1.
Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock,
and our Redeemer. Amen. The message
today is taken from Genesis 12:1-9 and it’s entitled, “The Call to Never be the Same,” dear brothers and sisters in
Christ.
2.
In
the 1964 movie, “Becket” Peter
O’Toole played Henry II and Richard Burton played Thomas Becket. It’s based on
a true story. Henry and Thomas Becket were drinking buddies. This is the twelfth century AD, over 900
years ago. What’s interesting is Thomas was a pastor, but he was like the king,
corrupt, hotheaded, living for sensuality. They were just hotheaded, good ol’
boy drinking buddies. Then one day the
Archbishop of Canterbury died, and Henry II had a brainstorm. “I’ll make Thomas the Archbishop of
Canterbury.” Why? Because Thomas is just like a regular
guy. He’s not going to be telling me how I have to live my life. He’s not going
to be telling me not to oppress the poor.
He’s not going to do any of that stuff. He’s just a regular guy. Finally,
we’ve solved the problem of church/state relations. So he makes Thomas Becket
Archbishop of Canterbury. Then something
happens. Thomas is shaken, because he knows that even though it has come
through Henry for all the wrong reasons, he’s now the bishop of England. He
suddenly realizes a sense of the call of God in his heart. He realizes how
unworthy he is of it, and it changes him.
Thomas Becket received the call of
the Lord and he was never the same.
3. Thomas as the new Archbishop of
Canterbury becomes a man of integrity and he begins to represent the gospel of
Jesus Christ. He begins to represent the Word of God, and he begins to call out
King Henry for the things he’s doing wrong, and Henry is going nuts. And,
because of this change in Thomas, King Henry is filled with conflict, because
he loves Thomas, but he’s so mad at Thomas because Thomas has become a good
guy. Thomas is telling him the truth of God’s Word and exposing all of Henry’s
sins. Finally, one night King Henry is just
so upset about what has happened with Thomas that he cries out to his knights, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
The four knights look at each other, and they go to the cathedral and
murder Thomas Becket right there. AD 1170. It really happened. In the movie, as Richard Burton sees the
knights of Henry killing him, he’s lying there, and what are his last words? He
says, “Poor Henry.” The call of God
had made him holy. The call had made him like Jesus. He was completely
unworthy, he was just as corrupt as anybody else, but the call had come into
his life, and now he’s like Jesus. “Father,
forgive Henry. He really doesn’t know what he’s doing.” The call of God changes us so that we’re
never again the same.
4. The call of God is so powerful.
And the story of Abram here in Genesis 12 reminds us of that. Here in Genesis 12 we see that Abram was
called by the mercy of God. Luther notes, “If
you should ask what Abraham was before he was called by a merciful God, Joshua
(24:12) answers that he was an idolater, that is, that he deserved eternal
death and eternal damnation” (LW 2:246). Here in the story in Genesis did you notice
the great change that God’s call to Abram had on his life. After God’s call Abram was never the same. Later in Genesis God would even change
Abram’s name to Abraham. Abraham was
commanded to leave his country. This meant a loss of security and protection of
law. He was commanded to leave his
relatives. This meant leaving both his family (first unit) and his clan or
tribe (second unit). This separation from the syncretistic practices of family
and tribe (Josh 24:2) would ensure Abraham’s consecration. He was to leave his own home. Abraham was
commanded to separate himself from the comfort and heritage of that which he
held dear. The calling is similar to that of every Christian (Mt 19:29). He was to go to the land God would show him.
Clearly he went “by faith” (Heb
11:8). He did not know his destination.
5.
Abram’s
call certainly changed him and his family.
He would never be the same again.
He was called to leave behind all that he knew, his family, his land,
everything. This isn’t the wisdom of the
world. The world tells us to embrace one
another and all that you are: tolerate
all things so that we might be one. The
world says that to be set apart from the rest of the world, like Abram, to be
an island in the midst of the rest, is to be unloving, uncaring, and exclusive. This is the wisdom of the world as we saw
earlier in the conflict between King Henry & Thomas Becket. But, the wisdom of the world isn’t God’s
wisdom, and the ways of the world aren’t God’s ways. No, when God calls us through the Gospel of Jesus,
when He forgives us our sins through Christ’s death on the cross, and baptizes
us into His holy family, He calls us to be different from the world, to never
be the same again. For if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation, the old is gone, the
new has come (2 Cor. 5:17).
6.
To
accept and tolerate all is to lose all that we’ve been called to be as
Christians. Abram was to no longer
worship false gods, like the moon, as his family had been doing. Abram was set apart and so are we. Abram was sent away, separated out from his
world, and so are we. In God’s wisdom,
it is only when one is distinct and separate that one can be salt, a city on
the hill, and a light in the darkness. The call of God in our lives has changed us
to never be the same.
7.
We’re
separated out of the world so that we might be blessed to be a blessing. We’re set apart in order that the blessing
we’ve been given in Jesus might be given to the whole world. Abram was separated out in order that Jesus
the descendant of Abram, might be born and the whole world might be saved. And we as the Church, both old and new, have
been separated out, called out by the blood of the eternal covenant. Not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by
the blood of the precious Lamb of God, Jesus, who takes away the sin of the
world. It’s Jesus who has called us
through His death on the cross and His being raised from the dead that has
changed us to never be the same.
8.
How
many of you have read any of JRR Tolkien’s books, “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of
the Rings” trilogy? Or, maybe you’ve seen the movies based on these books? I was once listening to a literary critic who
knows these books and says the thing you have to keep in mind is The Hobbit is an adventure, but The Lord of the Rings is a quest. The Hobbit book is a book for children
and it’s an adventure story. The literary critic said that an adventure is a
there and back again story. It’s something you choose. You go and have your
adventures, and you have all your thrills. Then you come home again, and you
pick your life up again where it left off.
An adventure is there and back again, but a quest isn’t something you
choose; it comes to you. You’re called to it because of what’s involved, and
you never really come back from a quest. In a quest you either die for the
quest, or if you do come back, you’re
so changed you never, in a sense, come back. You’re never the way you were. Now
I want you to know Christianity isn’t an adventure. Christianity is a quest. God says to us like
he said to Abram, “Get out of your land,
leave your old way of life behind, and go to the place I’ve called you.” You’re going to be radically changed. Christianity
is a whole new life.
9.
Dear
brothers and sister in Christ. God has called you through the Gospel and
made you a Christian, “for faith comes by
hearing and hearing through the word of Christ,” (Rom. 10:17). You were washed, you were sanctified, your
sins were forgiven when you were baptized into the name of the Holy Trinity. You’re now dead to your old way of life of
living under the bondage of sin, death, and the power of the devil. Now, like
Abram, you are alive in Jesus Christ.
You’ll never be the same again.
You’re a new creation. The Lord
called Abram to leave his home and go to a land that God would show him. Here
in Genesis 12 we’ve seen how God calls an idol worshiper to faith, giving him a
promise that God Himself would fulfill for all people. Through the story of
Abram we’ve seen how God’s Holy Spirit works faith, when and where He pleases,
through the Word. Here the grace of God
is shown to us, that He “justifies the
ungodly” (Rom. 4:5), not by works of the Law, but through faith in His
promises found in Jesus. He removes all of our sins and lawless deeds through
Jesus so that we are never again the same. Please pray with me. Heavenly
Father, call us to trust the Word of God in the water of Holy Baptism, to cling
to everything You command, and to live by the blessing of Your Holy Word. In
Jesus’ name. Amen.
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