"God's Greatest Promises--Presence"

September 30, 2001 Rev. Gary LeTourneau

Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." So we can say with confidence:

"The Lord is my helper;

I will not be afraid.

What can anyone do to me?"

Hebrews 13:5-6

 

"I will never leave you nor forsake you." This week and the next two weeks I'm going to be speaking on God's greatest promises. I wanted to start with what is perhaps God's greatest promise: "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

I'm going to begin by exploring a conversation between a GTE telephone operator and a passenger aboard United flight 93 who called for his wife when he found the plane had been hijacked. Todd Beamer used the GTE phone on the seatback of the plane to try to connect with his family. The credit card didn't go through and he was automatically connected with the GTE operator. There she--Lisa Jefferson--learned that Todd Beamer was a passenger on this flight which had been hijacked over Cleveland. It had now been turned south, towards Washington D.C. They had about a 15-minute conversation. He explained to her what was happening, indicated that he and the other passengers were imperiled. The pilot and co-pilot were presumed either seriously injured or already dead. Todd Beamer and other passengers learned what had happened just 20 and 30 minutes earlier with the other hijacked airplanes. Then Todd shared that there was a hijacker with a bomb--an assumed bomb belted around his middle--and that he and a few others were determined to disrupt the terrorists' plans.

He asked Lisa Jefferson, the phone operator, to call his own wife, Lisa Beamer, and report their entire conversation to her, including how much he loved her and his children. Then before hanging up, Todd Beamer, a committed Christian, devoted family man, he taught Sunday School each week--lived out his faith by asking the GTE operator to pray the Lord's Prayer with him, and so they did, over the telephone. When the Lord's Prayer had been said, Todd calmly said, "Help me, God. Help me, Jesus." The GTE employee then heard Todd say--apparently to the other men in the flight who were doing something--"Are you ready, guys? Let's roll." And then there was no more communication and no one alive knows what happens next. But it's been suggested that the heroes of flight 93 should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor because almost surely, in sacrifice of their own lives, they saved others even as that plane crashed to the ground.

We've all been tempted to ask the question, "Where is God in all of that?" "Where was God when those planes were being hijacked?" "Where was God when those planes were being flown into buildings?" I want you to remember, in answer to that question, God's promise to Todd Beamer and to every other one of His children: "I will never leave you nor forsake you." I believe God was right there with Todd on that airplane when it was hijacked and when it crashed.

The promise of God's presence with us is not something that appears just a few places in the Bible. It's a theme from beginning to the end. When Jesus commissioned His disciples at the end of His public ministry, before His ascension, do you remember what He said? "Go and make disciples and lo, I am with you always."

Psalm 23:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley

of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil;

for Thou art with me;

thy rod and they staff--

they comfort me."

Let me invite you to turn in your pew Bible to Isaiah chapter 43. It's on page 672. This promise of God was to those of the nation of Israel, another country which had been decimated by attacks, taken into captivity and exile, and they wondered if they had a future. They were very much asking the question, "Where is God in all of this?" And here was God's answer to them, which by faith we appropriate to the community of faith today. Isaiah 43, beginning in verse 1:

But now thus says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob;

he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom,

Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.

Because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you.

I give people in return for you,

and nations in exchange for your life.

Do not fear, for I am with you.

Isn't that wonderful? God says He'll never leave us. He'll never abandon us.

I don't know what you're facing this week in your own life. As a nation, we're not dealing with just the horrible loss of life two and a half weeks ago. We're also dealing with the repercussions throughout our economy as people are losing jobs as there's uncertainty for the future. Maybe you are among the many Americans who are reporting that this is not a very easy time. I read the results of a poll this past week that said that right now one third of Americans are having trouble sleeping. See if any of these apply to you: One half of Americans were having a tough time concentrating. Seven out of ten Americans feel depressed right now. Makes sense to me and how I feel. And God says, "Don't fall to the temptation of believing that I've somehow abandoned you."

Notice in all of those promises of God's presence, never did God say there won't be water, there won't be fire, there won't be storms. The Bible's very clear--there will be. But God does say, "I will be with you in the storm."

Think of children at night when a thunderstorm is approaching. (My kids seem able to hear them when they're in Iowa still!) What do they ask? "Will you be with me 'til I fall asleep?" They don't ask me to make the thunderstorm go away. They know I can't do that. "But will you be with me until I fall asleep?" And that's enough. And then they're safe and secure. That's what God says He'll do for you and me in whatever it is that we're facing this week. "I'll be with you. I'll be with you."

You know, I think it's sort of wonderful for me and my generation and those younger, to experience in the last two weeks for the first time in my life an incredible wave of patriotism. Someone has said we're learning to be patriots again, and experiencing the same thing that our parents and our parents' parents experienced, and seeing pride in the flag, and joy in knowing that we're a great country, and a strong country, and a free country. And I wonder if it's not perhaps possible again, as pastors have observed, that as we're learning to be patriots, is it possible that in this time we're also learning to pray again? To pray and recognize God's presence with us.

When Richard Prior, the comedian, was critically burned in an accident in 1980, he insisted that when you are seriously ill or things are seriously wrong, money isn't important. Here's how he put it: "All I could think of when I was burned was to call on God. I didn't call the Bank of America once!" Isn't that true?

Conan O'Brien, last week when he went back on the air for his late night TV show, said this: "I don't exactly know how we're going to do this [go on with the show]. But we're going to try to do it. That's what a lot of people here feel is the right thing to do. Get back and try our hardest to move forward and to make sense of our lives at a time when absolutely nothing makes sense. I don't talk about these things on the air [said Conan O'Brien], but I was raised Catholic. And today I did what I haven't done since the first show when I went on the air back in 1993. I felt like I needed Someone, or I needed something to to help me. I went across the street to St. Patrick's Cathedral and I sat for a bit. And I'm glad I did. Sitting there I felt this is such a beautiful place, and we have to thank God. We have to thank God for what we still have and what we can still do."

Who would have guessed at the beginning of this month that a late-night talk show host would be talking about going to church, and thanking God for what we have, and prayer? We're learning to pray again.

Washington Post had an article on Friday titled, "In terror's wake, God, are you around?" and then the subtitle, "For many who have avoided churches and religion, a need to pray emerges from the attacks. Psychiatrists and grief counselors report that they are surprised to find their once-secular clients confessing a need to pray in the days after the crashes." [I'm not surprised by that, but I guess I'm a pastor so I see that happening.] Every other person we spoke to, said one counselor, would get to a point where they'd say, "Doc, I'm not sleeping well and the only way I can get through this is to pray." Said another, "To go on believing this upside-down world is the only reality is just too disorienting and disheartening. Suddenly it becomes important to think there's another realm where all is peace and order." And usually that means God.

We're learning to pray again. I liken the situation with this analogy. Right now in this sanctuary, there are hundreds and maybe even thousands of images that are flying around through the walls, but you and I can't see them. All that would be necessary for you and me to see the thousands of images would be to go get a good television set with a good antenna, plug it in and turn it on, and those images would be captured and we'd see what was in the air--the beams around us. They're present, but we're not tuned in to the channel without a television set to receive them.

I liken that to God's presence in our lives. He's present. We need to tune Him in. We do so through prayer. Whatever you're facing this week in your own family, at work, in your future, in your past, whatever you're facing, the God of the universe says, "I'll be with you. You won't face it alone. There's nothing that can separate you from my love in Christ Jesus my Son who died for you."

God has already seen the worst of humanity. And the worst of humanity was not September 11th, 2001. The worst of humanity was the day when His Son was killed on a cross. God didn't turn His back on the world then. He still is with us. God's not going to turn His back on us now. He still is with us.

I'd like to conclude by sharing a story I came across in Ladies Home Journal.g (I was on vacation, I didn't have anything else to read, and there it was.) You know, it was an article entitled "Answered Prayers." Well, I'm a pastor. I have to read that. Here's what happened. It's by a man named Ronnie Polanetski, who's a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. He reports that his mother was in the hospital undergoing an angiogram. He was with his sister and his father. His second sister burst into their room and gave them the news: "Mom's got a 70% blockage and they're going to open it up now, but she'll be fine, so don't worry." Then she, being a nurse, went back out to talk to the doctor. Then he writes:

My father, my sister Peg, and I settled in to wait for the thumbs-up on the angioplasty. My mother had been sick so infrequently in her 73 years that we were in shock over the blocked artery that brought her here. [Now listen to this:] "Son of a gun," my father says. Then he takes off his glasses, puts his face in his hands, and begins to shake. Forty-five years of marriage to the mother of your nine children, grandmother of your 16 grandchildren, will do that to you. Peg and I quickly put our arms around him and began to coo every platitude we could think of. And then Peg prompts a rite of passage by asking, "Dad, do you want us to pray with you?" She's talking to him, but she's looking at me, and I'm glad his head is down because my jaw drops, as in, "Who? Us?" Dad says, "I'd appreciate that."

 

Then this columnist goes on to say how in their family, it was always their parents who prayed for them as they raised nine children through all they faced together. Their parents were the bulwark of faith. Whenever people asked his parents, "How did you guys do it?" they always answered, "Prayers. Lots of prayers." Then he writes:

So now it's our turn. We jump in, not really knowing what to say, but hoping the effort itself will soothe our fright. We ask God to give the doctor a steady hand, that mom not be scared, that dad will feel calm. We thank God for letting the doctors find the blockage in time. We ask for patience while we wait. Dad lifts his head and takes a heaving breath. The color returns to his cheek. Peg and I look at each other, pleasantly stunned. Newly minted authors of prayers that have ascended inexplicably to the heavens and there can be no doubt, from the relief on my father's face, have been heard. "Did we do that?" I silently mouth to Peg. "I think so," she mouths back. I spend the rest of the day in fuzzy suspension until Mom comes out of the successful angioplasty, and I make a decision I will continue to rely on my parents' prayers, but I will start regarding them as a back-up to my own. After all, my parents became believers over time, not overnight. Maybe all I need is practice.

 

Is it possible as a nation, as a community, as individuals, that we're in a period where we're learning to pray again? I hope so. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, thank you, thank you. Thank you for your promise that never will you leave us and never will you forsake us. Thank you, dear Lord, that there's nothing that can happen that can separate us from your love. Lord, I pray today for each person in this sanctuary and each person in our family of faith who's experiencing sleeplessness, and loss of concentration, and even the darkness of depression. I pray that you can break through with your light, and with your peace, and your love, and your joy, and your purpose, your serenity. Lord, all of those are a gift from you. We claim the promise, O God, that perfect love casts out fear, and we ask that fear may be cast out today. God, I pray for those who are facing uncertainty in the future, or who have experienced a loss. Those who don't know which direction to turn next. Those who are living some private hell and darkness, separated from you. And I pray that right now you can break through with your light, and with your peace, and with your joy, and with your presence. We thank you, God, that this world which we don't understand is yours, and you love it, and you've redeemed it in the person of your Son Jesus. We place our futures confidently in your hand. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Rev. Gary LeTourneau

Senior Pastor

Faith Presbyterian Church

Minnetonka, Minnesota

[transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00 a.m. worship service on September 30, 2001]