Operation Overboard: Dare to Go Deep with God Hebrews 11: 1 & 2 July

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1 Operation Overboard: Dare to Go Deep with God Hebrews 11: 1 & 2 July Tonight vacation Bible School begins at Berkley First. Students will learn songs, put together crafts, hear bible stories, play games and eat snacks. Churches have been doing vacation bible schools for many years. As a child I attended VBS in my home church. I can t recall what was taught, but I do remember it was a fun time. I bet any student that attends this year s VBS will have a great time. Each Vacation Bible School has a theme. One year it was outer space. Last year I believe it was cooking. This year it is aquatic. Operation Overboard The students will be deep sea divers. They will be exploring the depths of God s love. I invite you to come over to Berkley First at 6:30 pm tonight or Monday through Thursday to see how the place has been decorated for Vacation Bible School. Inspired by the theme of vacation bible school, I have decided to preach a sermon series with an aquatic theme. Each Sunday my scripture text or my main sermon illustration will involve water. Today my title is Dare to go deep with God. The following Sundays will be Finding Nemo, In the Belly of a Whale, How to Walk on Water. I think this will be a fun series. To help set the mood you were invited to bring in a beach towel and drape it over a pew. If you forgot it this week, bring one next week. We have plenty of pews to cover. On the screen you can see the promotion flyer for VBS. You can see the figure scuba diving, but underneath the picture is the key scripture verse. Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don t see. (Heb. 11:1) Since this is the verse our children will be learning this week, I thought it would be good for us older children to explore this verse, maybe even commit it to memory. The scripture translation that is being used for vacation bible school is the Common English Translation. The Good News Bible reads: To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of things we cannot see. If we are reading a Revised Standard Version of the bible Hebrews 11 verse

2 one would read, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. In all those translations there is the sense that faith allows us to trust in things we hope for and a belief in something we cannot see. Obviously the thing we cannot see is God. The things we hope for is salvation. Salvation basically means we will be able to free ourselves of sin and that when we die we will go to heaven. Back in 1873 Fanny Crosby wrote the hymn Blessed Assurance. This hymn, one of the most popular in the United Methodist Hymnal, speaks of a confidence in the saving grace of God. Blessed assurance Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story, this is my song, praising my savior all the day long; this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long It certainly sounds like the person who wrote those words had faith, the kind of faith described in Hebrews. Did you know Fanny Crosby lived most of her life New York City? She was born in 1820 and died at the age of 94 in She was a teacher and a prolific hymn writer. She authored over 8,500 gospel hymns. One fact about Fanny Crosby that I did not know until just recently is that she lost her sight when she was six weeks old. At age 12 she entered the New York School for the blind. Years later she would serve on the faculty for that same school. Having no sight, she could have been angry at God for allowing her to have such a handicap. Instead of anger she had a great love for her creator. Close to Thee is another one of Fanny s hymns. Thou my everlasting portion, more than friend or life to me, all along my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with thee. Close to thee, close to thee, all along my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with thee. When you hear those words of Fanny s you sense there are emotions that go along with those words. These are not lyrics about beliefs, but they are affirmations about a faith. Beliefs are concepts that you understand and agree with. Faith is a conviction about something that sometimes defies logic.

3 Back in May we showed a movie on John Wesley. Early on in the movie the focus was on John Wesley s struggle with faith. Even though he was an ordained pastor, even though he spent his days methodically doing acts of piety, he felt there was something lacking. When asked if he had Jesus in his heart, he didn t know how to answer. When asked if Jesus was his Savior, he answered that he believed Jesus was the Savior of the world. Then after a failed mission experience to America that he had a conversion experience at a Moravian prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street. John writes about that experience: About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. After that experience John Wesley did some amazing things. The most lasting was birthing a new denomination. We United Methodist still promote a personal faith; a faith that impacts one s heart as well as one s head. One of the books I have used in my new member orientation meetings is The United Methodist Primer by Chester Custer. In that book he presents some statements that try to explain the implications of faith. Faith is living in terms of hope and making our decisions on the basis of hope. Faith gives us a vision of what can be. It is seeing the best in the worst of conditions. Faith gives a person the benefit of the doubt. It turns negatives into positives, despair into promise. It is redemptive and transforming. Faith is deciding, in spite of our limitations, to assume responsibilities that seem impossible for us, and to do the best we can. Faith is seeking to go where we believe God is calling us to go and do what we believe God is calling us to do.

4 Faith lends heart and hands to lift up those who are fallen. Faith identifies with the poor, the hungry, the oppressed- those with whom Christ suffers. It does not shrink from the magnitude of a problem. Faith never gives up. Faith is trusting God to sustain and direct us in the choices and changes related to our daily work as we take on a new job, if we lose our job, or when we retire. In all these transitions, we learn to take one step at a time, one day at a time, believing that, as we walk, a path will open before us. And finally, Faith is knowing that God stands with us in the hour of separation, abandonment, or death. We are assured that our agony and pain are matched by healing love and grace. How does one get that kind of faith? As we said in the call to worship, we desire that kind of faith. So what does one do? Prayer, worship, fasting, serving, studying God s word are all ways deepen our faith. As John Wesley found out, doing these activities for the sake of doing them, will probably not increase our faith. When we do them with open hearts, when we do with the awareness that God is with us, then they can be spring boards into a closer connection to God. I have never scuba dived. Those that do it say it is an incredible experience. When you put on your gear and plunge into the water you immerse yourself into a whole different world. Now one cannot just put on fins, a mask and a air tank and jump in. One has to be trained. But once you do the training and get certified, driving becomes second nature. When we spend enough time in prayer and the other disciplines, they can become second nature to us. Ideally we no longer have to give attention to what we are doing, instead we can be open to God s leading. Be warned however, when we give the steering wheel over to God, we may be lead in directions that are challenging maybe even scary. For you see sometimes God s ways are not our ways. What the world may find important is totally unimportant to God. Maybe that is why the sub-title for this year s vacation Bible school is dare to go deep with God. If we do dare to deepen our faith, we may be asked to do things we normally would not have done. Would Abraham have left his

5 home land to venture off to who knows where? Would Noah have built an ark? Would Moses have dared to confront mighty Pharaoh? Would the Israelites have believed that walking around Jericho make any difference? Would Daniel have disobeyed King Darius, thus getting him thrown in with the lions? That is where we began with the call to worship. May we open our hearts to experience God. May we do the things that put us in a good place to experience God. And may we dare to go deep with God.