Leslie Clark sermon August 30, 2009
Preliminary to the sermon was the reading of Bible verses as follows:
Psalm 37: 1-6
Don’t be worried on account of the wicked; don’t be jealous of those who do wrong.
They will soon disappear like grass that dries up; they will die like plants that wither.
Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land and be safe. Seek your happiness
in the Lord and he will give you your heart’s desires. Give yourself to the Lord, trust in
Him and He will help you; He will make your righteousness shine like the noonday sun.
Matthew 7: 7 – 11
Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to
you. For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks will find, and the door
will be opened to him who knocks. Would any of you who are fathers give your son a
stone when he asks for bread? Or would you give him a snake when he asks for a fish?
As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more,
then, will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
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As I begin this, I want to share another Bible verse with you. This one is also from Matthew, chapter 17, verse 20. In it, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, who have asked him privately why he was able to cast a demon out of a young boy when they themselves had failed to do so.
And he said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall
say to this mountain: “Move from here to there” and it shall move; and nothing shall be
impossible to you.”
We have all heard this verse many times, but if you are like me, you never stopped to really consider it. First of all, how big is a mustard seed? Just for the occasion, I brought a visual aid.
(Index cards with mustard seeds glued to them were passed out around the congregation.)
Faith is the key that unlocks the door to miracles. Two weeks ago,
In Psalms we are told to trust in the Lord and he will give you your heart’s desires. Trust, in this case, being the same as having faith. In Matthew we are told to ask and we shall receive, and that even faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. All over the Bible we are told again and again to trust, to have faith in God, to know he watches over us night and day, to fear not, to remember that with God all things are possible.
Yet all of us deal with our own mountains every day, and sometimes those mountains don’t seem to be going anywhere. Our hopes and dreams and goals can seem so improbable – or even impossible – that it is often easier to give up on them. There are all kinds of socially acceptable reasons to quit. We call it “living in the real world” or “coming to our senses” or “being practical” or “not throwing good money after bad” or, my favorite, “facing facts.”
If I had faced facts every time someone told me to, I wouldn’t have gone to William & Mary, I wouldn’t live in the house I live in, I wouldn’t have volunteered to be the housing chairman for Woodbury’s Millennium Celebration, and I wouldn’t have run for mayor. You’ll hear more about these shortly.
In Hebrews, the power of faith is discussed in depth and we are reminded of miracles occurring, the impossible achieved, by faith. If you read Chapter 11 you will find a list detailing these events. The writer concludes by stating:
“And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms,
performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched
the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong,
became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”
Think of Noah and the
That mustard seed is beginning to appear pretty powerful, isn’t it?! Kind of a “superhero” mustard seed.
Okay, you are saying to yourself, what does this have to do with me? It’s great to talk about faith and prayer and those dusty old folks from the Bible. I need to live in 2009 and so far, things haven’t been shaping up quite the way I’d like.
The truth is, even in 2009 faith works. Prayer works. Mountains get moved every day. How many times have you marveled at a story of someone who defied the odds, whose persistence and commitment and – yes – faith resulted in a seemingly miraculous success? The news and talk shows are full of these stories. We would still be sitting in the dark were it not for Thomas Edison’s refusal to give up his faith that the light bulb was possible. He is famous for having responded to a question about why he still continued to try after so many failed attempts “they weren’t failures, I just learned 1,000 ways it didn’t work.” Now that is persistence! That is a mountain that got moved!
In my own life, I have been living proof that prayer and faith and persistence do, indeed, give your heart’s desires. Time and again I have asked, and I have received.
The first time this happened, I was a clueless 17 year old high school student who had done zero research on colleges. In September of my senior year, it dawned on me that maybe I should start. My parents took me to see two colleges: my mother’s alma mater in
Off we went. Ten minutes on campus and I knew this was the place I was meant to be. I decided on the spot to apply early admission. A quick stop at the Admissions Office revealed that the deadline for early decision was a week away. Now remember, this was back in the days before computers, before faxes, before FedEx and UPS and all the other ways we get information from here to there in a hurry. That didn’t matter to me. I prayed and had faith that God would make this happen. I didn’t listen to the guidance counselor who tried to warn me that even if I didn’t miss the deadline, which was likely given the mail delivery times in those days, my chances were still small. Less than 30% of those admitted to W&M came from out of state. I didn’t listen to my parents or other school officials who told me I should apply to other schools “just in case.” Since God was going to take care of getting me in, applying to other schools seemed pointless. Why couldn’t they see this?
You probably know how it turned out, seeing as I mentioned it here. I loved every minute of William and Mary, and that’s where I met Rick. God knew what he was doing.
For years Rick and I lived happily in a two bedroom, 1 bath, very tiny house in Woodbury. Then, Daniel was born. The house shrank by half, or seemed to with all his stuff. We needed something bigger. At the time, the early 1980s, there was an adult ed class here at 1st Presb. that explored the idea of specific prayer. I can’t tell you who led the class, or what the whole lesson was about, because the only part that stuck with me was the concept about coming to God with very specific requests and then putting the outcome totally in His hands. The idea, of course, was related to “ask and you shall receive.”
Here was an opportunity to try this out! So I did. Rick and I put together a list of every conceivable thing we wanted our next house to have. Our thought was, if we’re going to ask God, let’s ask for the whole package. The list contained wishes such as: 6 bedrooms, a fireplace, screened porch, full basement, 2 car garage, eat-in kitchen, hardwood floors, and central air. Oh, and could we have it in our same neighborhood and could it cost $85,000 or less, please. (This was the 1980s, don’t forget.)
I wrote down our list, I prayed, I turned it over to God and then I went to visit a realtor. Who laughed at me. Really. She told me straight out that I was dreaming and such a house didn’t exist, or if it did exist, would cost a whole lot more than $85,000 and for sure wouldn’t be in Woodbury, let alone our neighborhood. But her words didn’t matter to me. I knew God was going to make it happen somehow.
A few months later, we got a phone call from a friend that a house two blocks away was about to go on the
In 1998 an Englishman named Melvin Magnall came up with the idea of a Millennium Celebration in which residents of
To this day I wonder why Rick didn’t haul me off to the nuthouse on the spot.
The magnitude of what I had taken on did not hit me full force until fall of 1999, when the idea of the celebration turned into reality and plans began to take shape. The visitors were scheduled to arrive
Remember, I had to find private homes to take in these total strangers for 8 days. Think how hard it is for you when you have to house relatives – people you know well – for more than 2 or 3 nights at the holidays. Then try to get your mind around the challenge that faced me and my fearless housing committee. One of them is here today, Mary Ellen, and she will verify everything I am telling you. If ever there was a mountain that needed to be moved, this was it. We either found homes for the visitors, or they were going to arrive on June 30th and be left standing on the curb with nowhere to go.
There was only one thing to do, and it had to be done quickly.
I turned the entire mess over to God. And I mean 100% of the mess. Knowing that I was in way over my head, I told God that this was only going to work if He took charge. He had to find the volunteer hosts and then He had to help us match them up with the visitors. Having put it in God’s hands, my committee and I commenced. Every week the city administrator nervously asked me, “Can we do this? Can we make this work?” And every week I reassured him, “it’s going to happen, everything is under control.” The wonderful thing is, I believed this myself. I just knew it would work out. God was taking care of the mountain. My little mustard seed of faith was in full bloom.
I will cut to the chase here. Yes, we housed 400 people for eight days. And God did continue to work the entire week. He had my back. Two hours after receiving a phone call from a couple who wanted to host but forgot to sign up, another call came in from a host who was housing two teenage girls. Her son and his two friends showed up unexpectedly from college, and she wasn’t comfortable having these young girls in her small house with the boys around. So the girls got moved to the newly registered host.
Time and time again my committee members and I heard from hosts and visitors alike who exclaimed at what a perfect match they had. They asked “how did we know” to put them together? The answer was, we didn’t. God did the matching. We merely handled the paperwork.
It was a miraculous week and to this day I marvel at the mountain that was moved.
My last example is a short one. In 2001 I was asked to run for mayor in Woodbury. After having a hearty laugh and thanking the committee for the good joke, I realized they were serious. Me? A politician? I had never in my life run for public office, not even in high school. I had never had an interest.
There were many, many people who believed I was a foolish choice. My lack of political experience, the small budget we had, the strength of the opposition were all cited as reasons I shouldn’t try too hard, or even bother at all. But once again I ignored all that and put my faith and energies in what I knew in my heart God would make happen. And was sworn into office January of 2002 having achieved 60% of the vote.
What do all of these personal examples tell us? Is it really that simple?
Yes, it is. Trust, confidence, faith move mountains.
Here’s a question for you, because I think it’s important to the message. What does faith feel like? Do you know? Have you ever thought about it?
If you have known faith, then you know the feeling. It is utter certainty, a certainty that does not allow for doubt or hesitation. It is the refusal to consider, believe, or pay any attention to anything that stands in the way of that certainty, even supposedly rock solid “facts.”
Faith is one of the most freeing attitudes a person can experience. It provides calm in the center of a storm, assurance in the face of opposition, confidence and peace. In his sermon, Rick said that if we doubt God’s ability to produce the ultimate result, then how can we ever relax? Doubt comes from fear, from our human need to hang on to control even when it is working against us. Many of us say we leave our prayers in the hands of God but we don’t power those prayers with faith. We lack even the mustard seed necessary to move our mountains.
As I bring this to a close, I want to share one more Bible verse that talks about faith. Before I read it, I want to refer back to something else Rick said during his sermon. He stated his belief that there are no coincidences, and gave you examples of “coincidences” occurring that helped him with his message. I have one too. For several weeks I was trying to recall the source of the Bible verse that talks about faith being the assurance of things unseen, or something along those lines. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with the correct book of the Bible.
Then two weeks ago, as I sat reading a novel during lunch at work, there was the verse – right in the middle of a paragraph. With the verse, was the reference – the Book of Hebrews, Chapter 11.
I sat there staring at the words, smiling like a goon. I’m sure God was smiling back and giving me the thumbs up. Not only did I have the verse I needed, the entire chapter gave me meat for this sermon. So here is the verse God sent me, Hebrews Chapter 11, verse 1:
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Moving a mountain doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself with a shovel. If you have faith, God has many ways to move your mountain. It can be moved with a phone call from someone you rarely or never speak to, but get the call just when you needed it most. It can be moved by an unexpected act of kindness, or a note received, or a TV news story with helpful information about the very thing causing you distress.
And sometimes you are the mover of mountains for someone else. God nudges you to make that phone call, write that note, or stop by that house. You don’t know why you have an urge to do such a thing. Don’t question the urge. Trust in God, have faith, and do it. Mustard seeds, after all, are very powerful things.
Amen.