young man from Florida was visiting some friends in Minnesota during the winter. One cold afternoon he decided to go exploring around one of the lakes. Having never been on ice before, he started slowly. He walked near the edge of the lake. Then he moved out a bit further, each time testing to make sure the ice would hold him. Suddenly he heard a loud roar. He looked up to see a farmer driving his tractor across the middle of the lake. He realized how ridiculous it was for him to tiptoe onto the lake while the farmer drove a tractor on it.

The difference? The local farmer knew the ice. He knew it could be trusted and as a result had the faith to drive across it. The man from Florida didn't know the ice and therefore didn't trust it.

God Guilds faith in us by proving himself faithful. 4000 years ago, he proved his faithfulness to Abraham by keeping the promise alive. 2000 years ago he proved his faithfulness to us by laying it on the line for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, demonstrating the extent to which he will go to win us over with his love. And the assurance that our lives are in the hand of that faith, dependable God, fills us with confidence and faith.

2) Secondly, we see from this story of Abraham that God builds faith in us by caring for us.

Not only did God prove his faithfulness to Abraham by keeping the promise alive; he also showed Abraham that he is a God who will meet our every need. He did so by not only calling Abraham to make a sacrifice, but by providing that sacrifice as well.

There's a true story about a man who needed $200 in order to keep his rescue mission open. Every day he asked God in prayer to provide the money. One day a friend heard him praying for the money and said, "Why don't you ask God to open your eyes to the fact that you already have the money."

The man replied, "Don't you think I would know if I had $200?" So he continued to pray for the money. Finally, one day, he prayed, "God I know that you promise to provide. Open my eyes to see how you will meet this need."

When he finished praying he walked over to the window and noticed that some of the men he was housing were bent over picking something up off the ground. He looked over a few feet and noticed two of the largest pecan trees he had ever seen. They had been on his property all along, but he never really noticed them. The men immediately harvested the pecans and made over $200. As he did with Abraham so God provided for this particular man. And he will do the same for you, as well. And as you see God care for you it will deepen your faith.

3) Finally, we see that God builds faith in us by giving us a "yes" heart.

After that experience with God, Abraham's faith was deepened to the point where he could believe anything about God. God created in him a yes heart.

A young couple had just brought their newborn baby home from the hospital. While mom took a nap, dad stood over the crib and said "hello" to the baby. But the baby didn't respond. So dad picked up a rattle and began to shake it, but still the baby didn't respond. He started to worry. He clapped his hands but the baby did not move. So he ran to his wife and said, "I think our baby has a hearing problem." His wife tried to calm him saying, "Don't worry, honey. Her senses are still not fully operating. She'll be fine."

But dad couldn't stop his worrying. The baby just wouldn't respond to any noise. So his wife took out the baby book and read, "Newborn babies frequently do not respond to sound. It may take several days before they do. Now," she asked, "does that make you feel better?"

"NO! My grandma was deaf and if my child has inherited that I will feel guilty the rest of my life."

Finally, his wife made an appointment with the pediatrician. But it was two week away. So for the next two weeks dad worried. He imagined life with a deaf child. He wondered what kind of future she would have. He thought of the utter isolation she would live through. And for two weeks he lived in fear.

But two weeks later the pediatrician told him that his daughter was perfectly normal. His fear had been unfounded. That father lived life with a "no" heart. A "no" heart focuses on the impossibilities of life. It always says, "I can't" or "I don't have enough.." A "no" heart fears risk and ultimately loses out on the joy of life.

A "yes" heart, on the other hand, a heart of faith built on God's faithfulness, sees the possibilities of life. It looks at life from God's possibilities of life. It looks at life from God's perspective. It lives life with confidence knowing that God is in control. A "yes" heart makes the most out of life.

And that's the kind of heart God wants to create in each one of us. And to do that, he often invites us into a situation that stretches us, where we have no choice but to trust him. And it's there that God proves himself faithful, setting us free to have a "yes" heart—a heart of faith.

In 1959, the early members of Faith laid the cornerstone for this building that we are in. It was the first step of a vision that at its very inception included pretty much the entire facility as we see here today. If truth be told, the vision they had was impossible. They did not have anywhere near the resources to accomplish what they wanted. I did some rough calculating. There are about 60 people in this room right now. What they did was roughly equivalent to the 60 of us going to the bank and borrowing $4 million to build this church. What God was calling them to do was more than they could bear. But that's precisely where God wanted them to be. For while God is vitally interested in building new church buildings, his deeper reason for inviting them to do so was to stretch their faith—to deepen their trust in him. He wanted to show them that he could pull off this project through them. And he did. He wanted to prove to them he could meet our every need by providing the financial resources through them. In other words, God called them as he does us to lay it all on the line so that he can capture our hearts and mold faith in us.

I encourage you today, like Abraham did, to give God a chance to build faith in you. The staff addition of a Youth Director, the building up of this new worship service, the coming of a new choir director at the Celebration Service are providing us opportunities to do a little of that. And through that he will not only prove himself faithful, he will deepen our faith and transform our fearful hearts into "yes" hearts.

And if you don't know this loving, faithful God personally, I encourage you to meet him today by welcoming Jesus Christ into your life so that he might transform you into a person of faith.

AMEN