Message given at Grace Church, Molokai 10 January 2010

Let's play an "imagine this" game. You are 30 years old. You have just finished training at the top of your class and are starting a new career. You are the favorite of all your bosses. Your customers adore you. Your co-workers think you are talented, funny, and good-looking. You have just recently married the greatest person in the world. Your spouse is living out the job of their dreams. Life is good. God has just rolled out the red carpet for you to have a successful life and glide up the career ladder. You think…I've got it made. Relax and imagine that. Soak it in. It feels great…almost fairy tale great.

Then something happens to change everything. You believe you hear God speak. He asks you and your spouse to walk away. He says you can take anything and anyone, even your pets… but you still need to go. God doesn't threaten you if you decide to stay. He just tells you it is time to go. What would you think? What would you feel? What would you do?

Then, the situation changes a bit more. You hear the Lord promise that if you go, you and your family will be blessed beyond anything you can imagine. Now what?
In our daily Bible reading calendar this week, several days have been spent looking at Abraham, the man who is often called the father of our faith.

He was in the prime of his life. He had a babe for a wife. Earlier in life, his father had moved the family from the city of Ur to the suburbs of Haran. And the ohana seemed to be pretty well off.

Just as things got comfortable, God spoke to Abraham. There were 2 parts to God's message. The first part was simply "LEAVE." Leave the familiar - the landscapes you've looked on for years, the culture that's nourished you. Leave behind everything: amenities, language, religion, even family. This was no quick trip to a foreign country, no short-term mission trip. God was commanding permanent separation from everything Abraham knew. God was asking Abraham to do something radical.

Then the Lord God added a second part: "GO." God was saying, "Step out and follow My lead, even though you don't know where I will take you. I have a place for you, but you won't know it until you get there."
And then the Lord said, "I will bless you and make you great. And all the people of the earth will be blessed because of you."
This second part would eventually have another part; God promised Abraham that the land to which he was sent would someday be an inheritance for all his offspring.

And was he ever a prime candidate for culture shock! God took him away from the land of his family, from a culture that was comfortable and familiar, and sent him to a place where he would be a foreigner. No one would know him. No one would speak his language. Everything would be different.
Abraham and his wife had not been able to have children. God's promise involved descendents, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars if you can. So shall your offspring be." With these extraordinary promises, the Lord wasn't simply setting apart an individual. He was creating an entire people to be His own.

God called Abraham to move from security to insecurity, from the known to the unknown, from the predictable to the unpredictable, singling him out to be the model of obedience and faith. And even though Abraham didn't understand, he obeyed.
Does God still challenge people to take risks? Does He ask people to leave behind everything safe and secure to follow without a hint of destination? Most Christians would agree that God asks us to "step out in faith" but when it comes to specifics - to the daily business of making a living, supporting a family, getting through school - we shrink back a bit.

The God who called Abraham was and is a God who loves. He is a God who blesses. But He is also pretty clear that His blessings are linked to our obedience.
And obedience often means to risk.
But we often don't realize that the Lord is a risk-taker.
Sure He is God. Sure He makes all these cool galaxies and animals. But the Lord took a risk when He made human beings and gave them the gift of free choice.

The story of the Bible is the story of God taking risks, from start to finish. But when God endowed His creatures with that dangerous quality, free will, He gave us the option of rejecting Him. That risk set in motion the chain of events that would move from the Garden of Eden to the Garden of Gethsemane to the cross and the empty tomb.
But through all of this, He is a God of love. His risky love covers our failures when we mess up. His risky love gives us the talents and passions to either serve Him or to use them for our own selfish means. And we discover His love when we step out and place our lives in His hands. And in His love today, we can be blessed.
When the Lord asks us to step out to trust Him, we aren't jumping off a cliff; instead we are falling into His arms.

But we can't stay where we are, and follow Him at the same time. There is a quote that says that if you got here by yourself, then God didn't bring you. And if you can get there from here, then God isn't carrying you.
And often, we build our own lands of security and familiarity that are so comfortable that we don't want to step out and follow.
The block to stepping out may be our physical environment - the house where we live, our neighbors or even the island of Molokai. It may be a job that doesn't challenge you - but doesn't stress you either. It can be our family, our finances, or the way we live daily life, which has become so comfortable. It may even be Grace Church.

So here is the question of the day. Are there ways your environment has become so satsfying that you wouldn't change it, even for Jesus' sake?

Here is part 2 of the question. Have you missed out on the blessings that come from God's love primarily because you have become so comfortable?

Even our spiritual lives can become so agreeable that we aren't stretched into deeper commitment to following Jesus Christ. It's easy when things are good to feel so blessed and thankful that our relationship with Him can becomes stagnant and routine.
Doesn't that sound crazy? We can become so blessed that we actually will unplug ourselves from the source of all those great things. The kids are doing well in school. The car is running OK. We're not too rich but we are eating and the bills are pretty much paid. We have good cable, a computer that works, a dog that sits and rolls over on command, and life is pretty darned good.

And we kind of roll over in our comfort and accidentally pull the plug. So we find ourselves no longer growing, no longer listening for the Lord's voice, no longer yearning to read and reflect on the Scriptures. Our love for the Lord becomes, in Jesus' words to the Laodiceans "lukewarm - neither hot nor cold." We may feel a bit "off" but that's probably hormones or a mid-life change, right? Our discipleship has become comfortable: and we are no longer ready to step out and follow when the Lord speaks.

And because we have quit following, we actually miss out on the promises and the Promised Land that God has for us.
Sometimes we have obeyed the "leave" part, but we haven't done well in following, the "go" part.
"LEAVE" and "GO" are basic ways that God deals with us. The particulars vary from person to person because God has created and calls each of us uniquely. And even if the Lord calls you to "stay," you still have to be willing to put everything aside if He calls you to leave and go.

Are you with me?
Our blessings are found only as we stay plugged in and walk closely with Jesus. That allows His love to filter in to every part of our life. It is where we discover His power and strength.
And our father in faith, Abraham modeled for us that when we are obedient to the Lord, our entire lives can be blessed.
A quick word. Obedience doesn't guarantee immediate perfection. Abraham had trouble with telling the truth a few times after that. He had wife and girl friend troubles. His nephew fell in with the wrong crowd. His children didn't exactly get along. One of his family members grabbed the best part in a business deal, and got the choicest neighborhood.

But the Bible tells us this. Abraham believed God. He lived out that belief by being obedient and following the Lord. And God saw that and counted him righteous. In fact, in Isaiah 41 we are told that God called him, "My friend."

A quick assurance. Even as the Lord God called Abraham to leave and go, He didn't tell Abraham to bail out on his wife. He didn't tell him to abandon his family. Those come from the deceiver. If you think you are hearing commands from God like that which run counter to the Word of God, they come from the deceiver.

That's another reason to be faithful in Bible study. And it also separates the Bible from other interesting books. If the Bible is just a collection of poetry and stories, then we really don't have to obey. We get to make up our own lists of good living and righteousness. And if it feels Ok, it must be OK. But the Bible tells us God's plan and shows us how to follow it. If this truly is the Word of God, it sets up the Lord's standards for righteousness and in the Bible we are repeatedly called to obey.

In Abraham's obedience, he found the heart of God and he discovered God's love and faithfulness. He discovered God's righteousness and mercy. In obedience, Abraham discovered God's blessing.
And do you remember the part about the whole world being blessed because of Abraham? One of his descendants was born in a manger, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and was hung on a cross to cover our sins. And then Abraham's distant grandson named Jesus rose from the dead to give us new life. That's a pretty big answer that came directly from God's promise and Abraham's willingness to obey.
Do you want to discover God's heart and faithfulness? Do you want to experience His blessings, even when the kids are fighting? Do you want a place to anchor your life in these troubled times?
Then be prepared to "leave." Be prepared to "go." Be prepared to follow Jesus wherever He leads you.

Listen for God's call. It may be quiet so that only we can hear, He may calls us loudly in ways that are unmistakable. But when the Lord calls us, His call is always meant to lead us fully into friendship with Him. Amen? Amen.

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