God's Vision: Covenant

08/05/2018 “God’s Vision: Covenant” Gen. 17: 1-16

Proverbs 29:18 states, that where there is no vision, the people parish. Yet, its not just where there is no vision that we perish, but when we don’t have God’s vision, don’t live into who God wants us to be, then we end up in serious trouble.

We are now entering a four week sermon series about seeking God’s vision for this church. Not our vision, God’s vision. In other work who God calls us to be as a congregation. What defines who we are. What value and mission and ministry we have in the community in which we are planted. 

The Bible is filled with stories of people who seek the will of God, and people who go their own way. One person who certainly did a little bit of both was Abraham. Abraham We find the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis. Where God comes to him and tells him that he will make him a great nation, with offspring more numerous than the stars. But God also asks something great of Abraham, for him to leave his land and his family and his father’s house in order to go to the land that God would show to him. 

In the midst of this call and response, God makes a covenant with Abraham, who is known as Abram at this point. Covenant isn’t a word that we use very often in our conversation today, but it means a formal agreement to do or not do something very specific. In other words its a promise for Abram to have a people and a place. 

But here’s the thing, even though Abram has this amazing promise from God - he keeps trying to go his own way. First, he essentially says to God, you haven’t given me any children, so I’m just planning on making the head of my household, my servant, Eliezer, my heir. Maybe this promise you are talking about will come to pass through him. 

But God said that wasn’t the vision. 

God expands the promise - taking Abram to look at the stars and saying that he would have more decedents then even these. That God was the one who led Abram out of the land of Ur and was preparing a place, a land for him to be his own. 

But even with this amazing promise being made - Abram still got impatient. His wife, Sarai came to him, essentially saying that she wasn’t getting any younger, but the law of the land said that if her servant would give birth then that child would be Sarai’s - so maybe that was the way this promise was going to come to pass. So Abram did as Sarai suggested and he slept with Hagar - but that didn’t end up bringing Sarai the joy she expected, so she treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away and thought she was going to die in the dessert. She eventually returned, after having an encounter with God, and gave birth to Ishmael. 

But this wasn’t God’s plan either. 

Which brings us to today’s text. Abram is getting up there in years and God returns to remind him of the covenant - that he would be given many, many dependents by God. But God took the covenant one step further - saying it was time to change Abram and Sarai’s name, to show that they are marked by God. They will now be Abraham and Sarah. 

And God revealed even more of what is to come. 

 I will make you very fertile. I will produce nations from you, and kings will come from you. I will set up my covenant with you and your descendants after you in every generation as an enduring covenant. I will be your God and your descendants’ God after you. I will give you and your descendants the land in which you are immigrants, the whole land of Canaan, as an enduring possession. And I will be their God.

But for the first time, there is now something that Abraham had to do. Up to this point, the covenant squarely fell on God’s shoulders, but now Abraham is being asked to take a step of faith. As a sign of the covenant he is to circumcise all males. 

And after Abraham heard all of this, he laughed. 

I think sometime we respond like Abraham - we laugh at God’s plans for us. At God’s vision for our church. We say in our hearts, not here, God, not us. And give our list of excuses. We don’t have enough people. We don’t have enough money. We are an aging congregation. But I think what it all boils down to, if we are honest, is that we don’t want to. We don’t buy into the vision. We are fine with how things are. 

And yet, God’s vision keeps persisting. God’s plans will not give up.

For the next several weeks, I want us to try to not have the reaction of Abraham. I want  us to try to seek the will of God together in community. In other words, I want us to discern where we sense God is leading us, so that we can wholeheartedly follow after God. 

But I’m also aware that discernment can be so hard because it requires deep trust in God. It requires us to be in prayer - not telling God where we want to God, but instead asking God where God wants us to go. Discernment is also often hard because often God will only show us one part of the next step. Notice that each time God spoke with Abram, that even more of God’s plan for him and his descendants is revealed. Not all at once, but piece by piece, because the vision is so large and so life-changing that it is hard to grasp all at once. 

I wish I could say that after the laughter Abraham got on board and he whole heartedly followed God and lived into the covenant and never strayed again. But of course that wasn’t the case. He had to keep being reminded of God’s vision in order to keep following, step by step where God lead. The covenantal promise became Abraham’s guiding light. When he focused on it, even if he couldn’t understand it, his purpose was clear. When he turned his eyes away, he often acted in ways that were outside of the will of God. 

What about us, Church? What is our guiding light? What is our purpose from God? And are we willing to follow wherever God may lead us in order to live into who God says we are to be?

Here’s the thing about God’s visions - they are often too big for us to express in our limited words. But Thomas Bandy in his book Moving Off the Mountain Top, puts it this way - “what is it about my experience with Jesus that this community cannot live without?” In other words, why was this church put right here, in this particular place, in this community. Another way that I have asked this question before is, if we ceased to be here tomorrow, what would the community miss about us? How is God using us, to not just renew our community, but to transform it for the sake of the Kingdom of God?

One closing note, Bandy writes, “We cannot create vision but we can create the climate that is receptive to vision”. Friends, are we creating that climate where we seek after the heart of God? May we join together in praying that God’s vision be revealed to us and that we have the heart to follow. Amen.