Abraham: A Man Who Bought In

Things off by the joyful Psalm 81. Words are on your screen. Psalm 81. I understand our prayer request list is going to change. Angela, are you going to be changing something up on that? Buck, you know anything about it? Somebody told me there was an announcement on the prayer list changing, so I figured I’d bring it up. … Thank you, Buck. There’s a lot of people that need prayer. Sorry for throwing you under the bus there, Angela. Forgive me. Monday mornings, February the 20th, Women’s Bible Study, and also we have our Wednesday evening program and Sunday school every Sunday morning.

Let’s pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank You very much, Lord, for letting us be here this morning. Lord, there’s a lot of folks on our prayer list. There’s a lot that need prayer. We all need prayer. Lord, we ask You to heal up those who have been sick physically and be in our hearts with all of us. Lord, we ask You to be with the pastor as he brings the message this morning. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Okay, I got one more announcement right here. Perfect. Thank you. Yes, ma’am. All right, we’ll continue singing. What’s going on? You got a hand raised. What? Another. What? We’re going to go ahead and keep singing now. Number 533, He Lives. Words on your screen. Stay and we’ll sing. Today you see His hand of mercy. I hear His voice of cheer. Just the time I need Him. He’s always lived. Walks with me. Salvation to important. Front row cupboard, okay.

Okay. I retired from preaching full time, my former church, last church. There was a little retirement party at my house, and one of my preacher buddies gave me a present. And it says this, improve your golf game with a new patented foot wedge, is what he gave me. Okay, does anybody know what a foot wedge is? Okay, well, I’m going to show you. What, what? What do you think it is? No, that would be a T. This is something a little different. Okay, I’m going to show you what this is. It looks like a club, okay, the bottom of a club. And so, like, you would hit with it. Even came with some directions. It says, it’s not how you play the game, but how you win it. Okay, is how this thing goes. Okay.

It says, you are now the owner of one of the newest pocket-sized golf clubs to be introduced in years. Although it has not been officially approved by the U.S. Golf Association, we believe many golfers will want to add it to their present set of clubs. And the club, as we use the term, in its broadest sense, is dying to help golfers improve his lie in the rough, either with or without the knowledge of his opponent. That means guy you’re playing with, ain’t got to know about it. Okay? The best way to use it is to bend down as though you were tying your shoe and while in that position, fit it over your right shoe. And then from a standing position, you can nonchalantly nudge or gently kick the ball while in the rough to obtain a better lie.

What that means is this. Say I, I, I hit the golf ball and instead of going straight down the fairway, like maybe everybody else’s, my ball goes off to the right and it’s in some tall grass or just kind of barely in the woods or whatever. You take this and you take it and you, you put it on your, you pretend like you’re tying your shoe and you just kind of put it on there, you know, and like this. Nothing that’s really good. Say my ball was here. When nobody’s kind of looking and I don’t want to, I just kind of, I found my ball. I got my ball. It’s right over there. Okay. You want to go get it? Okay. Go get it. Okay.

Now, what would be right or wrong with that? If I’m playing golf with someone, what would be right or wrong with that? You know, it was a preacher that gave that to me, by the way. I just want another preacher. Okay. Yeah, it’s exactly what I would be doing. I’d be cheating. But what’s wrong with a little cheating, even just in a little game of golf? I’m not obeying the rules. You think that’s pretty important? Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. And, but it’s just a game of golf. I mean, what’s the big deal? Right? Yeah. But, you know, there’s an interesting verse in the Bible. Let me see. Let’s see. There’s my Bible. Let me read it to you. It’s found in Colossians chapter three. And here’s what it says. And this is a verse we ought to memorize. Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, whether you’re saying it or doing it, do all in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to Him and God. So whatever you do, whether you’re talking or you’re doing something, whatever you do, you’re supposed to do it for Jesus. Even golf. Can you believe that? Or playing with your friends or your family or being at school or not just church, whatever, even playing golf, whatever you do, we’re supposed to do what Jesus wants us to do, right? Because here’s, here’s something that I never want you to forget. And the Bible talks about this. If you do the little things right, you think you’ll probably do the big things right? I think you will. If you practice on doing little things right, just playing like golf with your buddies or baseball or football or, or you’re just playing or doing whatever, how we talk to each other. If you do the little things right, probably do the big things. Does that make sense? So you think I’ll take this out on the course? And yeah, well, it depends how my golf game is going for the day. Right. I’m not going to be playing with. Or who I’m playing with if I want to beat them bad enough. No, no, let’s do it right. Do the right thing. It’s never, remember this, it’s never the wrong time to do the right thing. Okay? Let’s pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for telling us that no matter what we do, we’re to honor You. And so help us do that. Even if we’re playing golf, don’t use the foot wedge. Don’t use foot wedges in life and help us to do that, whether it’s at home or with our buddies or at school or wherever, help us to do the right thing. In Your Son’s name, we pray. Thanks guys. We’ll say. Since all divine. CSU for forever. Just a good man of the Lord and a close, close friend. So good to see you, have you here today. A couple things. Let me just, Wednesday nights, you know, we’ve been going through the Red Sea Rules with Robert Morgan, and we wound that up. We hit Rule 10. Don’t forget to praise the Lord. We hit that on this past Wednesday night. So what’s going to be new? Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel at one time was the legal editor for the Chicago Tribune. He was an atheist. Then his wife got saved, and he thought she was in some kind of crazy cult, didn’t know what to do, and said, well, I need to get her back to some sanity. So he was going to go out there and kind of prove that everything she was believing in was wrong, and disproved the Bible and a whole bit, and wanted to come to it from a legal perspective, from, I want to just see the evidence. In the process, got saved, and then became a pastor, and became an incredible author and writer, wrote books like The Case for Christ and The Case for Easter, The Case for God, The Case for a Creator, all those kind of things. Just an amazing person. Boy, he wrote a book called The Case for Heaven and Hell. It’s a five-part series, and if you’re interested, we’re going to be looking at that on Wednesday nights. What’s the evidence that we know of that there’s a real place called heaven and a real place called hell? And so we’re going to be looking at that on Wednesday nights, and if you’re interested, we’d love to have you. Everything kind of kicks off at six o’clock, and so hopefully you’ll be there with us for that. Wednesday nights can be a precious, precious time. Some of the discussion we get into is amazing, and as we now come to a time of prayer, a number of folks, I’m sure, on your life that we need to keep in prayer. Just kind of some updates. Michael Cordray, of course, this time last week was back in the hospital, had a fever and I think an abscess, and they had to deal with some issues, him and Claudia, and so, but he’s home, so let’s just keep him and his recovery continues. Also, Claudia, you know, her mother passed, and so we’ve got that. She’s dealing with that also, and then I talked with Marilyn a little bit. Her brother is not doing well. Of course, he had the major heart surgery, and he’s at home, and so there’s just, I think, and then someone else in his family, so there’s a lot going on in a lot of people’s lives, a lot of sickness. I want you to pray for me, because I got a call a couple days ago that my dad, who is in Portland, I went and visited about a month ago. They’ve given him just, I was told two days ago, no more than 72 hours, so I’m expecting that phone call at any time, and so we’ve just, a lot going on in our lives, a lot going on, and I want you to pray for our search committee. God’s man is out there, and you know, being on a search committee is a tough thing, so you want to make sure you get the right guy for this church, so I want you to bow your heads.

I want you to close your eyes, and I just want you to spend some time with the Lord, you know, have that conversation with Him. Remember the folks I just talked about? Well, I’m sure you came in with some things on your heart and your mind this morning that you want to lift up to Him, and this is a time to do that. You know, worship always includes prayer, and sometimes it’s not just saying something to Him, but listening to what He has to say to you, so let’s do that at this time.

Father, thank You. Thank You for always listening to us. No matter what state we’re in, You never change. You’re the same yesterday, today. You’ll be the same tomorrow, and we just thank You for that. Your goodness and Your mercy and Your grace. It’s absolutely amazing. So, Lord, we’ve got some needs. Thank You that Michael’s doing much better, but I also lift up Claudia and the loss of her mom. Lord, I’m about to get a phone call probably for the next hours or days, and about my own dad. So, if there’s anything is that there’s pain in this life, and it is hurt. You can comfort us like nobody else can, so I just pray for that in each of our lives and guide us this morning to hear You clearly. Change us. Make our hearts different. Make our minds different, so that when we walk out of here, we’ll be different, especially to a world that needs You so desperately. So, we just ask this in the name that’s above every name, the awesome name of Jesus. Amen.

You got your Bibles, like you turn with me into the book of Genesis chapter 12. We’re going to start a little series for about four weeks or so just called Agents of Change. Change isn’t usually something we always look forward to, but change is good. If anything that we know is going to happen all the time, it’s change. Even babies like change. And so, the whole thing about change is it’s just something that’s going to happen. Might as well get used to it. And I think change can be good. But we’ve got to look at it in the light of our Lord and what He thinks and what’s important and all those kind of things.

Years ago, I got a book. It’s written by a guy named David Platt. Now, this is a kind of one called Radical Together. It’s about a church kind of going through it. He wrote it as a young man. If you don’t know about David, David pastored at that time, he was a large church down in Birmingham, Alabama, Brook Hills. And one time, he was the youngest mega church pastor in America. He went on to become president of the Foreign Mission Board for Southern Baptist and now pastors a church in McLean, Virginia. But when he wrote this book, he had just kind of gone to Brook Hills and he was there and he was a young guy and he’s trying to figure things out. And he came up with this saying, “How can we in the church best unleash the power of God in the spirit of God with the word of God for the glory of God in our world?” I’m going to say that again. How can we as a church best unleash the people of God in the spirit of God with the power of God for the glory of God in our world? I’m going to say that again. How can we as a church best unleash the people of God in the spirit of God with the word of God, for the glory of God in this world. So he went to his church, and he got with the leadership there, and he asked them to do a couple things. He was talking to the leadership, and he gave them a list of questions. Here are some of the questions. How can we most effectively mobilize the people of this church to accomplish the Great Commission? Do we need all the staff, teams, committees we have? Does our church budget reflect the desires and design of God in this world and God in His Word? What are the best use of our money and our facilities and even our programs for the gospel? And so people started looking at him, and they started thinking, what do you mean? Do we got to get rid of this kid’s program? Do we got to get rid of this program or this budget or whatever? He said, I don’t know. We asked God, why don’t we kind of put it all on the table? And a lot of folks got kind of upset, but a lot of folks kind of came to realize that. What can we do to make a difference? I’m always amazed when a church comes together and prays and says, God, what do you want? What happens to that church? And some amazing things happen to this church.

We’re going to look at a guy this morning who had to change some major things in his life. A guy by the name of Abram. He would later be called Abraham, but at this point in his life, he’s called Abram. And so I want us in verse 12 just to read the first nine verses. So if you’ll stand with me for the reading of God’s Word, we’ll go through this.

Now the Lord said to Abram, Go forth from your country, from your relatives, from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you, and I’ll make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. So Abraham, or Abram, went forth as the Lord had spoken to him. And Lot went with him, and now Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took Sarah, his wife, and Lot, his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran. And they set out for the land of Canaan. Thus they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land, as far as the side of Shechem, to the oak of Morah. And now the Canaanite was there then in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants I will give you this land. So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. And then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.

Thank you. Now you may think about, okay, he traveled, he did all those things. I want to tell you, please be seated. Thank you for standing. He leaves the town originally from Ur, because he’s from Ur of the Chaldees. Do you know anything about Ur? It was found by the Sumerian people. Donnie, if you’ll throw, and Morgan, if you’ll throw a picture of that up, okay, this is the route that he’s going to be going, okay? Ur of the Chaldees is bottom right. It’s probably, at that time, they probably didn’t have all the sedimentation, so it was probably right on the Persian Gulf at that time. So, it was a shipping area. It’s a massive city. If you’ll go to another picture, Morgan, okay, that is a picture of what Ur probably would have looked like. Major city in the area. It was called Ur of the Chaldees. Now, if you know anything about Chaldees, what were the Babylonians called? They were called Chaldeans. So, this is kind of like early Babylon, okay? This is before Nebuchadnezzar and all those guys, and Nebuchadnezzar, his father, and all those things. This is early time, but it was a major city. Go to another thing, you can see what it would have looked like to live there. I mean, probably, and no one, Abram and his family, they were probably wealthy people who lived in this area. Go to the next one. Pretty major looking place, isn’t it? Okay, and then the next one. Okay, that’s today. So, today, it actually looked like, this is what they dug up. That’s one of the ziggurats there, a place they probably did a lot of worship, but it was a pretty major place. That’s also probably, it’s in southern Iraq is where it’s located. So, right there. Thank you, Morgan.

If you notice on his trip, he goes north. He goes right along the Euphrates River, is probably how he went up, keeping all his flocks and stuff near rivers, and he settled in a place called Heron. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine somebody coming to you, and, or say they came to me, and they said, Al, here’s what I want you to do. This is the Lord. I want you to leave this place. I want you to leave Charleston. Now, Beth and I are born in Charleston. Okay, we were raised here. Went to high school here. Left for a while, but you know what? We came back. Left for a while, went down to Savannah where I pastored down there. Then I came back. We just came, coming back. And then she’ll say to me, you know, Al, I just love Charleston. Charleston’s home for me. You know, I just feel it’s pretty here. It’s near the water. You know, she’s got memories of her mom and dad. And then God says, no, I got somewhere else I want you to go out. I want you to go somewhere out west. I want you to go somewhere like El Paso. You all ever been to El Paso? I’ve been to El Paso twice. You ever been to El Paso? El Paso’s the garden spot of America. Got all the, you know, the beach in the world, just no water to go with it. I mean, it is just, it’s dry. Can you imagine? My wife would look at me like I’d lost my mind. She’d sit there. I said, honey, the Lord’s called me to go somewhere else. Well, he ain’t called me. I didn’t get that dream.

Lord comes to Abram. And it must have been such a vision that it really grabs a hold of him. And so what I want, I want to talk about three examples of what I call buying into God’s plan and what it produces. Number one, buy-in will always lead to action. I like that term buying in. Now, if you’re from Clemson, it’s, there’s another term. It’s called all in. Okay. But it’s pretty much the same thing. You’re buying in. You’re all in to what’s going on.

And Ur of the Chaldeans was a special place. Let me just tell you what, what it was like. Abraham was eventually part of a huge Semitic minority that lived in the large Samaritan city-state of Ur. Ur had hot and cold running water. It had a sewer system. It had multi-story buildings. It had paved roads. It had major temples, ornate furniture, a variety of metal instruments. The Samarians developed a system that divided the hour into 60 minutes, a minute into 60 seconds, and a circle into 360 degrees. So it was a smart, it was an academic place. There were law codes, standard system of weight measures, a system of canals that connected the Tigris and the Euphrates River Valley to control floods and provide irrigation. They said, At that time, Abraham, Ur would have been very near the shore of the Persian Gulf. It was probably full of trade and fishing boats. It was just an incredible place. He was probably a wealthy guy. He appears to have been. He must have possessed many treasures of the finest craftsmanship and most exquisite materials. Probably would have lived in a mansion in Ur. That would probably look impressive today. As an upper class free man, he would have obtained a high level of education and must have been literate and fluent Sumerian, Akkadian, and other Semitic languages. Probably even Egyptian for trade. Enjoyed a refined urban life and a highly advanced center of civilization. To leave all this, to journey to Canaan would have meant a huge sacrifice of material comfort for him. He went from living high on the hogs to also he’s going now living in tents.

Well, his father-in-law takes him out of Ur and takes him up to Heron where they probably, they settle and they make friends. The kids are going to school. Everything is going great. Everything is going well. And then God comes to him in Heron and says, Now I want you to go. Well, where do you want me to go? I want you to go. Could you imagine me looking at Beth And said, “Honey, the Lord’s called me to go somewhere.” “Well, where’s He called you to go?” “Don’t know.” Ladies, how would you like your husband to tell you that? Well, he said, “We’ll know when we get there.” Excuse me? “We’ll know when we get there.” That’s pretty much what happens with Abram. Now He gives him these incredible promises. Look what He says. He says, “Now the Lord said, ‘Go forth from your country, from your realm.’” Look what he’s given up. Go from your country. Leave your land. Leave your heritage. Leave what, you know, the place where you’ve been born, you’ve established a life. From your relatives. I like them apples. Everybody that’s important to you. From your father’s house, your security. But here’s what I’m promising. “I’ll give you land, to land which I will show you. I will make of you a great nation.”

Now, the boy is 75 years old, we find out in this passage. He was going to have kids. Weren’t you think he’d have had them by now? Sarah’s about 10 years behind him, so she’s 65. Ladies, you’re 65 years old and you hadn’t had a baby. Broken your heart. Now you’re being told what? “I’m going to bring a child into your life. Through you.” How’s that going over? If it happens soon, maybe, but that doesn’t happen. So he says what? “And I will make your neighbors and I will bless you.” So he’s offering land, he’s offering a legacy with children, and he’s offering blessings. God comes in with the promises. And He comes up with the promises up front. “Abraham, if you’ll obey Me, if you’ll do what I ask you to do, this is what you’re going to get.” But he’s got to have buy-in. This is no half-hearted deal. And I wonder how many times the church really buys into the things of God. You know, I’ve had people in the church tell me this over the years. “Al, you can change whatever you want in the church. Doesn’t matter. You can just change it after I’m gone. This is how I like it.” And I understand this. I understand everything in our life is changing. Our neighborhoods are changing. People are coming here. I always tell folks, I love our folks from up north that are coming here. But I’m wondering if anybody is still in New York or Ohio. They’re all in Charleston. And I’m glad they’re here. But the thing is that everything’s changing around us. Everything’s changing in Charleston. I mean, I can remember, go back to the 60s. Remember when Savannah Highway was Tulane and all those kind of crazy things? It’s not that way anymore. Change is not only coming, it’s here.

And what’s the Lord telling us with this? The Lord’s telling us a number of things. It starts with God’s promises. What has God promised us? He says, “If you’ll do it My way.” He says, “I’ll do a number of things for you.” Yeah, you may need to leave your country, do those things. But I will what? He says, “I will make of you a great nation. I will show you land. And I will bless you.” Never said it’d be easy. But He says He’ll do that to us. So we know what he left. He has to do something. Now, he can say he’s a follower of God and just stay right there in Heron. But he doesn’t do that. See, when I was in the service, we were stationed in Germany. And it was 1980. I’ll never forget it. And it was the election year. And the army had a slogan that came out that I thought was pretty neat. And I’ve never forgotten it. It said, “You may call yourself a voter, but you’re only a voter if you vote.” I thought that was pretty neat. Well, you know, we may call ourselves Christians. But if we don’t act like Christians, if we don’t obey God, we can call ourselves Christians all day long. But what does the Bible say? The Bible says we’re to be doers of the word, not just hearers only. Buying always leads to action. Buying not only leads to action, buying leads, it will influence others. Well, it started with his family. The Bible says in verse 4, “So Abraham went forth as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.” So Lot’s family is now coming because Lot apparently respects him. I want to tell you, folks, people will watch to see what you do with the Lord. You know, the little thing I did with the foot wedge. People watch us all the time. Kids even know it’s cheating.

People expect a certain behavior from us. Buying always influences others. I was talking with Lee this morning. This week I was reminding of a guy I got to meet a number of years. In fact, it was 1988 that I got to meet him. A guy by the name of Charlie Wiedemeyer. I don’t know if you’ve ever remembered him. Charlie Wiedemeyer was a high school coach in Northern California. He was actually from Hawaii. In the 1960s, he was said to be the best athlete in the entire state for the entire decade. Played at Michigan State. Played on their 1966 National Championship team. The quarterback. Played in the Hula Bowl, which was an all-star game. Played in the East-West Shrine game. But he didn’t want to play professional football. He wanted to coach. So he goes to this little school in Northern California as the head coach. Wasn’t but a few years later, at the age of 30, he found out he had ALS. Lou Gehrig’s disease. This is what he asked his wife. Don’t let me quit. PBS made a documentary on his life. And when CBS saw it, they said, we’ve got to make a movie on his life. Well, they did. You know where they made it? They filmed it on James Island.

Charlie Wiedemeyer was a dedicated Christian. Loved the Lord. And I’ll never forget, he was calling around the local churches wanting to give his testimony. And people didn’t know who he was. So they were going, well, that’s okay. That’s okay. Well, he spoke at Folly Beach Baptist Church. And I’ll never forget, I was on staff then at Fort Johnson on James Island. And our pastor was out of town. So our church got a call from Folly Beach and said, you need to hear this guy. This guy’s amazing. Now, hearing him was kind of a phrase because Charlie was now in a wheelchair. He had a tube in his throat so he could breathe. And his wife, Lucy, would sit next to him and interpret for him. That’s how he called ball games. When he was a high school coach, he would sit in a golf cart in the end zone. And his wife would sit there and read his lips as he called the plays. And literally, calling the plays. And he led his team to seven state championships. He called one of the state championship games to a hospital room.

I said, well, yeah, let’s get this guy in. And I’ll never forget him. We played the documentary first. And then he came down the aisle like he would come down this aisle here. We removed the pulpit and four of our biggest guys picked up his wheelchair with him in it and placed it right here. And he gave his testimony. Most incredible thing I’ve ever heard. How does this guy do? They gave him two or three years to live. He lived 25 years later, died in 2010. How do you do that? See, buy-in will not only lead to action. Buy-in always influences others. They said you would talk to his players. They never complained about anything. You would talk to people that he would speak around the world. After he talked, people said, I’m not complaining no more. This guy can do this and love the Lord and just accept what God’s done to him and move on. Complaining. Guy was passionate about Christ. He knew life wasn’t easy. I like the title of the movie, Quiet Victory. Like I said, he looked at his wife and said, Lucy, don’t ever let me quit. By the way, Pam Dauber played the part of his wife.

Buy-in always leads to action. Buy-in always will influence others. But here’s the other part about buy-in. Buy-in always keeps the purpose in focus. Kirk Bradford has a song that he plays. And we do some Bible studies at his house when it’s starting to get late. It goes like this. One of the lines in the song. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. He’ll start playing that song. You know, when Abraham got this vision from God, these promises from God, he knew in his heart, I can’t go home. I don’t have to go home, but I know this. I can’t stay here. You know, if you look at his life, and it’s the chapters that follow that I’m so amazed with, I mean, the things he encounters and how he sees the incredible things of God and the places he goes, you know, he ends up never stopping. And I want to take the land of Canaan. Wasn’t all that great. Those Canaanites were pretty tough people, pretty territorial.

people, protective people. Right next to the land of Canaan is the land of Philistia, where the Gaza Strip, as we know it today, where they had the Philistines. And then he had the Egyptians. And yet God takes him down there, and He says, “Every place you put your foot, I’m going to give you.”

Have you stopped long enough to hear the promises of God in your life? If this book is of anything, it’s with the promises of God. Has, has, has Sauldam Baptist Church ever come to a place where it looks at this and says, “What is God promising?” I remember He delivers. He keeps our purpose and focus. Why? Because it probably won’t just happen tomorrow.

How old is Abraham when he gets the word? He’s 75. How old is he when, when Isaac is born? He’s a hundred. Sarah’s not 65 when she gets the word. I mean, she gets, when she gets the word, how old is she when, when Isaac rolls around? She’s 90, 91. How does that excite you ladies? Excited her. She would live to be 129, 127. God always comes through.

Change is tough. Change sometimes takes a while. Change is coming. How do we embrace it? It’s tough. Tom Fettelstein once said this: “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance a whole lot less.” Tell you it’s coming. But when it’s godly change, it makes it not irrelevant, but relevant.

I was reading a book this way. I came across this story. It’s a story by, about a company named British Rail. A number of years ago, British Rail had a real fall off in business. So it was looking for marketing answers. And they were kind of sitting there going, “We got to advertise better. We got to do something. We need a new ad campaign. We need to get our old customers back.”

So the British Rail executives went to the offices of a prominent London ad agency to discuss their needs. Here’s what happened. They walk in the door and a rude receptionist welcomes them. They told her they have to wait. Finally, an unkempt person leads them to a conference room, a dirty, scruffy room. Once again, they’re left to wait. There’s plates of stale food on the tables. A few agency people drifted in and out of the room and basically ignored the executives who grew impatient by the minute. And when the executive asked what was going on, the agency people just kind of brushed them off and went on their own work.

Eventually, the executives had had enough and they angrily started to get up, completely disgusted by the way they had been treated. When all of a sudden, one of the agency people finally showed up, here’s what he said: “Gentlemen, your treatment at our agency is not typical of how we treat our clients. In fact, we’ve gone out of our way to stage this meeting for you. We behave this way to point out to you what it’s like to be a customer of British Rail. Your problem isn’t your advertising, it’s your people. Let’s address your people’s attitude problem before we attempt to change your advertising.”

I think if we’re going to be what God wants us to do, we need to look inside and what we need to do, like Abram had to do at some point and said, “Am I going to believe God or not? Am I going to buy in, take action? Am I going to buy in to influence people? Am I going to buy into the place where it’s going to stay in focus for the rest of my life?” Let’s do that.

But now that could never happen in a church. A church would never do that. A church would never act like that. God’s people, we’re normal folks too. Pastors are normal people too. I’m reading an incredible book called The Good and Beautiful Community right now.

Let me just close with this, this story. A guy who, in fact, the guy who wrote the book was at a college and he was a college campus pastor. A local church in the area decided they wanted to come alongside and said, “Hey, look, we’ve got a couple thousand bucks we want to invest in the college ministry. We’d like to…” So I don’t know how you would be, but if I’m a collegiate pastor and I’m thinking someone comes to me and says, “We’ve got a couple thousand we want to help you with,” I’m saying, I’m all ears. He said, “The only one catch is you need to teach a young person’s class at our church and hopefully bring some of your students.”

with you. So he agreed to do that. So he went there and he started teaching, and about 25 kids would show up on Sundays, and it would seem to be going well. And then one day, often the pastor came to him and had these questions for him. He said, “Look, I know we’re giving you the money, but where are your kids going? So they come to your Sunday school class, but as soon as the class is over, they’re not coming into our worship service, or they’re going off to another church, maybe just even going home.” He was kind of surprised. He didn’t know about the problem. So he went back and started talking to the kids, and he said, “Hey, what’s going on with this?” And they said, “Well, kind of born there. A lot of older folks, and we just don’t ever feel welcome.”

Well, things didn’t change much. Next thing you know, they just kind of cut off the funding, and everything just kind of stopped. But a few months later, another church came to him and said, “Hey, look, God has impressed on our hearts, college kids. God has impressed on our hearts, and we need to do something. Now, I want to tell you, we’re just a bunch of older folks. We sing hymns on Sunday mornings, and our pastor is a pretty good preacher, but what can we do for you?” And he said, “Well, I got college kids. They ain’t got a whole lot of money, but I tell you what, they always hungry. Think you can feed them?” Ladies in church go, “Yeah, we can feed them. I can bake stuff. We can make stuff.” He says, “And, you know, they just want to kind of find a place where they belong.” The lady goes, “I can hug somebody. I can give them. I’m a hugger. I can hug somebody.” He said, “Would you kind of just check on that for us and see if someone would come?” So he said, “Well, okay, I’ll come Sunday.”

And so it was that Sunday he brought about 15 of his kids, and they came to church. Older of a congregation, still sang the hymns. Pastor got up, you know, pretty good message, but it was solid, spiritually based, just a good message. But those folks made those kids feel like they were the top of the world. Then they took them next door, and they fed them. And they, you know, they had some green, had to have a green bean casserole. There was a green bean casserole over there, and there was some, some jello with the fruit in it, you know, and it was over there. And all of a sudden this kid started coming. A lot of things didn’t change as far as between the two churches. You know, they were older congregation, sang just old hymns. And this congregation was that. They didn’t, they didn’t change a bunch, a whole bunch of stuff. But all of a sudden kids started coming to that church. And the young man, James Bryant Smith, who was a professor, started coming to that church. And all of a sudden what they found out is all of a sudden, a lot of others said, all of a sudden that church started to grow, and some neat things happened.

What was the difference? Difference was the buy-in. See, here was the deal. First church was how can you improve us? How can you minister to us? Second church was what? How can we minister to students? You know, we also look out to what the Lord’s got out there and where He’s taking us. Look, it’s scary. Buy-in is tough. But the difference is when we understand what the Lord, also we start to not only go into action, but we start to influence others. And God keeps us on focus. And unbelievable things happen in a church. That’s what He’s telling Abraham, this agent of change. Abraham, you leave what you know. You leave what’s comfortable. You leave just, I don’t know, I’m not going to, will everything go on the table? Would you put everything on the table? God goes, “I’m not looking to change that, but let me change you.” I just think that’s what God’s got for Saul and him.

So what’s the plan? The plan is this. When was the last time this church came together and decided, Lord, what do You want our church to do? Lord, what do You want me to do? And I’m going to give you an opportunity this morning to pray that. Abraham had to get off his duff. Yeah, the Lord said, “Look, I’m going to promise.” And I’ll tell You, as long as He understood those promises that… That kind of kept him going. Yes, it was 25 years later. But what has the Lord done with that promise? I mean, who’s the father of Christianity? Judaism. He even claims, you know, Islam. You know, Abraham’s the father of many nations. God honored him. Did he see it all? My question is this. You know, are you willing to plant a tree that you never will probably be able to see the fruit of? And remember this. God didn’t call you or this church to be successful. What He called us to be is obedient. And if we’ll be obedient, then in His eyes we’ll be successful. Follow that.

Let’s pray. A few moments, Donnie’s going to come up here. And Donnie’s going to lead our pianist and our organist in music. But I want you to do something different. I want you to just kind of sit where you’re at and just say, Lord, what are You calling me to do? Lord, what are You calling Sauldam to do? Where do You want us to go? What do You want us to be about? And I want you to pray for that. I want you to pray for you. And I want you to pray for your church. So Donnie, if you’ll come on up. In fact, Donnie, if you want to sing the song, that’d be fine. But I want you, while he’s doing that, while the music’s playing, and I just want you to just pray. God, what do You want Sauldam Baptist Church to do? Lord, if You’ve got a ministry out there for us, please put it on our hearts. Lord, if You’ve got something in my life that You want me to do, put it on my life. Make it real clear. You know, Lord’s got a way of making things real clear in our life. If we just ask Him, He’s not trying to hide stuff from us. Donnie, if you’ll go ahead and the ladies play. I want you to pray.

Some week this week, we start the new series, Evidence of Heaven and Hell, The Case for Heaven and Hell by Lee Strobel. That’ll happen Wednesday night, 6 o’clock. And I hope you’ll be here for that. We get some neat discussion. So let me encourage you to be here for part of that. And hope, again, have a good week. Keep everybody in prayer that you, you know, got on your heart and you’ve heard about today. And let’s stand as we’re dismissed. Remember, you may be the only Jesus someone ever sees. So have a great, great week.

Let’s go, Lord, in prayer. Father, thank You for Sauldam. Thank You for, you know, back, what, 1841, You stuck this church right here for a reason. This church is still here for a reason. Lord, help us to just, maybe it’s just a few moments every day. But if we can just stop long enough just to pray, God, what is our mission still here? What are You doing that we need to be in the middle of? How do I fit into that? Doesn’t matter how, gosh, Abram was 75 years old when that started. Lived to be at a ripe old age. A hundred when his son came around, Isaac. You can still use this no matter what age you are, whether we’re a teenager or an older senior adult. Everything in between. Doesn’t matter how big we are or how small we are. What needs to be important is, are we obedient? That’s what makes You impressed. That’s what makes You happy. And so, Lord, help us to just do that. This week, give us the ability to, maybe every day, just spend some time. Lord, what do You want my church to do? And how do I fit into that? We ask this in a name that’s above every name. The awesome name of Jesus. Again, all God’s people said. Amen. Thank you, folks.