Choosing Nobody - Rev. Jonathan Warren

We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the spirit you put to death deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.

When we cry, Abba, Father, it is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs.

Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if in fact we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility itself not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who are the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly while we await for adoption and the redemption of our bodies.

For in hope we were saved.

Now hope that is seen is not hope.

For hope is for what for who hopes for what is seen?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let us listen to the word of God.

Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

And you, all the families of the earth, shall be blessed.

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.

Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan.

When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Morah.

At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land.

So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.

And from there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent.

And with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.

And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Neged.

This is the word of the Lord.

We all know Abraham's story very well.

When God calls him, he listens.

He goes to a new land and follows God's plans for his life.

He receives God's blessing and becomes a great patriarch of our faith.

However, this new beginning for Abram wasn't at a young age.

Instead, God interrupts his life with this new beginning at the age of 75.

Most of us at that age are getting out the golf clubs or ready to travel.

We may have more doctor's appointments, but maybe we're also having fun with the grandchildren.

You know what they say.

50's the new 30.

So does that make 75 the new 50?

Abram was called by God to start over when he was ready to retire.

But if you dig deeper into the story, if you think about the context and who Abram really was the moment God called him, then you begin to realize that Abram was just a simple shepherd.

In fact, he wasn't really anyone special.

He was more like a nobody to his peers.

Sure, Abram may have been a great rancher, but he had no children.

His wife Sarai was uh past the childbearing age, and with no son, with no heir, and that culture and time, it meant he had no future.

He was a 75-year-old nobody.

According to the world, he was the opposite of blessed.

He was likely considered by his peers cursed.

Abram had no legacy.

He had no future.

He was nobody and was cursed.

And everyone wrote off Abram, especially himself.

So when God interrupts Abraham at the ripe age of 75, God's essentially choosing a nobody and turning him into a somebody.

God's making the cursed blessed.

The creator of the universe is changing Abram, who has no legacy, into Abraham, who becomes the patriarch of our faith.

That's a legacy.

Certainly, Abram could have ignored God.

He could have listened to what everyone else was whispering about him.

But he doesn't.

Nobody has nothing to lose, and God is promising him hope.

It's nothing like what the world gives.

God's hope is eternal and long-lasting.

Like in our Romans text, hope gives us great things for our future.

It's on our church sign, it's on our bulletins.

I say it every week.

God brings hope every hour and every day.

God gives Abram time to dream about his future for the very first time.

His dreams of legacy are now alive, and now Abram has a chance at a new start, a new beginning.

It doesn't matter if he's 16 or 40, 75, or 100.

The kind of hope God gives him turns a nobody into a somebody.

Having this new start when things are unraveling is what the God of A of the universe is known for.

It doesn't just happen for Abram and Sarai, but it keeps happening again and again in Scripture.

To Moses and to Ruth, to the disciples, to a Samaritan woman at the well.

Many years ago at a youth triennium, Professor Roger Nishioka was telling thousands of youth how important they are to God.

That's what he said.

God has a plan to reveal God's self to you in some way.

If God can reveal God's self to Abram, a nobody according to his culture, a man without a legacy at the age of 75, then how dare we sit here and think to ourselves, no, God could not possibly reveal God's self to me.

The problem is our culture keeps giving us these messages that I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not handsome enough, I'm not beautiful enough.

How dare we say that to ourselves?

All those not enough messages are a lie.

If the God of the universe chose a shepherd at the age of 75 to bestow God's blessings and promises, then we must believe that God can reveal God's self to us now, here, today.

That's our beginning.

And God has a trate track record of making nobodies into somebody's.

God had a plan for Abram, and God has a plan for each one of us.

Professor Anishioka's words ring true to us today.

Too often we listen to what the world says.

That we're nobody.

That we're not enough.

But we must know that it's a lie.

Somehow we find ourselves here in this place.

Not by accident.

We are in the very presence of God right now.

And God is trying to get our very attention.

God wants us to listen.

And if you're to do anything right now, today, this week, stop listening to the not enough messages the world says their lies.

Instead, listen to the one who brings us truth and blessings and hope.

Many of us experience new beginnings all the time, just like our children shared.

New schools, new jobs, a marriage, parenthood, retirement.

I remember the first time I took Siobhan on a date.

I wanted to take her someplace fancy, but I didn't have a car or much money.

I got all dressed up, ready to meet Siobhan for our date, and when I met her, she was absolutely absolutely gorgeous.

We had reservations at this nice Italian restaurant downtown Austin, Texas, and I thought we were being adventurous by riding the city bus downtown instead of taking her car.

Only to find out later she wasn't very thrilled, especially wearing heels and having to walk several blocks from the bus stop to the restaurant.

The restaurant was very nice.

There was even an accordion player, and then I saw the prices on the menu.

And I asked her in my least anxious voice possible what are you looking at getting?

And I'm adding up the prices in my head and trying to breathe and look calm.

Eventually all that faded into the background somehow.

Worrying about the expensive entrees was a bit silly.

But that was one of the most important beginnings I'd ever had.

God was there in that beginning.

And somehow we listened.

And now we have two beautiful daughters.

We've had a great 20 years together.

I pushed all the lies aside, and God turned a nobody and not enough.

And a blessing.

They didn't know where it would lead them.

In fact, there were many times when they could have given up.

There certainly were many moments where they could have listened to God's voice other than God's.

When slavery fractured this country, 35 people left First Presbyterian and started anew on college and Westminster.

Right here on this corner.

Or when the building went down in flames, not just once, but a second time.

And first pres worshipped with second pres.

And when this new when the new building was erected, the two congregations merged and became State Street Presbyterian Church.

And then in 1952, State Street and Westminster reconstituted into First Presbyterian.

They listened to God.

God planted the seed of hope in and through them.

And in less than a year, we will celebrate the seed of hope planted by twelve people and 200 years of blessing.

And this week, 10 years ago, marked another new beginning for our congregation.

A new chapter.

It was my very first Sunday here as your pastor.

And just a week before preaching that Sunday, 10 years ago, I was doing a woodworking project with my circular saw, and it got stuck.

And moments later, things went crashing, and I cut part of my finger off.

Let me tell you, it was not the beginning I had originally planned.

Far from it.

And all the plans I had that week went down the tubes.

And all I could do was prepare for Sunday.

I could hear all the not enoughs ringing in my head.

I was hurt and injured and medicated.

I could have easily given up, but you all helped us and brought us to God's hope.

You brought a meal that prepared for us.

Of course, I reworked it a bit, but I prepared the very sermon that I preached today.

This part wasn't an end.

Over these last ten years, we've been together through ups and downs.

We've celebrated communion and baptisms, we've fixed broken pipes and shared donuts and meals.

We've faced heartache and injuries.

Illness and cancer.

We've celebrated death and resurrection together.

We made it through COVID.

You sent us on a sabbatical.

You welcomed a Scottish family.

We have a messy church, a godly play, and a new thriving kids act.

Today we're sending off uh our youth out for a mission trip.

And next year we're gearing up to celebrate 200 years.

We must remember that our job is to push all those other voices aside and only listen to the God of Abraham.

For God brings us blessings.

And our very task is to pay attention to what God is saying to us.

For if the God of the universe can speak through Abram, a nobody, making him the patriarch of our faith, then God is also speaking to each of us, nobodies, here in this place, calling us to be somebody's.

And we are here today to listen to God's voice again and again and again.

And when we listen just like Abram did, just like the 12 people who started this church 199 years ago, just like 10 years ago when you called me a 36-year-old pastor.

For when we will follow and listen to God's call, God brings us hope.

And hope that turns nobody's into somebody's, hope that turns our not enough's into blessings and promises.

May we always bring God's hope every hour and every day for years and years to come.

In the name of the Father and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

If you found this podcast inspirational, I would like to support the First Love Ministry programs at First Presbyterian Church.

Please send any contributions to First Presbyterian Church at 870 West College.

Jacksonville, Illinois.

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