“Can you hear me now?” we hear the guy on the TV saying over and over.  The message he is really conveying is, “Can you trust me now?” because if you trust the message you are going to buy that product.  You are confident that it is going to do what it claims it is going to do.  As every-day-plain-and-ordinary-normal people, we need to see and touch and smell and taste and feel significant evidence before we believe.  Some say that’s where we get the Missouri in our name, Missouri Synod, we’re a bunch of “show me” people.  That seems strange as one of our foundation principles is, “That seems strange as one of our foundation principles is, “By FAITH alone.”

 

            Abraham is the example of faith God has given all people to follow.  Abraham is known as the “Father of faith.”  He is truly our father in faith  It is by faith alone that you and I are children of Abraham. 

 

            Abram had just returned from saving Lot and his family from the four kings who had captured and carried them away.  Abraham took 318 trained men from his camp to attack these kings and rescue his nephew and family.  Abraham was a brave man and as well as a wealthy man.  God had provided to Abraham pretty well for being a nomad, a wanderer and alien in the land where he lived.  Upon his return and in response for God’s delivering the enemy into his hand, he gave 1/10^th of the booty to Melchizedek, priest of “God Most High.”  [Gen. 14:18-20]  Abraham then stands up boldly to the King of Sodom to defend his people.

 

            Then God says to Abram, “Do not be afraid.”  Abram seemed confident enough defending his family as he did.  Abram seemed brave enough going into a strange land just at God’s word.  It seems strange for God to give this assurance, “Do not be afraid.”  Look at the person sitting nearest you today.  All of you look pretty confident.  Look into your own heart, what are you really afraid of today?  Throughout your life, what have been different fears at different times?  Which of those fears continue or what new ones appear as you turn another corner?  Is your fear more over known things or is it more over the unknown? 

 

            God says, “I am you’re your shield.”  “Abram, the King of Sodom is breathing down your neck.  I will protect you.  Abram, you are in a foreign land without others to defend you.  I will protect you.  Abram, you want someone to carry on your name, to receive everything I have given you, and to protect those you have protected all of these years.  I will give you that.”

 

            God says, “I am your very great reward.”  Reward for what?  Did Abram do something so great that it earned God’s favor?  The only thing we see Abram doing about God of note is when Abram trusts God.  We see that trust in the times Abram follows God’s commands.  Leave this country and go to that one.  Be an honest person, I will take care of you.  Abram’s wealth becomes one that is recognized by the owners of this land he is living in.  You are old Abram, in fact almost 100.  Sarai is almost 90.  The two of you are going to have a son from your own bodies.  No embryo implants here.  No surrogate mothers here (although they tried one with Hagar).  But Abram again trusted God and God’s promise came true. 

 

            It is frustrating as we see God testing Abram.  He makes him wait until this late age and keeps making that promise of countless descendants.  He puts him in different situations, and Abram fails the tests of faith, but God restores him anyway.  He tests Abram with the threat of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah as Abram begs God’s mercy to save just a few as he thinks of his not always so faithful nephew and family. God tests Abraham to sacrifice that one and only son back to God.  Note that Abram goes from testing God as he does from time to time, to letting God test him and responding in trust, faith, believing what he cannot see, believing that God will keep his promise.  And God makes promises that are difficult to see.  But God keeps making the same promise.  “Can you hear me now?”  “Do you trust me now.” 

 

            “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”  [v. 6]

 

            Trust is all God expected of Abram.  Trust, and that is faith,  is all God expects of you.

           

            Twenty-one hundred years later, the writer to the Hebrews quotes this passage and also explains what faith really is.  It is believing the things we cannot see or understand in this world.  Jesus, talking to us in Luke also reminds us that we are to put our trust, our hope, our treasure in heaven, our hearts will be there too.  And, if hearts are in heaven, trusting God, our lowly sinful selves will not rot in Hell but be restored in Jesus’ righteousness.  We are reminded of that again this week in this congregation.  After over 100 years, her body and mind not what they had been in her youth and prime, a lady who lived those 100 year trusting the promises of God was given those promises as he took Mabel to be with him.  As we do for all who leave this earth in faith, we covered her mortal remains with the funeral pall reminding that in baptism, in faith, we are clothed with Jesus’ righteousness when presented to God for judgment.  He credits faith with righteousness.

 

            That is the message from day one in Scripture.  Trust me and you will live. Do not believe me and you will die.  We eat of the tree of earthly knowledge and wisdom, and we die.  We eat of the tree of eternal life, the body and blood of the cross, and we live forever.  Be faithful to the point of death and I will give you the crown of life.  [Revelation 2:10b].

 

            Can you hear me now?  Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of Jesus Christ.  [Romans 10:17]  God didn’t wait for us to straighten ourselves out, but completed the work while we were yet sinners.  [Romans 5:6]  Abram believed against all hope and faced the fact that his body was as good as dead as far as procreation was concerned.  But he continued to believe God because he was persuaded that God had the power to do what he promised.  [Romans 5:18-21]

 

            Does God have the power to do what he promises?  He made the earth and everything in it and everything in the heavens.  By our greatest scientific knowledge, those great scientists acknowledge that we cannot fathom in any way how God actually created all things.  By our greatest earthly knowledge and observation, we have no clue how expansive the universe is let alone what lies beyond it.  By the greatest medical procedures and pharmaceuticals we cannot cure the common cold, accurately predict cancer and other maladies, start life from nothing nor prevent life from expiring let alone bring it back from the grave an immortal body.  We do not really have control over the “breath of life.”

 

            God gives us his word.  He created by that word.  He foretold centuries and thousands of years before time what would happen in actuality with his people on this earth, and all of those things came true.  His word never fails, and neither does he ever leave of forsake any of his children.  “His word is truth.”  That is only because God is perfect in truth and truth alone.  “Can you hear me now?” he asks as you hear his word in its truth and purity.  “Do you believe me now?” God asks knowing we have heard his word, his promises, his deliverance in Jesus Christ, his son, our Lord and Savior.

 

            His word.  His washing and renewing and rebirth in baptism.  His body and blood shed once on the cross still given to you each time you receive it to strengthen that faith as you “remember” him.  God did not need anything from Abram but gave him everything simply because Abram believed God.  Abram lived his entire life trusting God at his word and received the reward, forgiveness of sins and eternal life only through faith.  That promise given to Abram 4200 years ago is the same promise given to you and me today.  The promise never changed.  God never changed.  The means of receiving the promise never changed.  The reward never changed.  “God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and purify us of all unrighteousness.”  [1 John 1:9]

 

            "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.”  [John 14:1]  ” "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  [John 14:6]  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”  [Ephesians 2:8]

 

            “Can you hear me now?” God says throughout his word.  “Trust me now.” 

Amen.