New Beginnings: Vision for the Future

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Well, it may have been one of the most stressful days in your life. You don’t even remember. Up until this point, life was great for you. All of your needs, all of your wants pretty much were taken care of. You just sort of floated along stress free. And then what seemed like in only a matter of days, your entire world was turned upside down. And then, in a moment, all of a sudden, you were forced to pack up and leave your home and go into the unknown. Your heart raced and, frankly, you broke down and cried. That was the day you were born.

I tried to do some research to find out just how stressful is it for the baby during the whole birthing process. Well, my Google search was in vane. But I did find out more information than I ever want to know about what a woman goes through during the birthing process.

So based upon that information and my own experience of being in the delivery room, I think it’s safe to say that no one was stress free during the event when you were born. From the baby’s point of view, they have to leave the warmth and comfort of the womb and to be forced into a world of unknown. But in leaving the womb, it was the beginning of a lifetime of opportunities.

In reality, ever since that moment, life has presented to you new beginnings that had new opportunities in front of you. It means that you’ve had to leave some things behind. Sometimes you’ve left them behind willingly; other times, you’ve left them behind unwillingly. And you’ve had to venture off into the unknown. It’s never easy. It’s always stressful. But if you don’t leave the past behind, you’ll never experience the opportunities on the other side.

There are many in our world today and in our society and even in our congregation that are faced with those kind of life circumstances right now, for things are changing, things are stressful, things are difficult. Some have lost their jobs. Others are worried about retirement because they wonder what’s going to happen because all their investments have plummeted. Some are dealing with medical issues and diagnoses from the doctors that aren’t looking good. Others are dealing with relationships that are broken and families that are being split apart. Others are just having life-changing events that are stressful and they’re painful.

But in the next few weeks, can we see this as an opportunity for a new beginning? I’m not talking about unfounded optimism. I’m not saying be unrealistic and deny the pain and throw caution to the wind. But instead, based upon God’s Word and based upon His promises to us, can we see this as a new beginning, as an opportunity to find out what God has in store for us? New beginnings.

New beginnings start when we have a vision for the future, a vision for the future that’s based upon God’s Word and based upon His promises. A vision for the future begins when we focus in on the purpose instead of the cause. What I mean by that is when something dramatic happens in our life, when some event occurs that we don’t like, our natural tendency is to look for the cause. We’re looking for something to blame or someone to blame. We ask the question, “Why is this happening? I don’t understand.” And we love to point the finger at someone or something and affix blame to them.

Isn’t that really what the disciples were doing? Scripture tells us that, as they’re walking along, they meet a man who has been born blind. And so His disciples asked, actually at that time, a reasonable question, which is, “Okay, Rabbi, who sinned?” Did he or did his parents? There was a commonly held belief at that time, if you had an illness or if you had a physical handicap, you could trace that back to some sinful activity. So what happened with this man? He was born blind. Did he sin when he was inside the mother’s womb? Some believe that was possible. Or, more than likely, was there some dastardly deed done by his parents and this is the retribution by God? “So which one is it, Jesus?” They’re looking for a cause. They’re looking for someone to blame. “Is he to blame or are his parents to blame?”

For some reason, we’re hardwired like that as human beings. We want to find the cause of things and we want to blame things. If you’ve lost your job, are you looking for a reason why? Are you looking for someone or something to blame? There are a whole host of things out there that you can blame. You can blame the poor economy. You can blame the past president. You can blame the current president. You can blame the excessive spending by CEO’s. You can blame the banks that made the bogus loans. You can blame everyone else because nobody is out there spending so the economy won’t get jump started. There is any number of people and things you can blame for that. You can even blame yourself. “Maybe I should have taken that new job two years ago.” “Maybe I shouldn’t have.” “If I’d have stayed in my old department, they’re still working and I’m laid off.” We’re looking for someone to blame or something.

We do it with health issues, don’t we? “You know, if I’d have just taken better care of myself, I wouldn’t be in this spot.” “You know, I told you if you just would exercise more, we wouldn’t be dealing with this right now.” How much time, how much energy have we wasted looking for a cause, looking for someone to blame? Certainly, we can learn from the past. We can learn from our own mistakes and from our own experiences but the more time we spend on the past, the less time we can focus on the future.

Instead of focusing in on the cause, let’s focus in on the purpose. What I mean by that is what purpose is this going to serve? What is God going to do with this situation in my life? How is He going to use it? Do you know that’s what Jesus did? The disciples are looking for a cause, they’re looking for someone to blame. “Who sinned, Jesus, this man or his parents?” Jesus turns that around. He doesn’t go for the cause. He goes for the purpose and so Jesus said this, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” So that the work of God might be displayed in his life. Now that’s a powerful purpose. There is a point to what’s going on with this man. Now we don’t want to deny the point that 20-30 years, we don’t know how old he is, but somewhere in that range, he’s been living in the dark. For 20 or 30 years, he has not been able to see. I don’t want to diminish that in any way but if you would think for just a moment, we’re coming up on 2,000 years later and God is still displaying His work through this man’s life. Almost 2,000 years later and God is using this man and his experiences so we could see Jesus as the Son of God and to see His power displayed as this man has his sight restored. Now that is a higher purpose. There’s a point to what was happening in his life.

Can you ask yourself what could be God’s purpose? “What’s the point of everything I’m going through?” Can you remind yourself of Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works together for the good of those who love Him.” Right now, if you’re in one of those tumultuous times, you don’t know what God’s working towards. You don’t know what that good is that He’s going to bring out of this but you do know that He will. You see, that’s the key. You do know that He will. You do know that God can take the worst situation and turn it into the best thing that’s ever happened to you. So that means can you ask yourself the question, “How is God going to turn this around? What is God going to do with this situation in my life?” If you have a vision for the future, you’re on a quest, my friends. You’re on a quest to find out how is God going to use this? For what purpose is God going to use this situation in my life? To change a viewpoint. Vision for the future says that we focus in on the purpose, not the cause.

A vision for the future says that we focus in on possibilities, not probabilities. Because probabilities will always hold you back. Probabilities will paralyze you into inactivity. Look at the choice the blind man had. He could either deal in the world of probability or he could live in the world of possibility. He is born blind. This is what Jesus does for him. After talking to His disciples, He spit on the ground, made some mud with his saliva and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” He told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam.” What do you think are the probabilities that’s going to do anything? Just looking at it from that standpoint, he was born blind. If he was born blind today, with all of our technology and all of our medical knowledge, what do you think are the chances that he would ever see again? What’s the probability that anything’s going to happen to this man? He has a much higher probability that he’s not going to eat tonight. He has a pretty good chance that he’s going to go to bed hungry this evening if he goes to the Pool of Siloam and washes his eyes. His only way of making a living is to sit there and beg and to live off of other people’s generosity or pity. If he is not at his station begging, he is not going to eat tonight. He’s going to lose out on a whole lot of money if he goes off to the Pool of Siloam. Living in the world of probability could paralyze him to inactivity to just sit there and not move.

The world of probability can paralyze us because the world of probability focuses on what we can do instead of what God can do. The world of probability says, “How can I get myself out of this?” Instead of, “How is God going to get me out of this?” The world of probability says, “What’s the probability that I’m going to get a job at my age?” “What are the chances I can change careers after I’ve gone this far down the path?” “What’s the probability that the treatment is going to be effective?” “What are the chances that I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning and not feel this pain anymore?” The world of probability can paralyze you into inactivity because it focuses in on you instead of on God. We live in the world of possibility because possibilities are God’s specialty.

The blind man had a choice: Go with the probability or the possibility. The next two words say it all: He went. He went. He chose to live in the world of possibility, to be obedient to Jesus, to have faith in Jesus. He goes and he washes in the Pool of Siloam and he comes home seeing. And he comes home seeing.

Live in the world of possibility because all things are possible with God. Please do not misunderstand me. I’m not calling for us to be foolhardy. I’m not saying that we throw caution to the wind and common sense goes out the door. We don’t take our savings and squander them away. We don’t act as if nothing is happening in our life and just say, “God will take care of me,” and expect everything to flow into us. I’m not suggesting that at all but I am saying we can change our viewpoint. We can change our perception of our situation. And we can ask ourselves a question, “Is this an opportunity that God has presenting before me?” “Is this an opportunity for me to re-prioritize my life?” “Is this an opportunity for me to reconnect with my family?” “Is this an opportunity where God is opening up a door for me to pursue something that I have been hesitant to do before but now, all of a sudden, there is nothing holding me back?” Only you can answer those questions through prayer and through God’s discernment. Only you can answer those questions. My point is, live by faith, not foolishness, do not get me wrong, but by faith. By faith, it says that with God, all things truly are possible. So what avenues are God opening up for us? What direction is He maybe trying to lead? Live in the world of possibility, not probability.

A vision for the future says we focus on what we know and not what we don’t know. Focus on what you know because there is so much that you don’t know. Think about all the things that we don’t know right now. When will the economy come back? Who knows? When will my investments look like they did five years? Maybe never, who knows? When will I get a job? Will I have to stay here or will I have to move away? What’s going to happen to the future generations? What’s going to happen to my kids? There is a whole host of questions. We don’t know. We don’t know. So deal with what we do know.

One more time, we’ll go back to the man who was born blind. After he comes home seeing, you can imagine the stir, scripture kind of eludes to it, here’s the guy who was begging maybe an hour ago, couldn’t see since birth, and now, all of a sudden, he throws his cane away, he’s walking down the streets and he’s calling people by name, “Hey, Ishmael, how are you?” “Hey, Jacob, how’s it going?” And, all of a sudden, people are saying, “Wait a minute? That can’t be the same guy. He can see.” So, all of a sudden, they start gathering around him. “What’s the deal here? How is it that you can see?” And then it goes from bad to worse because then all the religious leaders come in. Now the religious leaders think they know everything and so they start drilling the guy. And then they start accusing him. And then they start accusing his parents. And then they start making accusations against Jesus. It finally gets to the point that the man answers this way. “He replied,” and he’s talking about Jesus here, “‘Whether He is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know, I was blind but now I see.’” One thing I do know, I was blind but now I can see.

Focus on what you do know. You were blind but now you can see. The probability that you would ever see heaven’s gate was nil. Left on your own, you would never see the inside of the palace of God and the heavenly realms that are in store for us. There was no probability that would happen. But focus in on what you do know. You were blind but now you see. What we do know is that we have a God who loves us. We have a God who sent His Son to live among us. What we do know is that Jesus walked the dust of our earth, that He taught us, He cared for us, He loved us. We do know that Jesus hung on a cross and heaven and hell came bearing down on Him and the punishment for our sins, He bore. What we do know is that for those who believe in Jesus, they shall be saved. For those who put their hope and their trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, their sins are forgiven and they will see heaven’s gate. That’s what we do know.

What we do know is we have a God who has made promises to us, promises to be faithful and to stand by us, promises like in 1 Corinthians 10, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man and God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” Or you can go with the Sound of Music paraphrase to that because it’s the one line in the movie I really like. It is when it says, “When God closes a door, He always leaves a window open.” If God has closed a door in your life, He’s left a window open. That’s what we do know. We do know that God says, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.” We do know that God says, “Don’t worry about tomorrow. I will take care of you.” We do know that God has left us His Word and His promises and that’s what we base our future on. This is the source of our new beginnings.

And a new beginning starts with a vision to the future. We focus on the purpose, not the cause. We focus on the possibilities, not the probability. We focus on what we know, not on what we don’t know. Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church