Blessed to Be A Blessing

Chapter 2 Sermon (Allison)

SCRIPTURE  (from “The Story” book page 13; Genesis 12:1-5) 

12 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

The grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of the Lord endures forever.

SERMON—introduction

There’s an old wives’ tale that suggests that if your ears feel like they’re burning, it’s because someone’s talking about you. And apparently, if it’s your LEFT ear, someone’s saying good things but if it’s your RIGHT ear, someone’s saying something not so nice.[1]

I’m pretty sure this is all a bunch of baloney … but for the purposes of today’s sermon, I gotta ask: were your collective LEFT ears burning this week? Because I was talking about you … and rest assured, it was all good stuff!

Tina, the pastor from the Paris Church, and I were pondering what part of this week’s chapter from “The Story” we might use for worship. And we ended up talking about how a lot of people from both of our churches have lived here forever.

#1

In my mind, as I thought about you--picturing where each of you usually sit on Sunday morning--I was pretty sure that most of you have lived here or somewhere nearby your whole lives. Or, if you were born somewhere else, you’ve now lived here for a significant part of your life. This has become home to you.

And whenever you find a place to call home, more often than not, you are reluctant to leave it. I’m not talking about vacation; I’m talking about uprooting the life you’ve come to know and moving somewhere you’ve never been before. I’m talking about packing up your house and your family and moving across country to a place you’ve never seen before, don’t really know anything about, and don’t really know what to expect.

Leaving behind your friends and family and friends who are like family. Leaving behind your social network and those who support and encourage and love you. Leaving behind your doctors and dentist and the plumber, electrician, and car mechanic you’ve come to know and trust.

What would it take to get you to leave this place and stay away? What kind of a promise would God have to make to you get you to start a completely new life with no looking back?