Our scripture reading today is Genesis 15 verses one through 6.
After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.
Do not be afraid Abram, I am your shield, your very great
reward. But Abram said, Sovereign Lord,
what can you give me, since I remain childless, and the one
who will inherit my estate is Eleazar of Damascus.
And Abram said, You have given me no children, so a servant in
my household will be my heir. Then the word of the Lord came
to him, This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your
own flesh and blood will be your heir.
He took him outside and said, look up at the sky and count the
stars, if indeed you can count them.
Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be.
Abraham believed the Lord and he credited to him as
righteousness. May the Lord add His blessing to
the reading and the hearing of His word.
Before I get into the sermon itself, I just want to let you
know I'm preaching a little bit differently today than I
normally do. And if you're interested, if you
care, you may not care about what I'm about to say next.
You know, think about the Browns and the Bengals game coming up.
Ponder whatever you need to there.
But when I am preparing sermons, I, I usually just sort of as I'm
praying and studying, get, get words, phrases to ideas, topics
that I then put in an outline and, and I usually try to keep
it a, a reasonably simple outline and, and parts of that
outline I put on the slides. And every once in a while, maybe
you know, once in every, I don't know.
I don't very, very rarely that the way I just described is how
I prepare for my sermons 99.99% of the time every once in a
while. And it happened this week.
I sat down to work on my outline and when I started typing the
outline, everything just sort of woop came out and and I thought,
well, I'll just pick parts out of that and use it as the
outline. And I can't do it.
So I'm doing something today which I don't normally do, which
is I'm going to actually be be sticking very close to a
manuscript for for much of the sermon today.
Part of it, not so much, but for most of it I will.
And because I don't normally do that, I wanted to let you know
what was going on and why I'm standing here behind the pulpit
and looking at my notes for so much.
So that said, I want to talk about don't be afraid of the
dark. I have very personal connection
with that statement. Don't be afraid of the dark.
Because when I was a little kid, maybe four or five years old, I
saw my very first horror movie or the part of my very first
horror movie and, and I was not supposed to be watching it.
My parents were staying up to watch it was.
And I, this memory has been part of me for such a long time and I
never really looked it up, but I remember the name of the movie
was Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. And then I thought, you know
what? I wonder if that's really the
name of a movie or did my brain just invent this and it's the
movie. I looked it up on IMDb.
That's the movie. The description is just what I
remember of the movie I was not supposed to be watching.
I wanted to stay up and watch. My parents said you are this is
you're not old enough for this, this is too scary for you.
Go to bed. It was bedtime anyway, but the
sofa my parents were sitting on had its back to the door.
I snuck out and my bedroom and down and looked around the sofa
without them knowing that I was there and watched Don't Be
Afraid of the Dark. At least I watched part of Don't
Be Afraid of the Dark. At the point that the little
furry creatures crawled out from under the cupboard below the
steps and started attacking the family, I decided my parents
were smarter than I was after all.
This was too scary for me and I went back to bed where I did not
sleep much that night. Don't be afraid of the dark.
It's something that we as parents tell children and
grandchildren, and at times even ourselves.
In the darkness, there's nothing to be afraid of.
Don't be afraid of the dark. That's a statement that is much
easier to say when the light is shining.
It's much easier to believe at noon and when the lights are on,
then in the darkness of night when we cannot see.
Living in darkness and the fear and anxiety and worries that
come with it are a very human problem that we have.
We see in Abram today a very common problem, a very human
predicament, the dreadful challenge of trusting God when
we can't see him. Now, up to this point, Abram has
done some amazing trusting in God.
Abram lived in a region. That's what what is you know,
you know, the region of Haran kind of.
And God came to him, not visibly as far as we know, but somehow
Abram heard this voice from God saying, leave everything you
know behind all this area where you've done all of your growing
up and lived your whole life. And Abraham was pretty well
along in years already at this point.
And I want you to follow me. I'm going to show you a new land
and a new place. And I'm not even going to tell
you where you're going. I'll just let you know when you
get there. And Abraham left, and he
followed God into this, not even knowing where he was going,
followed the voice of God, taking his wife, taking his
nephew, taking his household with him, leaving everything
else that he had ever known behind because of the promise of
God. And Abram literally became a
stranger in a strange land. And when he got there, God said,
this is it. And Abram said, all right, this
is it. This is where God said he would
give him descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky above,
as the dust on the ground, the sand on the seashore, and make
him a blessing to all peoples on earth and all nations on earth.
There were challenges that came up that Abram met once again
with great faith. His nephew Lot became very
prosperous just as Abram was becoming very prosperous.
There wasn't enough land for them to grave all of their
flocks together. Their workers were fighting with
each other over the land and over the grazing patch, excuse
me, grazing spots. I still got a little bit of that
bug over those grazing spots. And so Abram again, with a
tremendous act of faith and humility and courage and trust
in God, he said to Lot, the younger you choose, you pick the
land you want, I'll take whatever's leftover.
And Lot took the better land. And immediately God reassured
Abram, don't worry, it's all going to be yours and your
descendants forever and ever and ever.
Now at this point, Abram still had no descendants.
This relative of his, Eliezer, a person in his household, was the
closest thing he had to an heir. He had no children.
But then, then other crises arose, partly due to Lot's
decision to live in the Jordan Valley, pitched his tents near
Sodom, inherited some of Sodom's problems, many of Sodom's
problems, ultimately all of Sodom's problems, and this
particular problem was political enemies.
And Sodom's political enemies came and conquered Sodom and
carried Lot and his family off as political prisoners,
prisoners of war. An aberman, A tremendous act of
faith, an old man, not a soldier, not a general, not even
a king. He was a sheep herder.
He was a shepherd by profession and trade, but he raised his own
private army, he secured alliances with neighboring
kings, and he went to war. And he rescued his son-in-law,
and he not only got lot in his family back, he got all the
booty, all of the loot back from that king that had originally
conquered Sodom. He was carried aback.
He was a rich man, a very rich man.
And the king of Sodom even said, hey, I am so grateful that you
brought the people back. You can keep all the stuff.
And in another tremendous act of faith, Abram said, no, no, no,
no, no. You're not my provider.
God is my provider. No one will ever say that you
made me rich. Everything I have, people will
say was given to me, my God. And so we gave it all away,
every penny on it. A tremendous act of faith.
But he still had no child. And now a great adventure of
faith that began in the light of the noonday sun was creeping
toward the darkness, and Abram was starting to worry.
And Abram was getting afraid as the darkness closed in because
he could not see how he and his wife, who were well past
childbearing years, were ever going to have a child.
And it had been years since since he thought he heard God
make that promise, but it still wasn't fulfilled.
Was it going to happen or wasn't it going to happen?
Would he have an heir? Would he not have an heir?
And God, said Abram, don't be afraid.
I've made you a promise. I am willing and able to keep
that promise. You simply have to live by
faith. Live by faith.
But it is a dreadful challenge to trust God when we can't see.
But it's the very nature of living by faith, following and
obeying one we cannot see, to a place where we have never been
in the company, sometimes of friends, sometimes of strangers,
and sometimes utterly alone. Abe entered what millennia later
Saint John of the Cross would call a dark night of the soul.
Dark night of the soul, a time and experience of kind of an
internal wilderness, an internal darkness in which God strips
away everything that used to provide meaning and comfort and
hope and a sense of connection with God.
John talked about two types of dark nights.
One was a dark night of the senses in which all of those
things that make us feel God's closeness and God's presence and
God's joy and God's approval are gone.
You used to love your morning devotional time with God.
It made you feel so close to God.
Now it makes you feel nothing. You used to love gathering and
worship with the people of the church.
You used to feel such joy as you sang God's hymns, listen to
God's words, preached, shared, and worshiped together with your
family and friends. And now it just feels like Rote
used to feel tremendous satisfaction and works of
service in the church and in the community, and now they just
feel like duty and responsibility and everything
that used to make God feel good and close and present and loving
feels empty. And you begin to wonder whether
you would just imagine it all to begin with the dark night of the
senses, when all of those things that helped us feel the presence
of God become barren and dry. And as hard and difficult as
that is, it's not as hard and difficult as the other dark
night that John taught about. And that was the dark night of
the Spirit in which the presence of God seems to be withdrawn
entirely. And there is a creeping feeling
that maybe I never really experienced God at all.
Maybe it was all just my imagination.
Maybe it was never real because I feel utterly alone and in the
dark now. That's what Abram is entering
into. I believe he began acting out of
fear as much or more than out of faith.
He made decisions. He and Sarai, his wife together
made decisions that harmed them and harmed others around them
very, very deeply. Fear and anxiety and insecurity
and the darkness of doubt and the doubt that comes in the
darkness. And God said as Abram was going
into this, as the darkness was closing, God said to him, those
words, do not be afraid. I have made you a promise.
I am willing and I am able and I am faithful and I will keep that
promise. And on a grand scale, this is
what God says to all of us, through Abram and Sarai, and
through our fathers and mothers of the faith, throughout
Scripture and throughout church history.
God promises that he is willing and able, and He will keep his
promises. And that promise was most
grandly, eloquently, and potently fulfilled in Jesus and
his life, death, and resurrection.
Jesus, after all, is the light of the world, the light that
shines in the darkness and which the darkness has not overcome.
And yet, even as we truly profess and genuinely believe in
Jesus, we often do do not comprehend His light and
struggle to live this life of faith.
As we walk through the darkness of this world now.
Not always, but sometimes the way of faith seems as bright and
clear as a well worn path through a sunlit woods.
But at other times that path disappears in the weeds and the
fog and the night, and we find ourselves in the darkness
wondering which way to turn, where to go, which light in the
distance is the light of God, and which is the deceptive
flickering of false hope and deception.
Now I have encountered over the years some in churches who have
never experienced a dark night of the soul.
Who who always seem to live in the noonday sun, who never seem
to have been given a reason to doubt, and who are completely
firm and their confidence, direction and faith.
If you are such a one, thank God for the blessing you have been
given, but please do not chide, sneer at, or judge as faithless
those who seek to follow Jesus while walking in the darkness.
Friend of mine used to say, just because you've graduated, don't
burn the school down. Those who walk in darkness are
prone to fears, anxieties, worries and doubts.
Doubts at first whether we're still following God and God's
way, and then whether there really is a God and a way and a
true light. They feel like a result of sin.
They feel as if sin is what bras brought in them into this
darkness, and it feels like a repudiation of faith.
They feel like they've been abandoned by a faithless God, or
perhaps that there was never really God there to abandon
them. Many people live in this kind of
darkness. Some live in this kind of
darkness, having come from a place of faith and light.
Some live in this kind of darkness, never having seen the
light. I think the shooter in
Minneapolis just a few days back may be an example of such a one
who perhaps never saw the light. I think one of the most
disturbing facts about that shooting.
Shooting anyone is an awful thing.
The shooting of children is an abominable thing.
But sometimes we can, whether we agree with it or not.
When we know the reason, an ideology, a mental illness, when
we can put a why on it, it can makes the horror at least
manage. But when there is no ideology,
when a killing like that is done by someone who seems to have
just wanted to see the world burn, who had no ideological
motivation, no agenda, just was firmly convinced that the world
has no meaning and no purpose, so why not kill a bunch of
children before I kill myself? That kind of darkness, that kind
of philosophy has a name. Maybe you've heard it before.
It's spelled the same by everyone.
Some pronounce it nihilism, some pronounce it nihilism.
I don't know why there's two different pronunciations, but
there you go. A philosophy that says there is
no meaning, there is no purpose, there is no light.
We are not going anywhere. We exist by chance.
We will end in oblivion. And while our eyes are open and
our lungs are breathing and our hearts are pumping blood, the
only thing that really matters is power.
The power to crush others or the power of others to crush us.
Whether you know that word nihilism or not, that philosophy
is growing at an alarming rate in our world.
It is a philosophy that is embraces darkness and says there
really isn't any light at all anyway.
But dark nights need not be mindless, need not end and
mindless, meaningless death and destruction.
Because some dark nights, such dark nights as Abram was
entering, such dark nights as people of faith have entered for
millennia, such dark nights are God's good gift.
They are a slow and painful stripping away of our reliance
on all that is not God when we walk in this dark night of the
soul the best that we can do. The best that we can do is to
remember the light that we used to see, to remember, and to
choose to believe that it was real and not imagined.
Amy and I had years ago a friend and a mentor named Kimberly
Butler, older than us, wiser than us, further down and spent
more time on the road in life of faith in US.
And she guided us in some areas, in our marriage relationship, in
our spiritual life and was a tremendous blessing.
We had a particular time with Kimberly.
That was what I have heard I have referred to and I've heard
other people refer to as a mountaintop experience.
You ever talk about or hear about mountaintop experiences,
whether I whether it's a camp, whether it's at a a revival
meeting, a worship service, a time with your family, but it's
like Jesus transfigured on the mountaintop.
When God is so present and so real and the light is so bright
and you say, how can we ever doubt you know and feel and
experience the presence of God? It's so real and it's so
wonderful and it's so beautiful and it's so good.
And Kimberly said to us in that she said there will come a day
when you will be tempted to believe that you just imagined
what you're experiencing right now.
And then it was never really real.
I nodded and said absolutely. Kimberly said at those times
when that happens, you need to choose now that when that
happens, you're going to believe that what you remember from
today was real and is real and did happen, that you didn't just
imagine it. Sure thing, Kimberly.
It's what I said on the outside. Inside is like, no way, no way.
This is too real. This is too real.
And then the darkness comes and I imagine, did it happen?
Did I just imagine it? I mean, I know the circumstances
were there, but that feeling just a figment of my
imagination. And I thank God that Kimberly
had the wisdom to share that with me before the darkness
came. As we walk in the darkness, we
will stumble and we will fall. As Abram and Sarai stumbled and
fell. We will make bad decisions in
the name of faith and hope, as Abram and Sarai made bad
decisions in the name of faith and hope.
And we will hurt others in the name of God, as Abram and Sarai
hurt others in the name of God, making decisions out of fear,
wondering whether the promise was real and the voice was real
or they'd imagined it all and what's really going to happen
and can this really work? And maybe we should try this
instead, and maybe we should do that instead.
And they left behind them a trail of hurting and broken and
bleeding people in the name of God.
And by the grace of God, as we make our bad decisions and
believe our wrong things and do things that hurt others, by the
grace of God, we become aware of how much and how far we have
fallen and how how our bad decisions have, how bad our
decisions have been and the hurt we have caused others.
And we will sink deeper into the darkness.
Shame will wrap its cloak and its blinders around us until all
that seems to exist is darkness and despair.
And we will wonder even if there is a God, and how could there
be? If there is a God, and the God
is good, how could a good God ever love a Wretch such as me?
But it is in the deepest darkness that God will whisper
into our darkness. This is why I died.
This is why the cross was necessary, because you need it
too. You needed my blood.
You need my cross. You need my grace.
You have no hope without it, no hope without me.
All of your goodness, all of your deeds, all of your works,
all of your plans, all of your intentions, all of your efforts.
We're only paving the road to your hell.
But for God, a light like that is so faint and so ethereal that
it's easily missed. A light like that is easily
drowned out and out, shown by the dazzling lights of self
help, church work, praise, glory and admiration of the church in
the community. So many dazzling lights in this
world that the real hope and light of God and Jesus often
cannot be seen except in the darkness.
So if you are in such a darkness, or are approaching
such a darkness, or are aware that one might even exist, I
will give you the same comfort that God gave to Abram.
The wisdom, the truth and advice that God gave to Abram as the
darkness was closing in around him.
The wisdom, truth, and advice that are absolutely true,
absolutely right, absolutely necessary, and almost absolutely
futile. Don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid of the dark words that are so much easier to
utter and believe in the noonday than they are in the night.
But our God is Lord over the darkness as well as the light.
Our God is Lord over the chaos as well as the order.
God is the Lord over confusion as well as clarity.
God is the Lord over fear and anxiety as well as peace.
And though we are unfaithful, especially in the darkness, God
is faithful. And though we, like Peter and
Judas, are unable to keep our promises, God always keeps his
promises. So let us not despair like
Judas. Let us repent like Peter,
turning and returning to the light, acknowledging our
weakness and our failures, acknowledging the harm that we
have done ourselves and to others, whether individually or
collectively. And let us dispense with our
pride and acknowledge that the best that we can ever really
hope to do is love Jesus. Let us humble ourselves and hear
from him what he told to Peter. If you love me, then feed, tend,
and care for my lambs that are all around you in this world.
If we take up that task as our mission of faith and love, we
can know this, that the work that we have been given to do in
faith has not been given to us because we've earned the job.
Not because our resume is spotless.
Not because we performed so well in the last job.
It's work we have been given to. We have been given to do because
God and His wisdom and mercy knows that we need the work,
that if we are not working in His Kingdom by His grace, we
will find ourselves rotting in hell by our own efforts,
decisions and righteousness. Sometimes we'll be working in
the light, at other times we'll be working in the dark.
But when the darkness falls, May God help us to remember the
light in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.