Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri
Morning Worship · July 20, 2008
Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
Prayer of the Day
God of the faithful in every time and place, today you have called us into your church to be one body in Christ Jesus. In this hour of worship, may we praise you for the men and women whose faithful witness to your love inspires the generations of your people. Amen.
Scripture
Hebrews 11:6
Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to God must believe God exists and that God rewards those who earnestly seek God.
Message
Leaving a Legacy of Our Faith
Rick Frost
Good morning everyone. I’m so glad you are here today as we reflect and meet today. If you are a first-time visitor, I extend a special word of welcome. You may or may not know that we are celebrating 50 years as a community of faith. This community of faith is deep into preparation for opening a new chapter in its ministry and mission here as a congregation.
Indeed, when Jan and I arrived some 22½-years ago, a new chapter was opening and beginning. We had a bunch of kids in our nursery and in our Sunday School. Lo and behold, those kids, who were in the nursery, are now in graduate school and out in the work force. Many of them are married. In fact, I’m doing a wedding ceremony this weekend for Megan Braselton, who was six-months-old when I arrived.
How does that happen? I don’t know. But, there they are. They are establishing families of their own. They are doing fascinating things with their lives. How wonderful that is.
Reflecting on that, a generation has been born. They have been raised. They are nurtured. They’ve been taught. They’ve been encouraged. They’ve been blessed. They have been sent out, as we love to say around here, to love and serve the living God and one another.
That’s what I want us to focus on, talk about, in this closing series of this chapter. I want to talk for the next few weeks about leaving a legacy. I want to talk about leaving a lasting legacy. I want to talk about leaving a legacy for the next generation. Because, as you know, everyone in this room knows that Christianity is always just one generation removed from extinction. Just one. It’s amazing.
The fact is the reason you or I are in this place today is because someone before us told us. The previous generation passed the faith on to us. If they hadn’t, no one in this room would be here today. That means, to me, it’s a privilege, not only a privilege, it’s a duty. Not only is it a duty, I think even more importantly, it’s our calling to pass it on to the next generation, just as it has been done for thousands and thousands of generations in the past.
Psalm 78:4 says, “We will not hide these truths from our children; we will teach them to the next generation.”
So, if you’re a parent, a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, a friend, or an acquaintance of someone who is a part of that next generation, I urge you to take notes, if you would, because we’re going to be talking about some interesting things, I think, between now and August 17. Not only do I suggest you take notes but to seriously consider ways in which we together will pass this faith on.
What are we supposed to pass on? Quite simply, we are to pass on our values, our Christian values. They are values that last. Now, everybody here knows that the Bible is filled with values that last. Three of the most important ones are found in 1 Corinthians 13. We hear it all the time at weddings. It really doesn’t have a great deal to do with weddings, but we love to read it there, anyway. These values will last forever. They are the values of faith, the values of hope, and the values of love.
That is what I would like for us to think about. I would like for us to start today by talking and thinking about leaving a legacy of our faith in an increasingly- secular world.
William Young, in his best-selling book that’s out right now called The Shack, has a line that describes so wonderfully for me what a secular world is. It’s a piece of fiction in which the main character, Mack, and Jesus are having a conversation. Jesus says, “You know… our world, Mack, is like a child that has grown up without parents, having no one to guide her and direct her. Humans who have been given the task of lovingly steering this world instead plunder her with no consideration other than their immediate concerns and needs. They give very little thought about their children who shall follow, who will inherit their lack of love.”
That, to me, is the definition of a secular world. It is a world without God, or, in this case, a child without parents. One might rightly ask, “Since God is, as we know, a Spirit not able to be seen, how do we have a relationship with an unseen God?”
The answer is the same as it has been forever, and it will never change. The answer to that is faith. Pure simple faith. The Creator, as you know, is not looking for rules, not looking for regulations, not looking for rituals, not looking for religions. The Creator of all that is, biblically, is looking for relationships. The only way you can have a relationship with an unseen God is by faith, by trust, if that word works better for you.
Hebrews 11:6, which is our text for the day, says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to God must believe that God exists, and that God rewards those who earnestly seek God.”
So, how do we live by faith? There are seven ways I want to lift up today.
Number 1: Faith, biblically, is believing even when I don’t see it.
Hebrews 11:1 says it this way: “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain about what we do not see.”
It’s visualization. It’s seeing what can’t be seen in advance. I think it’s faith that causes an architect to design a building that she believes can be constructed. It’s faith that causes an Olympic athlete to practice, and work, and practice, because they believe they can compete, and that they can achieve, and that they can win at a world level. It’s faith that causes an artist to paint. It’s faith that causes a musician to compose. It’s faith that causes a sculptor to sculpt. It’s faith, absolute faith, that causes scientists to believe they can put a person on another planet. It’s faith that causes those scientists to believe, and to work, and to research, believing they can find a cure someday for cancer.
Anybody heard of Jeffery Drummer? Does that name ring a bell for anybody? I found out this thing about Jeffery. I had never heard of Jeffery. Jeffery was a British radar scientist, who believed that there could be something called an integrated circuit. Isn’t that fascinating? He wrote it up and produced a paper.
He presented it at a world-level symposium in 1952. It was faith that caused scientists to take his ideas and develop them into those little, tiny, pinhead chips that, as you know, are the building blocks for what we call computers today, just since 1952.
Someone has to believe what can’t be seen yet. That is a universal principle, and belongs to us, as well, as faith.
Fifty years ago, as most of you know, a handful of people believed that God was going to build an amazing community of faith right in the middle of a cow pasture on the west side of Columbia a long, long, long time before God did such a thing. Faith is believing when you don’t see it yet.
Number 2: Faith is doing what God asks even when I don’t understand it.
Hebrews 11:8 says, “It was by faith that Abraham, when called to go to a place that would later become his inheritance, obeyed, and went, even though he did not know were he was going.”
Folks, when God called Abraham, he was 75 years of age. He was living in Iraq in a little town then called Ur. I think he probably was just as happy as a clam. God says, “Abraham, get up. I want you to leave.”
“Where am I going?”
“You’ve never heard of it.”
“How am I going to get there?”
“Just head out. I’ll show you.”
“How long is it going to take?”
“You’ll find out.”
“How will I know when I get there?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Would you do that at 75 years of age? Would you head off into the greatest adventure of your life? Abraham did, and the result was Abraham became, as you know, the father of a great nation and a key player in the founding of three of the world’s great religions. Point: obedience always involves taking some risks.
Some of us want guarantees before we’re going to do what we think God calls us to do. Let me tell you, biblically, theologically, God is not going to play along, because that is not faith.
When Jan, Molly, and I packed up that 1969 Dodge Polaris… (Does anybody remember that beauty? Wasn’t that a gorgeous thing?) We drove it here from the mountains, and we drove to Columbia. We were pretty much scared to death. We had never been to Missouri, ever in our lives. We had to look it up on a map. We didn’t know a soul, not one single soul. We had absolutely no guarantee of any success. We didn’t have any idea how it was going to work out, but we did believe that this is what God wanted us to do.
It’s amazing, folks. Faith is doing what God asks you to do even when you don’t understand it. Our experience has been that when we do that, when we’re willing to take that risk, we grow. We grow in our faith. We grow in our trust of God. When we grow in our trust in God, we get blessed. Somehow we receive blessing. If we don’t do what God asks, we miss so many blessings that God wants to give us.
Jan once asked me if I ever did anything that God asked me to do that I didn’t understand. I said, “Sure, when you asked me to marry you.”
Just think of the blessings she would have missed. I would have missed, that’s what I meant to say. Twenty-nine years later, folks, was it a good call? Absolutely.
Faith is doing what God asks, even when you don’t understand it.
Number 3: Faith is persisting, even when I don’t feel like it. Folks, feelings are pretty tricky things, as you know. Never give up on something because of a feeling. We live in a culture that is manipulated by moods. As a result, we often are ruled, in this culture, by our emotions. As most of you know, when that happens, it tends to be a huge mistake.
The truth is doing the good thing, the right thing, the loving thing, the God thing is not always something we feel like doing. Maturity is not living by our emotions. It’s living by our commitments. My observation has been that often the difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people don’t feel like doing.
Successful people develop habits. They train. They develop. They work. They give that extra piece, that extra bit. You don’t compete in the Olympics simply because you feel like it. You don’t play great music – not great music – just because you feel like it, or when you feel like it. You don’t practice great medicine, or law, or business just when you feel like it.
I think to be God’s man and to be God’s woman in this world means that you and I have to develop some habits, too. Around here we call them the Eight Keys to Discipleship. It’s not easy. They’re not easy disciplines. This is as hard as working out, or dieting, or passing the bar exam. The point is that it involves persistence, even when we don’t feel like it.
How in the world do you develop that? How do you develop persistence? I’ve observed one key way that I want to offer to you. Keep your eye on the Lord and not on the challenge. Keep your eye on the Lord and not on the problems. OK? When we get off onto the problems, and the difficulties, and the stuff that we don’t like, nothing happens. All the energy goes there. When we keep our eye on the Lord, we tend to keep moving forward. We’re focused; we know where we’re going.
One of the great examples of persistence, in the Bible, is Moses. For 40 years, he led a whimpering, squabbling, complaining bunch of babies in the desert, and they questioned his leadership at absolutely every turn. But Moses never gave up. He persisted. In fact, it says so in Hebrews 11: 27: “It was by faith that Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persisted – he held to his purpose – like a person who could see the invisible.”
Folks, I have no doubt there are going to be people in our presence, sometime this morning, who are struggling with some pretty tough stuff in their lives. It’s happened at your workplace, your home, your family, your health, or your finances, whatever. I mean… It takes sixty-bucks to fill up your tank now, and it’s $3 a pound for tomatoes. If you’re one of those persons who feel sort of overwhelmed by a variety of things, I believe God lured you here today, because God wants to say something specifically to you.
Don’t give up. Don’t do it. Don’t give in. Persist. Hang in there. Why? Because biblically, theologically, when God is approached, when God is asked, humbly and with your heart, God makes a way. I don’t know how. That’s not my job. God makes a way, but you have to trust. It involves trust. That’s what it’s all about: faith, trusting in God.
What do you when you’re doing that? Any moment you do that, you’re living in faith. Even when you don’t see it. Even when don’t understand it. Even when you don’t feel like it. That’s faith.
Number 4: Faith is announcing it in order to experience it.
Folks, I think there is a direct connection between your mouth and your faith. An example would be Joseph in the Bible. Hebrews 11:22 says, “It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about to die, confidently spoke of God’s bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt. He was so sure of it that he commanded them to carry his bones with them when they left.”
Now get the picture. Israel has traveled to Egypt. They’re in search of food. They’re hungry. The reason they’re hungry is there is a famine in the land. Egypt has money, resources, and food. Israel does not. In the process, over time, Israel becomes Egypt’s slaves. Joseph, one of Israel’s people, says to them, “Hey, when you guys get out of here, when you go back – not if you go back, but when you finally leave this place – I want you to take me with you. Take my bones with you, because I want to be buried in my homeland.”
How long did it take from the time he spoke that until it happened? It took 400 years for that to happen. It was 400 years of carrying those bones around until they got to go home and bury him. That’s faith, folks. That’s announcing it way in advance before you actually experience it. It’s speaking the future into existence. That’s faith.
In 1989 – some of you were here – the leadership of Broadway announced a vision. We called it the Seven-Year Action Plan. In 1999, we announced what we believed to be God’s vision for the first decade of a new millennium. We called it Vision 2010. In both of those instances, we spoke the future into existence.
We said, “With God’s help, this is what we will do.” We committed ourselves to that, and that is what we did. We opened our facility in new ways to the community that we had never done before. We reached out and offered a helping hand to all kinds of folks in all kinds of settings in this Columbia area. We preached practical, positive messages that gave you an uplift on Monday after you heard it on Sunday. We geared up our Sunday School and recruited the best set of teachers we could for our children. We developed three styles of worship with three kinds of music and gave people a lift instead of a letdown when they were here. Most of all, we reached out to our neighbors. We said, “You are welcomed here.” We loved them. We welcomed them. We made friends with them, and you came.
Many of you came. You are here. You got involved in the ministry and the mission in this place. You worshipped. You got connected with some group face to face. Broadway Christian Church became your spiritual home, your spiritual family.
Point: According to Scripture, announcing something in order to experience it is the way God tends to operate.
Psalm 33:9 says, “God spoke and then it came to be.”
Number 5: Faith is giving when I think I don’t have it. In the Bible, there is a definite connection between our faith and our giving.
In the story of Cain and Abel, found in Genesis 4 and is talked about in Hebrews, both of them made a gift to God. Cain’s gift was pretty thoughtless. Abel’s gift was off the top. It was choice. It was giving God the best and the first. Hebrews 11:4 says, “It was by faith that Abel’s offering was a better sacrifice than Cain’s.”
The point is this: you can give by reason, or you can give by faith. When you give by reason, this is the way it works. You look at your budget. You look at your income. You look at your tax bracket. You look at your deductions. You run the numbers. Then you say, “This is what I can reasonably give. This is what I can afford.”
Now notice, absolutely none of that takes any faith whatsoever. Nonbelievers do it all the time. In fact, they do it even better than we do. It takes no faith at all to give that way.
Giving by faith is when I say, “Lord, what do you want to give for this project through me?”
Oh, my gosh! That’s huge. That’s very different. That’s faith. “What do you want to give through me for this project?”
One of the most dramatic examples for Jan and I was 1994-95, when this congregation built this place you are sitting in this very day. She and I had never been involved in a capital campaign anywhere in our lives. Does anybody remember the theme of that capital campaign? What was it? “Not equal gifts but equal sacrifice.”
Now, as leaders of the church, we were asked to join others in making an over-and-above sacrificial, three-year financial commitment to this project. We had two kids in college and one that was still coming up, who was a financial drain – bless her little heart. (This is just the honest truth.) We were driving old cars. We were, quite frankly, giving substantially to the ministry and mission of this church. Jan and I talked about it. We prayed about it. We came up with an amount that for us, quite frankly, was not reasonable. It was more than we could afford, but it was something we could publically say we would give God for this project. Literally, 24-hours later, one of Broadway’s dear families stuck a pledge card in the screen at our church in the middle of the night for $125,000. That was the beginning of one of the greatest experiences of my life.
What made it so great is that in faith, people, just like you and me, joyfully and sacrificially gave what they believed in their heart of hearts God wanted them to give to accomplish something God wanted to accomplish in this place. It was amazing. People sold tracts of land. They traded in stocks. They postponed vacations and buying new cars. They gave that money to this project. They brought gifts-in-kind by the truck load: boats, trailers, RVs, jewelry, guns, stamps, coin collections, antiques, everything imaginable. It was giving by faith, actually putting God first. I had never experienced it like we did then. It was an experience I will never ever forget.
Number 6: Faith is thanking God before I receive it. Faith is not believing that God can do something, folks. God does what God does whether you believe it or not. That’s not the key. Thanking God after something has happened, after you have received a blessing, is not faith. That’s gratitude. That’s expressing thanks. That’s thanksgiving. Faith is when I think God in advance. Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, [past tense, not ‘going to receive’] and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24).
Obviously that doesn’t mean that God is a vending machine – you put in your faith and out comes what you want. We all understand, and we have been there. We know what that means. I think what that means is we thank God in advance, because you know that if it comes from God, it’s going to be good. God is not going to give any of us anything that is bad. Therefore I can thank God before it even arrives.
Number 7: Faith is trusting God even when I don’t get the promise here on this earth. Anybody can trust God when things are going great. Real faith gets developed, as all of us know, in the valleys.
The truth is people of great faith are people unlike anyone else in this room. They are people who have been persecuted. They are people who have been imprisoned. They are people who have been tortured. They are people who have even been killed for their faith. They are people like Jeremiah, Isaiah, even St. Paul, St. Stephen, after which our Stephen Ministry is named. There is Oscar Romero in more recent years, Martin Luther King Jr. – people of faith.
Last year, the research indicates there were millions of people around this earth who were persecuted for their faith – right here even in the 21st century. People pay a very, very high price for trusting God. You and I are incredibly blessed that we get to live our life for God rather than have to face that kind of thing for God. But some people do. I believe they are our spiritual heroes. They are our spiritual giants. Their lives speak of the meaning of holiness in our time. In faith, they love God, and they love their neighbor to the point that they were willing to lovingly sacrifice absolutely anything for others. I think that kind of living absolutely proves the gospel can actually be lived in real life.
Hebrews 11:39 says, “They were commended for their faith, but none of them received what had been promised – not then – because God had planned something even better.”
My hope and prayer, folks, is that this community of faith will leave a legacy of faith. I think it is our privilege. I think it is our responsibility. But more so, more importantly, I think it is our calling. May the light that these wonderful people have shared with us be a source of light for us, and may we share it with others.
And all the people say… “Amen.”
Benediction
Thank you for teaching us to walk and live by faith. Help us to hold on to both the seen and unseen workings of your mighty hand. Let us walk together in this journey: sharing our faith with those we meet, and leaving a legacy of faith for those who follow. Amen.
