Faith is never something we have on our own, but it is something God’s Word of promise creates out of nothing.
I cannot think of a better person to walk through Lent with than Abram. Here we have a man on a journey all the way from Ur to the promised land. Think about this for a second, all Abram had to go off of for this journey was the Word of God. That is it. He had no guarantees except what God had given by His Word. I have to tell you, that takes a lot of faith. When people tell me directions, I still put it into my GPS. I need assurances and you might feel the same way too. In Lent, we are learning to have more faith in the Word of God as we journey to the place where God’s final word for sin is put on Jesus’ lips on the cross and then the first word for our new resurrected life comes from our Savior Jesus’ lips (John 20:21-22) after His resurrection. We are on this journey in Lent with Abram, and we are learning to trust in God’s Word even when we do not know precisely where it will lead us in life.
This is a theological confession we can develop for our hearers. Faith is never something we have on our own, but it is something God’s Word of promise creates out of nothing. This will help them to learn with Abram to appreciate what a gift the Word of God is for them. Chiefly, because this Word of God gives us Christ. Look at the promise God made about the Messiah in chapter 12 verse 3. We are blessed, not because of something we did, but because of something God gave, and He gave that by grace through faith in the Messiah Jesus. The promise was not for children born naturally but for children not born in the normal way. It is for children who were born by faith. Those born by faith are the many sons and daughters of Abraham. John reflects this when he puts it at the beginning of his gospel: But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
This fits so perfectly with our Nick-at-Night scene in the Gospel lesson. Jesus meets with Nicodemus at night, and they have a conversation about being born again, born of God, born of “water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). Jesus spells it out to a child of Abraham physically how one becomes a child of God spiritually. The Word connected to the water which is received by faith grants us a new birth as God’s child and connects us to Christ for our salvation (Romans 6:3-5). Baptism is a means God uses to create faith, and it is faith which makes us children of Abraham and children of the promise. What is the promise? Well, it has been the same from the Old Testament to the New Testament to even you here today. It is the good news of John 3:16.
Baptism is a means God uses to create faith, and it is faith which makes us children of Abraham and children of the promise.
A sermon structure to serve the proclamation of this text could be the Multiple Image Structure. This has to do with the fact that you are working with a couple of images from the readings: Journeys of faith and being born again.
This sermon structure uses two or more images in the sermon to signal movement or development to the hearers during the course of the sermon. Each image is associated with a particular thought or experience for the hearers, and the sermon moves from one section to another by moving from one image to another.
In working with more than one image, the preacher needs to determine how the images hold together as a set of images. Do they have a thematic or stylistic coherence? Working with images that are too widely varied in style or subject matter can create confusion for the hearers, as the images work to break apart the sermon rather than hold the experience together as one intentional meditation on God’s Word.
Also, the preacher will want a coherent movement between images during the sermon. That is, as the preacher moves from one image to another, there should be a logical or experiential appropriateness to such movement. This could involve movement within a metaphorical field (from parched desert to a seasonal stream to an ever-flowing river and a tree of life), typological movement (from the bronze snake in the wilderness to the Son of God lifted up on the cross), a dynamic reversal (from the stone of stumbling to the rock of ages), the development of a theme (the Word becoming flesh to offer us a living Word), or the contextualization of God’s mission (the rule of the risen Christ is manifest among His people today).
Finally, as the preacher integrates the images into the sermon, he can choose to work inductively leading from an image to the statement of an idea (that connects to the text, to the theological confession, to evangelical proclamation, or to the lives of the hearers) or deductively, beginning first with a statement of the idea and then entering into the image as a way of developing it for the hearers. A variety of inductive and deductive movements can generate a continuing interest in the flow of the sermon.
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Genesis 12:1-9.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Genesis 12:1-9.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
