Rev. Dr. James Goodlet… Biblical Odyssey: Setting Out

Sunday Worship - FPC LaGrange - June 7th, 2026

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Parker to do the children's lesson, and she always resets the bar. So now our kids are going to be expecting us to take them out, go to countries, maybe during a children's lesson. Thank you, Lennis. On Friday, we wrapped up another successful chaotic iteration of VBS, Vacation Bible School. Over a hundred kiddos and courageous volunteers energizing and singing and learning all about the Bible at Snowball Mountain this week. But I will tell you, there comes the inevitable moment each and every VBS when order has to emerge out of chaos. We can't have anarchy in a Presbyterian church. I don't think Presbyterians know the meaning of the word anarchy. And so at some time, at some point, you do have to tell someone, usually a child, to do a task with the expectation that that task will get done. But I will tell you, and when that happens, the conversation usually takes place, and that conversation usually goes something like this. John or Jane, I need you to pick up all 326 of the peppermint wrappers that are on the floor in the fellowship hall. We don't want Miss Deb getting mad at us. Me? They'll ask, as if the gravest of all injustices have been heaped upon their shoulders. Why me? And this is after some back and forth. This is when the be all end all of all responses is often uttered. The four words that span all time and all of God's divinely ordered cosmos. These four words that we have heard and we have probably spoken. Why? Because I said so. Drop the mic, turn around, pick up those wrappers off the floor. The verdict has been rendered. Now I can say this though today because neither one of my children are in church today. I must confess my true feelings when it comes to that verdict. I don't really like it. Because I said so. I don't really care for it too much. For one thing, it's just rude. Not to mention, it doesn't really make sense when you think about it in context. What you're seeking is an answer to the question, why me? Please explain your rationale to me. Upon what journey did you embark that led you to the conclusion that I am the rightful inheritor of this task? That's what you're seeking. But instead, what you get, with because I said so, is something else. What you get is a declaration of someone's so-called authority. But all you're seeking out is a profoundly thought-out explanation of process. What you get instead is an obtuse, oversimplified workaround that in no way meets the criteria of the question being asked. Now, you may be wondering, well, then James, you're a parent. Do you use it? Well, of course I use it with regularity. Because that's what we do. It is a tool in our tool belt. But that doesn't mean I like it. Because I said so, I don't think meets the requisite demands of the question. Why me? It's a dodge. Unless, of course, you are God. That is the only scenario where I actually think because I said so, it really works. God says it, all bets are off. And that's what happens in today's story. Linus did a great job of outlining some of the challenges of the story in Abram. Now notice, I don't know if you noticed this, or maybe you know this, maybe you don't. There is absolutely no mention of Abram in all of Scripture until the end of Genesis chapter 11. And if you notice, we started at Genesis chapter 12, the very beginning. We don't know anything about this guy. Well, we know some things. We know his name. We know his father, Tarah, we know he had a wife, Sarai, we know that he had kinfolk. We know that his wife, Zarai, was unable at the time to have children. That's what it says, that she was unable to have children in chapter 11. And we also know that his family had settled in a land called Haran. What we don't know are his strengths, his qualifications, his weaknesses, his annoyances, his greatest joys. We don't know his Enneagram type. We don't know his favorite time of the year. We don't know if he was the kind of person who enjoyed celebrating his birthday. In fact, we barely know anything about him at all when we get to chapter 12. All we know is that God saw fit to call upon Abram for a very special mission. To go from his country, to leave his kindred behind, to leave his father's house behind, and to go to a land that God had called him to go to. And that God would make of him Abram a great nation. Now think about that for just a second. This is very curious. God is going to make of him a great nation. At this point in time, he's seventy-five years old. Maybe there's some seventy-five-year-old folks out there who are ready to have another child. I'm forty-five. I'm good. But maybe there are. But there's also this little tidbit. His wife was unable to have children. Okay, so how is this going to work? This is a very interesting strategy for God to employ, to select this particular person whom you probably on the surface wouldn't consider to be a forefather candidate, and his wife, who was not yet able to have children, and to ask them with the promise that they are going to become a great nation, and ask them, as Linnace said, to uproot their whole situation, their whole family, and move. Can you imagine the conversation that Abram had with Sarai? Um, honey, I just wanted you to know that the Lord uh taught to me. And it just so happens that we're supposed to move. Where? Good question. I don't know. How do you think Sarai responds? How do you think Sarai responds when she hears that God is going to make a nation of them? Doesn't it on the surface seem a little far-fetched. But did you read, when you read the scripture, did you did you see any record of Abram pushing back? There's absolutely no accounting, and there are plenty of biblical accounts where people push back when God asks them to do something. But in this one, there's none. There's no why me. There's no why would you ask me of all people to take on this monumental task? What kind of boneheaded selection process did you use that would land on me as the seed plant for a generation of people? There's none of that. Instead, all we know is that Abram did exactly as Linnais did with those kids. He followed the leader. Probably because he knew the answer he would get had he asked, why me? Why this? What's going on? Why, why, why? Because I said so. And it got me to thinking about this sermon worship series, Biblical Odyssey, Epic Stories of the Faith. And I realized when I was thinking about it that no Odyssey in our lives, no matter how mundane or how epic it may be, none of them exist without a beginning. None of them exist without a setting out point. And the reality is that the setting out point may be the most profoundly difficult part of the whole Odyssey. We don't see it in the story, but it isn't a stretch to presume that Abram probably really struggled with what God had commanded him to do. No, we don't see any arguing about it. Probably because it was from the great, because I said so in the sky. But this was a family who had roots, who had people, who more or less knew what to expect each and every day of their lives, and all of a sudden this was being taken away from them. Not by choice, mind you, but because it's what they had to do. It was probably not a stretch that there was some inertia, some slow moving to get the whole thing going, and there were probably lots of questions, and yet somehow they managed to put one foot in front of the other and start their journey. And you see this throughout scripture. You see people contending with God. Why me, why me, why me? And yet they almost always do what they have to do. And that brings me back to you, and to us, and to this church. I do wonder, as I look around this room, if there is some here, or some out there watching, or listening, I do wonder if somebody is in the middle of an Abram moment. If there are some of you who are examining your own lives and sensing that maybe, just maybe, you are being told, led, to do something that you might not have thought possible. Is there somebody here who can relate to Abram? And it doesn't have to be huge. I'm not saying that this moment means that you are going to go and establish a nation. But I wonder if it could be that your Odyssey is setting out in a different direction or way that you never would have expected, in a way that has you responding, me? Why me? Not me, surely not me. And maybe it's you're setting out in your retirement to volunteer for the very last organization you ever thought would be of interest to you. Or maybe it's that you are setting out on your Odyssey, on a course correction in your career, in your vocation, in your calling, in a way that you never thought would happen, let's say a year ago. Or maybe you are setting out on your Odyssey for a change in your major or your life's path or your post-collegiate, postgraduate direction. Or maybe it has nothing to do with anything, any of that at all. Maybe you are setting out on your Odyssey to heal a relationship that has been broken for far too long. Or maybe it's that you are setting out on your odyssey to do something, to embark upon some twist or turn in your professional or your personal life with a friend or family member, and you are called, you're being called to go to the land of Canaan, whatever that might look like, to uproot everything you thought you knew for the land of what could be. See, I am willing to bet that everybody here has at some point examined their own life or thought about their own life in a way that has you asking the question: is this the direction I'm supposed to be headed here? Am I supposed to be treating this person this way? Am I supposed to be handling this situation in this way? Maybe. But what if your Odyssey is setting out to take a turn? An unexpected twist in your life's plot. I don't know what that is. I don't know what epic story, epic, epic story your journey is about to take. But what I do believe is this when you look at scripture, including at today's scripture, we see over and over and over again that the God we worship is the very same God who called a family with seemingly no credentials to establish a nation. And that the God we worship continuously twists the plot of our expectations, even going so far as to put on flesh so we could see what and who that God was all about. And the God we worship doesn't need any reasons or rationale for us to do what God calls us to do and who God calls us to be. God need only say this.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Church, what do we believe? We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba Father. In sovereign love, God created the world good and makes everyone equally in God's image, male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community. But we rebel against God, we hide from our Creator, ignoring God's commandments, we violate the image of God in others and ourselves, accept lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature, and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care. We deserve God's condemnation. Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation. In everlasting love, the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant, people, to bless all families of the earth. Hearing their cry, God delivered the children of Israel from the house of bondage. Loving us still, God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant. Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, God is faithful still. Please be seated.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Prayers of the people, I want to lift up Bill McCoy and Lisa and family. Bill had surgery up at Emory in Midtown Atlanta this week, recovering. This was a planned surgery for a long time, but prayers for him as he continues to recover and for Lisa as she sits by his side. I want to also lift up the family of Eunice Carr. She died last week, and we had the service. The service was held on Thursday over at Striffler Hamby. And she was buried at her family plot down in near Greenville and Gay, Georgia, and in that area. So prayers for her family. Also want to lift up Dana Countis. Dana's dad died this last week, and they held a service for him on Friday at his church in Nashville. And then certainly, as I said earlier, prayers for our high schoolers and For our advisors as they head to Montreat for quite the Odyssey, I have no doubt about it. Let's pray together. Lord, we know that you are a God who calls us by name. No, we may not be Abram or Sarai. But nevertheless, you call us to be faithful. And you call us to follow you. No matter where that might take us, what it might look like, faithfulness is the destination. Lord, we ask that you would be with those folks whose names we spoke earlier, for the McCoys, for Eunice's family, for Dana Counison family, for our youth and advisors as they travel up to the mountains of North Carolina. Lord, we pray for those who are fighting their own battles, who don't know where the story is going to take them. Those who are fighting those battles in private, who don't want to share, maybe because of shame or embarrassment or vulnerability, whatever the reason might be. Let them know that they are loved, that they are cared for, and that they are surrounded by a church who are ready to be present with and for them. We pray for your world, for this country, for this community. As together we discern a path forward, we pray that that path would be aligned with your purposes of peace and reconciliation, restoration and resurrection. Lord, we all carry weight. Weight that can seem too heavy, too burdensome. Remind us that we can turn to you, and that with you our yoke is easy and the burden is light. Wherever it is we are in our Odyssey, wherever it is we are in our story. Remind us that we never walk alone, and that you are the God who put on flesh to be with us and for us. And that nothing can ever separate us from you or you from us. Here as now, as together we pray the prayer that your son taught us to pray, saying, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen. This church gives of herself in so many ways. This week was in many ways a classic example of it, a microcosm of it all. I saw folks here preparing meals for an installation reception. I saw people lovingly and tediously putting together PVC pipe and coming up with plans for how better to do that perhaps in the future. I saw people each and every day exhausted, very exhausted, but still walking beside a hundred plus children. I saw people putting flowers together and pulling weddings together and playing for weddings and participating in weddings and all the things. I saw a circle of parents holding hands as we sent off Montre youth. And I see you here now. This doesn't happen without you. It's cliche, I know. Church is nothing without the people, but it is true. And say thank you for all that you do to make church possible not only in the summer season, but in every season and all seasons of life. Let us now receive our tithes and offerings for the church and for the Lord.