June 8, 2008 (Mark McConnell)

Mark McConnell (doctoral theology student and former Associate Pastor at West Point Grey Baptist Church) spoke on "The Risk of Faith". He began with an interesting clip from the movie The Legend of 1900, in which '1900' was a man who was born and raised on an ocean liner, never once setting foot on land. After decades of this safe nomadic life, he finally decided to attempt living away from the boat, but when the time came, was unable to leave the only existence and comforts he had known all his life. This interesting story somewhat parallels that of Genesis 12.1-9 in which Abram felt he should attempt living away from the comforts he had known so many decades in Haran. Unlike '1900', Abram finally (on his second attempt) moved into Canaan. The first time Abram 'was called by God' to move to Canaan, he went only as far as Haran, thereby disobeying God's call. Nevertheless, God's call is consistent and came again, in spite of Abram's past being compromised by disobedience. Mark suggested that for God, our past does not our having potential in God's eyes. Mark also reminded us that people in Abram's society would have considered Abram and Sara to be under God's curse (shown by infertility) and therefore assumed that God would never work through them as a couple. But God saw this couple in a very different way. Abram and Sara's final response to the call to move was described by the writer of Hebrews as an act of faith. In that regard, John Calvin once wrote, "I command thee to go forward with closed eyes." To what are we being called? To new work, new directions, new attitudes? [JEK] Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday June 8th, 2008 using your browser's preferred media player.