First Reading: Genesis 15:1-6
1The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Psalm 33:12-22
12Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord! happy the people he has chosen to be his own! 13The Lord looks down from heaven, and beholds all the people in the world. 14From where he sits enthroned he turns his gaze on all who dwell on the earth. 15He fashions all the hearts of them and understands all their works. 16There is no king that can be saved by a mighty army; a strong man is not delivered by his great strength. 17The horse is a vain hope for deliverance; for all its strength it cannot save. 18Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him, on those who wait upon his love, 19To pluck their lives from death, and to feed them in time of famine. 20Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. 21Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, for in his holy name we put our trust. 22Let your lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, as we have put our trust in you.
Second Reading: Hebrews 11:1-16
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. 4By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. 5By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. 8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. 13These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Gospel: Luke 12:22-40
22{Jesus} said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? 27Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. 30For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. 32Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 35Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, 36and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. 38If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! 39But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. 40You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
Faith for the Future
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 100 times, the history of this congregation simply astounds me. As you know, Math and I don’t always get along. So, I pulled up my calculator on the computer and subtracted 1790 from 2025 and confirmed that we, this year, are celebrating 235 years as a congregation. And if I remember correctly, from what Robert shared with me, we can trace our roots back even further to the church meeting houses of 1750. Considering that this is 26 years before the US formally became a nation, then we can safely say that Bethel Lutheran church has been serving God and this community for a very long time.
As you know, I was born and raised in Arizona which didn’t become a state until 1912, so you can understand why Bethel’s history amazes me. In thinking about the two and one quarter plus centuries of this church’s existence, I began to ponder that if we were able to go back to the founding members of this congregation and ask, I wonder if they envisioned a church meeting here on this very ground, 235 years later? From the history I’ve read, in many ways it was an act of faith to even build a church in the late 18th century, let alone have the courage to envision this congregation worshiping here more than two hundred years in the future. But isn’t that what faith is?
Think about it, this church has seen every war that has worked to tear this country apart, the Revolutionary war, the Civil War, the Spanish American war, two World wars, Korea, Vietnam, as well as the Gulf wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to mention the countless conflicts along the way. And without a doubt this congregation itself has worked through its own conflicts. It would seem that, at every turn, the forces of satan and this world have worked against this congregation.
Other congregations have come and gone, yet Bethel remains because we continue to place God first in our lives, and this community of believers continues to look to God, to give us the faith and strength we need to plan for the future. Isn’t that what faith does, continues to trust and believe even when you don’t know the future? Faith is trusting that God will guide and direct our paths, so that no matter how long He continues this world, future generations will have a church to worship in?
I stand before you today as just the 29th pastor of this congregation and it’s truly been a privilege to be part of the rich history of Bethel Evangelical Lutheran church. That said, do me a favor, Lord willing, invite me back in 15 years; I’ll be staring 80 in the teeth, but I’d love to be part of your 250th Homecoming celebration!
In my 15+ years here, I’ve seen this congregation do some amazing things all in faith. Shortly after Terry and I arrived you spent more than $22,000 to refurbish the parsonage. Then just 3 years after that, we refurbished the Sanctuary and expanded the Fellowship Hall. In faith you saved about half of the $220,000+ cost of these renovations, paid nearly $25,000 for tile and kitchen upgrades and then paid the remining loan off in just 7 years. Every time a need arises, you step out in faith and accomplish what needs to be done to accomplish the mission of the church. And I think it’s this kind of faith that the writer of Hebrews talks about in our epistle reading for today. Here the author tells us that faith is being certain of things hoped for and confident of the things we can’t see.
Sometime back I read about the African impala. The Impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet, and in one leap, they can cover a distance greater than 30 feet. Yet what’s so interesting is that these magnificent animals can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3‑foot high wall. You see, impalas won’t jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall. Humanly speaking, we can see this as a wise and conservative approach to life. Don’t jump if you can’t see where your feet will fall. There’s a popular adage that speaks to this; “Look before we leap.” In many ways it’s a wise bit of advice.
However, that’s a completely different approach than the life of faith as described in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” How’s that for a working definition of faith? “Sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” This definition is the exact opposite of “look before you leap.” And according to the writer of Hebrews, Faith is jumping without being able to see where our feet will fall.
The opening verse of our epistle reading sketches two dimensions of faith, or faithfulness, that the writer will proceed to develop in detail in the following verses: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith provides a guarantee, the peg on which we hang our hopes. Because of faith, our hope isn’t flimsy dreaming; it has substance and reality. Faith provides a grounding to which we can hold fast. But that grounding also orients us towards the future and gives us courage to move forward, launching out into the unknown. In faith our charter members planted this congregation. They had no idea how long it would last, yet they placed their trust in God, and we celebrate their faithfulness here today. The second dimension of faith is that it moves us forward.
To demonstrate what the writer of Hebrews means, he does more than simply provide a definition; he skillfully calls to mind stories that clothe these two dimensions of faithfulness, holding fast to God’s promises and moving forward in faith, with examples from Israel’s history. To do this, he begins by way of a quick review, the preacher first tells us about Abel, Enoch, and Noah. These men of God were only mentioned briefly in the reading, so you’ll need to go back and read about them later. But in these verses, the writer points out the faithfulness of Abel’s sacrifice, of how God took Enoch without tasting death, and of Noah’s faith in building the Ark. All these were familiar stories to the Hebrew audience. But in our reading for today, our epistle writer slows the pace, as he lingers over the story of Abraham and Sarah. In the lives of this couple, both dimensions of faith shine forth. They show us that faithfulness requires both holding fast and moving forward.
First, faithfulness is holding fast to the promises of God. God had promised Sarah and Abraham countless descendants and a land that God would reveal to them. Both promises were “things not seen”. Consider our Old Testament reading for today. Abram asked God how He would give these wanderers from Ur, descendants as numerous as stars in the sky and as countless as the grains of sand on the seashore. Abram knew that to have that many descendants required at a minimum a daughter or son. And not just any son, it was to be the son from Abram and Sarai.
Such a promise wouldn’t have been strange when Abram and Sarai were young. But eventually, common sense says, that because of the effects of age, possibility gave way to improbability, and improbability gave way to impossibility. Yet when the promise came, Sarah and Abraham were no spring chickens. For that matter, they weren’t even summer or fall chickens.
Perhaps Abraham could still father a child, he did father Ishmael through Hagar. But Sarah knew her child-bearing days were many, many years in the past, the Bible is clear, for it says that she was barren. That’s why she laughed so hard the first time she overheard their visitors tell Abraham he was soon to be a father. That’s why their son’s name would be Isaac, which means “Laughter.”
Isaac’s name marked God’s joy in upending human expectations, a contagious joy they remembered every time that they called out “Laughter, you stop that right this minute” or “Laughter, it’s time for dinner” or “Laughter, your mother and I need to have a talk with you.” We know that Abraham wasn’t a perfect man. Go back and read his story in the early chapters.
He even went so far as to deceive the Pharaoh telling him that Sarai was his sister out of fear for his life. When a famine drove the family to Egypt, he shoves Sarai, his wife, into the arms of Pharaoh in order to protect his own skin. Abram is quoted in Genesis 12:13as saying, “Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you…”. You can almost hear Sarai’s reply even now, oh gee, thanks honey. Of course, this is in keeping with all the other significant Old Testament characters—the “heroes” of the faith. All were flawed and broken in one way or another, just like the rest of us. And this gives us the confidence to move forward, the assurance of knowing that God can and does work through ordinary people, in extra ordinary ways. It took some time, but Abraham heard God’s voice telling him to make a difference, to leave his home and to go to a place that God would show him, and he did. It took faith. Faith is jumping without being able to see where our feet will fall–not because we’re foolhardy, but because we’re listening to and heeding God’s voice.
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he’d never seen the Promised Land. By faith he made his home in a new land, like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. He was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
That, my friends, is faith. Abraham and Sarah also held fast to a second promise, that of land. That promise was equally impossible, for these two were wanderers, pilgrims, who set out not knowing their destination. Even when they arrived in the Promised Land of Canaan, they lived like strangers in a foreign country, in tents, always ready to pack up and move. But they did more than hold fast to this promise. Sarah and Abraham knew that the promise of God is also a call, and so they lived out the second dimension of faithfulness, that of moving forward.
Abraham and Sarah lived in tents, because they were not ultimately called to the land of Canaan. Canaan was not their final destination. The journey was part of their obedience, but Canaan was not their home. They were looking for another city, the city with foundations not made with hands, a city according to Hebrews chapter 10 verse 11 “whose architect and builder is God.” And they didn’t receive that promise in their lifetime.
They only saw the promise on the horizon, beckoning, calling them onward in their journey. Because they experienced the promise as a call, they held fast to the promises of God, and they also moved forward in response to God’s call. They knew that faithfulness is a form of courage that launches one out into the unknown, moving into the future with God, knowing the future is God’s. So how do we measure up with respect to these two dimensions of faith?
Some of us find it easy to “hold fast.” We know the stories—stories of the Bible, stories of our congregations, stories of faithfulness and sacrifice. These stories matter because the stories we tell and make our own, give us our bearings. They help us work out where we stand, who we are, and what we ought to do, but oftentimes we find it hard to “move forward” into the future. Change and the unknown are frightening. We’re not that fond of tents, and we travel with lots of baggage. So, we cling to the now, the familiar, to the things that make us feel secure.
Yet there are others of us who have little trouble moving forward. We like to camp. We travel light. We ask, “How can we join in what God is doing now?” These are people on the way, on the move, knowing that the future belongs to God, but they need help “holding fast,” learning the story of God’s faithfulness to promise. We need to know of loyalty and endurance that persevere even when the path is rough and long. This is why the readings for today speak to us. We need both dimensions of faithfulness.
We need to hold fast to the promises of God and to move forward into the future which is God’s. The power of the example of Sarah and Abraham is that their lives joined these two dimensions. Amid change and uncertainty, they found God constant and faithful. Therefore, they too could be full of faith, holding fast to God’s promises and moving forward into that future with God.
So what is God calling us to do in the next 12 months? The next 5 years? The next 235 years? In just a few weeks we will once again be asked to look at our future as we develop our budget for 2026. We will be asking the question first of the council and then of the congregation. But our faithfulness to God’s direction and promise doesn’t end there. We also need to look at our short and long-term future. What are our evangelism goals? What about our plans for our youth. What is God calling us to do in this community, in our nation, and around the world? 235 years of history doesn’t signal the end, we need to believe we are just a part of the continuing history of this gathering of believers called Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Abraham isn’t seen as a man of faith because he went where God told him to go; he isn’t seen as a man of faith simply because he believed in a God. He was a man of faith because, he believed God and acted; when God made him a promise, he acted accordingly. He lived in a tent in the wilderness because he believed that one day God would provide him with descendants as numerous as the sands of the sea and a home in a “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” That’s faith.
People of faith seek God’s direction in their lives and then move with wisdom when God says move, regardless of their uncertainty, regardless of the inability to see where their feet will land. Our penultimate goal is the promise of Christ’s return. But until then, we need to be faithful servants, using the gifts and talents God has given us to move forward for the kingdom of God, for His glory. May the faithfulness of the Biblical heroes shine forth as an example for us, so that we too may prove to be faithful.
Amen