Sermon: The Assurance of Things Hoped For San Carlos Community Churches Ninth Sunday after Pentecost July 21, 2024

Last week we read of the time when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, he wept over it, and quoted from the prophet Isaiah, saying, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.?? (Luke 19:42)

What are the things that make for peace?? Many things make for peace and there are many kinds of peace.?

There is the peace that comes after solving a big problem, having completed a major project; and the peace that comes after winning.

There is the peace that comes from being focused on God, which is what we touched on last week. Some people do a very good job of this; others not so much.? Some people and even clergy are restless all their lives and that doesn’t mean they’re bad people or bad clergy.? We must remember as Augustine said, the heart abides restless until it abides in God."

Some people’s peacefulness draws you in and fills you up and you just want to be around them – such a person must have been our Lord and many saints of the church.?

Our readings for today focus on faith, which is one of the most important things that make for peace.? If we are truly at peace, we have faith that it will last. If we have faith, we are probably at peace. ?We are not haunted by nagging fears that something will go wrong.?

Our readings are among the most familiar and most important in the Bible.? In the first we hear how God took Abraham outside one evening and showed him the stars of the desert sky.? "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be."

Abraham believed what he was told, and set forth on a journey to a new land, having faith, having confidence, being full of hope that God was guiding him.? Thus, he could be at peace while he journeyed into the unknown.?

Remember that the Pilgrims arived on the Atlantic shore of America in late November of 1620. Half of them died that winter, yet they stayed. They never doubted that God was with them and that they were on a mission from God.? Their faith gave them peace with their decision.?

In our reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews we read:

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”

In other words, God whom we cannot see made everything that we can see, and touch and hear for that matter.? Abraham obeyed God whom he could not see, but by faith could hear, and that has made all the difference.

We Christians, we people of the book, have always been a future-oriented people.? We have never been bound by the grudges of the past.? The Pilgrims who landed here certainly mourned those who died during that first terrible winter, but then they gave thanks that they were still alive and lived in hope.? They looked forward to the city whose architect and builder is God.? We are living in it.? Every congregation in America today is grateful for their faith, faith that still moves us into the future.

In his famous letter to the Corinthians Paul wrote about faith, hope and love.? They work together and create peace.? In fact, there is no enduring peace without faith, hope and love.? We live in a contentious time, when peoples’ anger about past wrongs is drowning out faith, hope and love altogether; when many of us define ourselves less by what we love than by what we hate.

Therefore, while we are still resting in the warm days of summer, let have the faith of Abraham and the prophets and Jesus and all the saints that God is still leading us; let us find common ground and celebrate what we love.

- Psalm 33:12-22? Exultate, justi

Happy is the nation whose God is the?Lord! happy the people he has chosen to be his own!

The?Lord?looks down from heaven, and beholds all the people in the world.

From where he sits enthroned he turns his gaze on all who dwell on the earth.

He fashions all the hearts of them and understands all their works.

There is no king that can be saved by a mighty army; a strong man is not delivered by his great strength.

The horse is a vain hope for deliverance; for all its strength it cannot save.

Behold, the eye of the?Lord?is upon those who fear him, ? on those who wait upon his love,

To pluck their lives from death, ? and to feed them in time of famine.

Our soul waits for the?Lord; ? he is our help and our shield.

Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, ? for in his holy Name we put our trust.

Let your loving-kindness, O?Lord, be upon us, ? as we have put our trust in you.

Genesis 15:1-6

The word of the?Lord?came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." But Abram said, "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." But the word of the?Lord?came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir." He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed the?Lord; and the?Lord?reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-13

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."