Meet Abraham – our spiritual ancestor, the great patriarch of Hebrews, the people of God and the people of Deer Park Baptist Church

 

Abraham and Sarah have pretty much settled into their retirement years. If their life together hadn’t quite worked out as they once hoped it would, it’d still been pretty good. And there was something to be said for pretty good lives.

 

And then, out of the blue, the Lord comes to Abraham and gives him two promises, one dream more outlandish than the other, both of them hinging on a command.

 

Go, God says. Get on down the road. And I will give you a land, a land that is your land. And I will give you a son who will be more than a son but will be the beginning of nations. And I will give you a dream that is far beyond any dream you’ve dreamed for yourself.

 

Go, God says. Get on down the road. In a way, Deer Park has always been on the move, too.

 

We began in a coal shed on Duker Avenue in 1906. In 1915 this sanctuary was built, a fairly short move a block away. More buildings were constructed – a big educational building in 1952; lots of renovation followed. And a new building in 1990.

 

I have dreams waiting for you, dreams bigger and more joyful than you’d ever dare dream yourself.

 

However, like Abraham, we sometimes get in the way. Abraham decided that God couldn’t figure all this out, so he had to make things happen on his own early on. He set the stage for division and strife.

 

And sometimes we just do get in the way. So step along but step along at God’s pace, at God’s call, and in God’s embrace. We know, dear Deer Park family, how to walk now. And we know how to hug, really hug people in a hundred different ways. In just five years I have seen you quietly performing one act of love and devotion for our Lord. Most of them will never show up in the Western Recorder, or the business meeting minutes, or be taped or photographed. But they are never forgotten by those who have received the blessing from you. And it’s been going on for 365,025 days – 100 years!

 

Go, God says. Go on farther down my road.

 

I don’t know exactly what dreams God has waiting for us for the next century. But I know that they will surprise us, challenge us, delight us, discomfort us, bless us. And we will be all of that and more to others.

 

We’ve been on the move through missions. Through missionaries we’ve sent out, prayed for, supported with thousands more via cooperative giving … through members who’ve volunteered overseas, in NYC, Gulf Coast, disaster relief …through refugees whom we’ve officially sponsored and resettled … through immigrants we’ve reached out to help unofficially … through open doors with hot meals and warm clothes for flood survivors in 1937 and tornado victims in 1974.

 

In the name of Deer Park, the gospel has been preached, and not only through words – through Habitat houses built, the homeless fed, the outcasts embraced, the poor [enabled]. And if we take to heart Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats, then there has been something of Jesus in all of this, for these are the places he said he would be.

 

On the road … again and again… on the move, sometimes way out of our comfort zones. The Baptist Peacemaker started here… Seminary students and their families learned about roll-up-your-sleeves and do ministry like you’ve never experienced it before … one of the first women to be ordained a deacon in Kentucky was set apart for this vital ministry at Deer Park … Carman Sharp leading civil rights efforts in Louisville with a handful of other white pastors.

 

Go on. Keep moving down the road. This is what God said to Abraham and Sarah and he says to us, too: Keep going because in the simple prayer of Dag Hammerskjold: “For all that has been, thank you. For all that will be, Yes! Yes!