what's the worth of

all the work of my two hands

A sermon on God's first meeting with Abram and Sarai:

Abram and Sarai, later to be renamed Abraham and Sarah by God’s graciousness, with nary a word or action on their part, are chosen by God! 

Out of the clear blue, as we say, God comes and promises to make of them a great nation of them, to make their name great, to bless them. God promises all this, without Abram or Sarai doing a rotten thing!

And to set these two out on the road to this promise, God begins with one simple word. One simple word that isn’t always so easy to hear…

Okay, we heard these nine verses not so long ago, but let’s brush up. Get out your bulletins. I’ll wait…

Okay. What is the first word God says to Abram?

This isn’t a trick question. Someone whose found them, blurt ‘em out…

Yes. That’s right, “Go.”

Go from YOUR country. Go from YOUR kin. Go from YOU house. Go.

God tells Abram and Sarai to LEAVE everything they’re ever known and go to some place God will show them. “Go.”

…And folks, because this is how God works. How grace operates. And because you too have been chosen by God, YOU are more like Sarai and Abram than you may know!

Like, has God ever told you to go? 

I bet God has. In fact, I know God has.

For one, you’re here. And no one gets here here by their own volition. Just ask our most honest members, the young ones. And for another, this “Go” of God, is how God’s promises always begin…

God’s first word to Abram is “Go.” Go, as in leave. Go, as in give up. Go, as in let go. “GO.” Go from his country. Leave his family. Give up his home. Basically, let go of his old life. “Go.”

And I bet that’s how it was for you, too… 

God’s “Go” comes in many ways: It’s said over the phone with the news you didn’t want to hear. It’s written with the “F” on the top of your assignment. It’s in the report from the doctor saying your injury will keep you from playing this season, maybe longer…

God says “Go” in many ways. We never know it. We always think we’re talking to a someone flesh and blood, but they turn out to be angels of the most high declaring unto us God’s “Go.”

It’s uttered along the major highways and byways of life.

When you become a parent. When your last child moves out.
At the funeral that makes you a widow or a widower, an orphan; when, before you’re ready, the pastor dismisses the congregation so you with a few family members go to bury the person you’re not ready to live without. 

God says “go” in a million ways. In what sounds trivial to others, like a review that didn’t go the way you wanted. Or, the profound, like the diagnosis that no one knows what to say to you after you share the news. 

This is so often hard to hear, but it is how God’s promises always begin. 

Now, time and dignity would fail me to tell you all the time God has told me “Go,” but like you, like Abram and Sarai, I’ve heard it. And make no mistake, it’s often been gut-wrenching.

Like how over the summer I noticed my sleep was poor and my heart rate was elevated. After this went on for a while, I figured I’d better pay attention. Think about what was going on. 

And this will surprise none of you, I also knew what was up. It was all this. Everything we’re up to has got me stressed out! 

What I hadn’t thought about, though, was why in the heck was I so worked up! 

Sure, a little anxiety is fine, but this was overreacting. My anxiousness was sticking around for too long, it was getting too big!

So I started exploring it. Thinking about why I was so worked up. Praying, asking God for clarity. Then one day, out of the clear blue, it came to me! And it was like, this thing I’ve worked so hard to do, please everyone, keep it all together; was being taken away for me.

Not that I ever had it anyway, but I could fool myself into thinking I had it, and even losing that lie was hard. 

It was as if God were saying, “Ryan, you’ve been trusting yourself. Your ability to keep it together, keep people happy, so I will take it away from you. You will have to “Go” from it. Die to it.”

God used this, to tell me “Go” Go from the safe, comfortable confines of keeping everyone happy, to live in the place God was going to show. 

And let me tell you, it hasn’t been easy. 

But the promise is, there’s a promise that follows…

Now I could use other examples, but this one is easy to think of, and that’s the point! It’s not like this was especially traumatic, or anything. It’s that it’s so ordinary! 

It’s not for lack of opportunity that we fail to go where God leads. Is it? God’s always telling us, one way or another, “Go.”

Plus, we can all relate to this example. Can’t we? 

We’ve all been going along in our own little countries, with our own little families, in our own little houses; and out of the clear blue God has shown up and said, “Go.” Go when we weren’t ready or even looking!

And since we’re here together, we might as well admit; it’s been hard. It hasn’t been easy. It’s been scary. It’s raised up all those parts in ourselves we’re not so proud of. Speaking for myself, at least…

So, now that we’ve heard God’s “Go,” we’re ready to hear the promise that comes with it. God telling you to go FROM the land you’ve settled in, FROM the family you’ve made, FROM the life you’ve been living, 

is TO do nothing less than bring you into the inheritance you’ve been promised! 

Make you a part of Abram and Sarai’s blessed nation, family and home!

God’s “Go,” is the road map leading you to the Promised Land! And honestly, it’s more, it’s the treasure laying at the heart of the Promised Land! In all Truth actually, it’s the Promised Land itself!

That Go God spoke to Abram, it ended the life he’d been living, didn’t it? It forced Abram to leave everything, and go to some place he’d never known. And it’s been that way for you, too. Hasn’t it? 

God’s go always leads, first, to death, be it a big one or a little one. This is why I had you look in the bulletin to check I was interpreting scripture aright! because it is so hard for the likes of us to believe that God’s promises would begin with this word, “Go.”

God’s “Go” first leads to death, because God the first thing God intends to do is lead you through Death! You have a God who doesn’t go around Death, but through it!

This first happened in your baptism, when God made the promise big enough to wrench your life out of your own hands! And since then, it’s happened over and over again!

This is the shape your life takes now! Over and over again God has called, and still calls, tell you “Go.” Go from the life you’re living TO the one you’ve been promised! And every time, the way leads through death!

God is writing the 23rd Psalm out of your life!

Here’s how Paul put it, “For if we have been united with Jesus in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

These deaths God leads you through are not for their own sake! They are so your life would take the shape of Jesus’ glory, the cross! They are so in that death, through it, YOU would be united with Jesus!

So that YOU might have his death AND his resurrection, too!

Yes, for now God’s “Go” is a hard word. But on the last day, it will turn out to be the rod and the staff ushering you into paradise! It will be the way that leads through death TO life!

So, “Go.” Go, there’s a promise waiting for you on the other side. Go.