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'When we walk with the Lord/In the light of His Word/What a glory He sheds on our way/While we do His good will/He abides with us still/And with all who will trust and obey.'

Trust and Obey - Genesis 12: 1-4; Matthew 1:18-25 - December 26, 2010 - Cicero United
Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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'When we walk with the Lord/In the light of His Word/What a glory He sheds on our way/While
we do His good will/He abides with us still/And with all who will trust and obey.'

            Entering a new year, it seems, should be a time of great hope and enthusiasm. The calendar is presenting us with the perfect time to mentally and spiritually turn the page - start over. Yet so many people are just kind of discouraged - either by the huge problems in society - the economy, governmental gridlock, environmental issues, and so on - or by events in their own
lives this past year -personal losses and struggles - or by the broken resolutions of New Years
Past - "This year I'm going to stick to that diet", "I'm going to be nicer to the neighbors;" and so
on. I hear more people saying, "I'm not going to make resolutions this year. They don't work,"

            This morning I'd like to suggest that we approach the new year as an act of faith, and to help us do that, I'd like to lift up not only our scripture stories for the day, but also one of the great old hymns - 'Trust and Obey.' The story goes that in 1887, the great evangelist Dwight Moody gave an altar call, and a young man came forward to receive Christ; and he said that he didn't know much about the Bible, and he didn't know where faith would lead him, but, he said, 'I'm just going to trust, and I'm going to obey!' One of the musicians present, Daniel Towner, was so moved by the young man, that he started humming a tune for a hymn called Trust and Obey.' He took it to his pastor, John Sammis, and they composed the hymn together. I think it
describes a perfect formula for a great 2011.

            We hope, don't we? that it will be a glorious year. We hope it will be fruitful and joyous,
with big steps forward for human life and for each of our lives. And Sammis and Towner give us
the formula for that kind of progress: When we walk with the Lord, in the light of His Word,
what a glory He sheds on our way. And that is the basis of a great journey in the upcoming year
- walk with the Lord. If that is your first resolution, or your only resolution, then there will be
glory in the journey ahead. As the young man said, 'I don't know where it will lead; I'm just
going to trust, and I'm going to obey.'

            Our scriptures give us great examples of that kind of faith, at different extremes of age. First there is the Old Testament patriarch Abram, living a prosperous life in his home country of Ur. Abram is 75 years old, happily retired, enjoying his grandkids. And then comes this outlandish call from God - leave your country, leave your kin, and set out for a new land. lt's New Year's Day. It wouldn't have been surprising for Abram to hesitate; at this age, God wants me to do what?' But when we walk with the Lord, in the light of His word, what a glory He sheds on our way. Abram trusted and obeyed, and the result was a glorious gift to all humankind.

            The same could be said for our New Testament heroes, at the other end of the age spectrum - a young girl named Mary and her husband Joseph. Again came the outrageous invitation from God, 'You will carry and raise my Son; you will be his earthly family.' Again the response was to trust God and obey, and a New Year would dawn, full of glory and grace. While we do His good will, He abides with us still, says the hymn. And that's all we need to know - God is travelling with us; if we trust in that promise, then the road will truly be glorious.

            But doesn't that depend? Isn't it easy to believe that glory will shine when everything is
going great? What about the hard times? What about the times of loss and grief and recession
and despair? Are we supposed to welcome a new year when our hearts are breaking, and we
don't even feel like getting out of bed? Sammis and Towner must have had questions like that
in mind, because here is the second verse of their hymn:

            "Not a burden we bear/Not a sorrow we share/But our toil He doth richly repay/Not a grief or a loss/Not a frown or a cross/But is blest if we trust and obey." The basis for hope in the
New Year is not that everything is guaranteed to go exactly rosy, but that God is with us on the
journey, and carries our burdens with us, and comforts our sorrows. I saw the Christmas letter
of a woman who was spending her first Christmas after the death of her beloved sister, and she
wrote, "Christmas is the promise that God can be trusted to meet all our needs - and to meet
our needs in ways we could never imagine. Some say that this first Christmas without my sister
will be very painful. Probably it will be. But without Christmas, my life would be impossible."
That woman had decided to go forward with a trusting and obedient faith.

            It's that kind of faith that sustained Abram as he journeyed through danger and uncertainty, and Mary and Joseph as they endured overwhelming obstacles in protecting the baby Jesus. And it's that kind of faith that can carry us through the stresses and strains of life in 2011.
There are all kinds of unknown twists and turns in the road ahead of us. But God abides, and in
His presence is grace and glory.

            But the writers of the hymn understood a key principle of the path of glory, and that is that it is not a journey for the halfhearted. You don't dabble in trust - either you choose to journey with God, or you don't. And you don't 'kind of' obey. The trusting faith that Sammis and
Towner knew about was a life-commitment from a transformed heart. So they wrote a third
stanza: But we never can prove/ the delights of His love/Until all at the altar we lay/For the
favor he shows/ and the joy He bestows/Are for them who will trust and obey.

            Abram had to make a leap of faith. He couldn't say, "I'm going to keep a second home in Ur just in case this God stuff doesn't work out," or, "Maybe "II get on the Internet and check out
this Promised Land before I make up my mind." On the contrary, if He wasn't going to trust

God, and obey God's call, he wasn't going to see the glory. Same with Mary - she couldn't be
'kind-of' willing to carry the Christ-child. She had to take the leap of faith.

            One of the great Christian teachers of the last century, C. S. Lewis, wrote, "lf Christianity is false, it is of no importance, and, if it is true, it is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important." And that is the challenge of faith. It's a leap, a commitment.

"...we never can prove the delights of (God's) love until all on the altar we lay." You can be kind of interested in a TV program: you can be half-paying attention to a song, halfhearted about
your job - but a little trust is the equivalent of no trust at all. It just doesn't work - it's like
being only partly true to a marriage, or a little pregnant.

            A few years back, the University of Florida's Institute on Aging did a study about the
difference that religion makes in certain situations. They found that people who attend church,
mosque, or synagogue did not have an increased sense of well-being about life, if that was all
they did. In fact, those religious attenders actually had an increased fear of death. I was
surprised to hear that in that study, and you're probably surprised to hear that in church. But
the point is this: people that went beyond simply attending church and described themselves
as committed or passionately religious people reported not only great satisfaction in life, but a
deep sense of purpose, far less incidence of depression, and far less fear of death: It wasn't just
about attending church (not that there's anything wrong with that); it was about passionately
giving yourself over to a life of faith -laying it all on the altar. That made the difference.

            This is not an easy sell in today's world. It's not that people aren't passionate. Watch the
orange passion come out this Thursday when Syracuse football plays in a bowl game for the
first time in a few years. Or don't move fast enough next time the light turns green. Or watch
Fox news during the next presidential address - there is plenty of passion around today. But
religious passion is viewed with great suspicion today. You don't want to show people that
you're overly religious, because it can cause embarrassment, avoidance, maybe even ridicule.
And there are all kinds of internal questions that we have to get over in order to take a leap of
faith - What if I commit to faith, and then I have to give up some things I like? Will it cost me
money? Will it affect my schedule? Will it mean acting a different way on my job? Maybe
losing my competitive edge? Will I lose friends?

            Those are very real questions. It would be ludicrous to try to claim that faith won't involve sacrifice of some kind, when we're following a Saviour who gave up His life on a cross. But the testimony of millions and millions of those who have tried it, those who have laid it all on the altar for God, and taken that leap of faith - is that the life of faith is the one life worth living.

            And so the hymn ends with this wonderful vision of the end result of the life of faith: Then in fellowship sweet/We will sit at His feet/Or we'll walk by his side in the way/What he says we will do/Where he sends we will go/ Never fear, only trust and obey.

            Once there was a poor farmer who was tilling his fields and uncovered a beautiful precious stone - one that would have bought his farm hundreds of times over. That same day, a
destitute traveler came along, and begged for food. The farmer told him he had no food to
give; but he would give the one thing he could. So he gave the traveler the stone he had found;
the traveler went away rejoicing. Some years later the traveler returned; he was a wealthy man
now, and the farmer was still living in poverty. The traveler told the farmer that he needed one
more thing. The farmer said that the gemstone he had already given was the only thing he ever
had of material value. And the rich traveler replied, "You don't understand. I want you to give
me whatever it was inside you that allowed you to part with that stone." The farmer smiled and
said, "Then you are looking for the joy of the Lord."

            Trust and obey/For there's no other way/ To be happy in Jesus/ But to trust and obey.

Abram found that out; Mary and Joseph found it; the young man at the evangelistic service
found it; that farmer found it. The joy that comes from trusting God, and obeying His call on
your life. As you enter 2011, may you find the true joy of life - the joy that comes from
journeying with God, passionately serving him, and thereby finding your reason for being here,
and the road to true salvation and joy.