Delivered
by Ellen Brantley
Sunday,
June 8, 2008
SERMON:
Fully Convinced
TEXT:
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
I heard a story once about a pastor who was working late at his church one
Saturday night. He decided to call his wife before he left for
home. It was about 10:00 p.m., but his wife didn’t answer the
phone. The pastor let it ring many times. He thought it was odd
that she didn’t answer, but decided to do a little more work and try again in a
few minutes. When he tried again, she answered right away. He asked
her why she hadn’t answered before, and she said the phone hadn’t rung all
evening. They wondered for a moment, but finally brushed it off as a
fluke.
The following Monday, the pastor received a call at the church. The man
calling wanted to know why the pastor had called him on Saturday night – he’d
seen the church name on his caller ID. The pastor said he had been
working at the church, but didn’t call anyone except his wife. The man
said his phone rang and rang, but he didn’t answer it. Then the pastor
remembered that his wife hadn’t answered the first time he called. He
apologized to the man, saying he must have dialed the wrong number.
The man then continued that he had a story to share. “I was planning to
commit suicide on Saturday night,” he confessed, “but before I did, I prayed
for God to give me a sign if I shouldn’t do it. At that moment, my phone
started to ring, I looked at the caller ID and it said, ‘Almighty God.’ I
was so stunned I was afraid to answer!”
The name of the church was ‘Almighty God Tabernacle.’
It’s an amazing story, isn’t it? It’s almost too amazing to be
true. You might even think it sounds a bit hokey, melodramatic, and most
certainly fabricated. Maybe it was. I honestly don’t know whether
it’s a true story or not.
Question is, whether you believe it COULD happen. Do you believe in
miracles? I mean, other than the miracle of birth, or a miraculous
healing of some kind.
We’ve become such a skeptical, mistrustful society. It seems we spend
much more time expecting bad things to happen, than expecting miracles.
Look at how stirred up everyone got when that young woman in
Sometimes it’s even hard to trust God. But the scripture lessons we heard
today show three individuals whose trust was great. From Romans, we were
reminded of Abraham: “Hoping against hope, he believed that he would
become ‘the father of many nations,’ according to what was said, ‘So numerous
shall your descendants be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered
his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred
years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No
distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in
his faith as he gave glory to God, being FULLY CONVINCED that God was able to
do what he had promised.”
Time and time again Abraham was challenged to trust that
God would keep his promises: when God told him to leave his homeland
without any direction about where he would go from there; when he sent his
mistress Hagar and his illegitimate son Ishmael out into the wilderness and God
promised they would survive and thrive; and when God asked him to sacrifice his
beloved and long-awaited son Isaac on the altar. In my opinion, Abraham
did more than trust. Abraham was FULLY CONVINCED.
In Matthew’s gospel, we read about a leader of the
synagogue who came to Jesus, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay
your hand on her, and she will live.” The crowd that was mourning her
passing laughed when Jesus said she was just sleeping. But they stopped
laughing and started sharing the news when Jesus took the girl by the hand and
she got up, very much alive. What great trust that leader must have had
to believe that Jesus could resurrect his daughter simply by a touch of his
hand. Certainly he, too, was FULLY CONVINCED.
Finally, we meet the woman who had been suffering from
hemorrhages for twelve years. She didn’t even speak to him or make eye
contact with him. He didn’t even know she was in the crowd. But she
said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be
made well.” At the moment she touched him, Jesus turned, and seeing her
he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And
instantly the woman was made well. What great trust she must have had to
believe that just a touch of his clothing was all that she needed from Jesus to
be freed from her illness. Like Abraham and the leader of the synagogue,
this woman was FULLY CONVINCED.
Am I that faithful? I wonder sometimes. If I
had a child who died or if I suffered from illness for twelve years, would I be
FULLY CONVINCED that God loved me, that God had good things in mind for me,
that God’s promises were trustworthy? Furthermore, if we are FULLY
CONVINCED, do we live like it? Do we have a positive attitude? Do
we know and share what it means to “hope against hope”?
I met a man once, a very faithful man, who was not ashamed
to talk about his faith and his great love for Jesus. He was the kind of
person who lived his faith day in and day out, with every breath, with every
step, with every word and every deed. At the same time, though, this man
also believed strongly in the idea of predestination – that some of us are
chosen or elect for salvation and others are not, and there’s nothing we can do
to change our destiny; it was decided before we were born. So I asked
him, “Do you believe that you are saved?” This man who lived and breathed
his faith, looked me straight in the eye and said, “That is my greatest fear,
that I might not be saved.”
I think it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. How
can a person be such a strong believer in God, yet not be FULLY CONVINCED of the
promise of grace given through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ?
You know, one of the marks of faithful membership in the
church is that we “demonstrate a new quality of life within and through the
church.” It seems to me that if we were FULLY CONVINCED of God’s
unending love for all, of God’s trustworthiness, of our salvation, that we
would easily demonstrate a new quality of life, both within these walls and
outside these walls.
How would we live differently if we were FULLY CONVINCED
that “all things work together for good, for those who love the Lord”?
What would our attitude be if we were FULLY CONVINCED that “everyone who asks
receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks the door
will be opened”? What would a new quality of life look like if we were
FULLY CONVINCED that we need not worry, for God knows our needs and will
provide? How would we show it on our faces and in our actions if we were
FULLY CONVINCED that there is nothing in this world that can separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?
If you’re feeling like I’ve laid a big weight on your
shoulders, consider the woman who was well-known for her simple faith and great
calm in the midst of many trials. Another woman who had never met her but
had heard of her came to visit one day. She wanted to find out the secret
of her calm, happy life. When the woman answered the door, the other
woman greeted her: “So you are the woman with the great faith I’ve heard
so much about.”
“No,” the woman replied. “I am not the woman with
the great faith, but I am the woman with the little faith in the great
God.”
May we of little faith learn how to “hope against hope”,
knowing that God is great. May no distrust ever make us waver concerning
the promises of God. May we be FULLY CONVINCED
that God is for us and will never leave us or forsake us.
And may we learn to demonstrate a new quality of life within and through the
church.
To the glory of
God!
AMEN.