Hoover Church of Christ Sermons

It’s important for churches to ask themselves the question in the sermon title: Why are we here?

And it’s important for members of churches to ask themselves a similar question: Why am I a member of this church? What is God doing through this church and through me for us to experience a mutual blessing?

Luke’s description of the earliest Christians is exhilarating: these men and women had found what they had been searching for their whole lives–the promised Messiah, the descendant of David who would bless the nations. In our text, Luke describes what these early Christians emphasized, and Sunday we’ll focus on one verse initially, and then one phrase within that verse. The followers of Jesus “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (v. 42).

The first of those phrases is the “apostles’ teaching,” and it points to the importance of their being learners, or disciples. They needed to learn so much about who Jesus was and how they should follow him.

This text helps us think about a couple of things: One, we in the church are to be in the disciple-making business. We’re not here to fill pews or balance budgets . . . we’re here to help people become what they were created to be: fully invested, sacrificial, totally devoted followers of the resurrected Christ. When we get too busy with the minutiae of “doing church,” we can forget about this calling.

Two, every member of the Hoover church should be committed to being a disciple, a learner. Becoming a Christian isn’t like joining a club; it’s a complete change in how we think, live, believe, and act.

Here are the four questions we’ll conclude with:

As you know, our theme this year has been “Love God. Love People. Change the World.” This Sunday we turn our attention to the last of those three descriptions of what we are called to do: Change the World.

Few would disagree with the fact that the world is messed up in so many ways. Our country is struggling: raging political rivalries, persistent racial tension, widespread addictions, increasing immorality. But of course this is not a new development; the world apart from God has always embraced attitudes that are self-destructive.

In the middle of this mess God has placed us, his church, to be an influence for good. That has always been his plan for his people, which he hinted at when he said Abraham’s descendants would bless “all the families of the earth.” And God’s church has been an active force for good in many ways since Jesus created it 2,000 years ago.

But it’s tempting for us to forget that God put us here to make a difference in the world. We’re called to do more than “go to church” . . . we are to “be” the church, which means that we avoid an inward-focused selfishness, look out at the world, and ask: “Why has God put us here in this community? How can he use us to change the world?”

God put the Hoover Church of Christ here to be agents for change in the lives of people who ignore what they were created to be. I plan to emphasize that truth Sunday morning.

In so many ways Abraham’s life has always been moving here. It’s been 40+ years since God first appeared to him, making him the promise about a land, a nation, and a blessing. It’s been 15+ years since the promised son Isaac was born, and Abraham and Sarah have certainly been thinking about the future. All of their hopes were bound up in this young man. Or so it seemed.

And now this. God asks the unthinkable. A human sacrifice? Of Isaac, the beloved son?

For thousands of years, people have wrestled with this story, trying to make sense of it. At some point, though, we must simply recognize that God is sovereign and loving and that he has the right to test his people. He already knows how Abraham will respond, of course.

For Abraham who lived out this story and for Israel who later read it, they needed to know that God is always to be trusted. He is God, and his ways are beyond ours.

From our vantage point, we read the story and see hints of something else, something better. We think of another hill, another young man, another sacrifice.

After Isaac’s life had been spared and Abraham saw what God had done, he named this place, “The LORD will provide.”

God provided what Abraham needed most att that moment, and we serve the same God today. He will provide–and has provided–what we so desperately need.

It had been almost a quarter of a century since God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. Now he’s 99 years old, and (one would think) he’s pretty much given up hope. What 99-year-old man and 89-year-old woman are able to bring a child into the world?

But of course God’s timetable is different from ours, and for reasons only he knows he decides now is the time for the long-awaited promised son to be conceived. He reaffirms the covenant-promise to Abraham and asks him to demonstrate his trust in the promise by being circumcised. This physical act would become an incredibly important ritual act for Israel, the nation that descended from Abraham.

Circumcision would distinguish Israel from other nations, but it would also take on some of the trappings that many rites do—becoming little more than a physical act and losing its connection to a larger purpose: God’s selecting Israel to be his people to bless the world.

In the sermon Sunday we considered how God’s covenant-promise still requires a kind of circumcision of those who want to be his children. We also reflected on the potential pitfalls of religious rites.

At the foundation of this story—as is so often the case—is a matter of trust. Abraham still struggles to trust that God can bring life out of barrenness . . . and perhaps that’s something we still struggle with as well.

What do we do when we face unfulfilled dreams? When life doesn’t turn out the way we want? When God doesn’t seem to be doing the things that he said he would?

Sometimes we “help” God. We do his work for him to “encourage” him to do what he said he would.

The problem is—that rarely turns out well.

But we can probably relate to Sarai’s frustration, can’t we? She was older and the chances of her conceiving a child were almost non-existent. That would be devastating for her, especially given God’s promise that she and her husband Abraham would be the parents of a family that would eventually bless the world.

If you had been in her shoes, what would you have done? What should she have done?

In this story, what do we learn? About God? About trusting God?