Given By Rev. Steve Meineke on Aug. 7, 2016
With all the demands on our time and attention, sometimes you can feel emotionally drained. Today’s sermon hopes to strengthen your faith and allow you to continue being the kind of person you are deep down. The reading today begins by describing faith as the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction in things not seen. To demonstrate this, the reading uses the journey of Sarah and Abraham. At first, it seems quite unbelievable that a 100 year old man and a 90 year old woman would have a baby.
It works out well since the descendants of Abraham outnumber the stars in heaven and the grains of sand on the shore. There is a sobering note though. We are told that all of the people in the story died in faith without receiving the promises. The writer has pointed out how faith really works in real life. Faith is not a destination but a long process. Many people today live life thinking only of the short-term. What is needed more than ever now is to live with the long-term in mind. The end of the reading offers us some hope. Although those in the story died without the promises, they saw and greeted those promises from a distance. As we journey in faith together, we can greet those promises with assurance since those promises are of God.