LaGrave Live, July 12, 2026
LaGrave Live
LIVE Evening Worship Service - Legacy
About The Service:
LaGrave member and Rest Haven Chaplain, Rev. Tricia Bosma, will preach. She will use Romans 4:16-25 as her text for the sermon, "Legacy."
Order of Worship:
https://lagrave.org/wp-content/upload...
About Us:
We are a traditional CRC church in the middle of Downtown Grand Rapids, MI, worshipping at 8:40am, 11:00am, and 6:00pm. (10:00am and 6:00pm during the summer months)
We'd love to hear from you:
Connection: https://www.lagrave.org/contact
Let us pray for you:
Prayer: https://www.lagrave.org/prayerrequest/
Giving: https://www.elexiogiving.com/App/Givi...
The June special offering is for Pine Rest Patient Assistance Fund: Part of Pine Rest Foundation Fund offering financial assistance for individuals, families and children who need care.
Listen on the go:
Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/LGPodAmazonMusic
Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3tuOdwQ
Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/LGPodGoogle
Soundcloud: / lagravecrc
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3yXDFaT
Follow us!
Facebook: / lagravecrc
Instagram: / lagravecrc
Website: https://www.lagrave.org
#LaGrave #LaGraveCRC
A Legacy of Faith When Hope Seems Lost
Called, Welcomed, and Sent by God
Trisha Basma opens the evening worship service with Jesus’s call of Matthew and His declaration that He came not for the righteous, but for sinners. She connects that passage with God’s call to Adam and Eve in Genesis, emphasizing that God continues to come to His people, call them, and send them into the world. After welcoming both in-person and online worshippers, Basma introduces herself as a LaGrave member and chaplain serving residents in long-term care, rehabilitation, and memory care at Resthaven in Holland, Michigan. She then turns to Genesis 12, presenting Abram’s call as a reminder that God not only summons people into relationship but also sends them out as agents of blessing.
Creation, Human Dignity, and Prayer in the Darkness
The service continues with Psalm 8 and its vision of God’s majesty displayed throughout creation. Basma reflects on humanity’s smallness beneath the heavens while also emphasizing the dignity, honor, and responsibility God gives human beings within creation. In prayer, she contrasts the brilliance of creation with the darkness of sin within human hearts and the wider shadow of evil, disease, and suffering in the world. She asks for forgiveness, renewed light through the Holy Spirit, and strength for the congregation. She offers specific intercessions for members receiving hospice care and those battling cancer, asking for endurance and the light of God’s love. The prayer also extends to LaGrave’s plans for serving people in the Heartside District.
The Spiritual Question of Legacy
Turning to Romans 4:16–25, Basma introduces the G.E.R.O. 6, a spiritual assessment designed for older adults. She explains that it explores death and dying, spiritual concerns, religious concerns, autonomy, connection, identity, and legacy. While several themes overlap with other assessment tools, she notes that legacy is the distinctive concern in the geriatric model. In her chaplaincy work, residents often ask whether their lives mattered, whether they made a difference, and how they will be remembered. These questions can become especially urgent after a dementia diagnosis, when people fear increasing dependence, diminished identity, and the possibility that their remaining life will become smaller or less meaningful.
Abraham’s Delayed Promise and Dashed Expectations
Basma uses Abraham as the sermon’s central example. In the ancient Near East, legacy was closely connected with land and descendants, yet Abraham initially possessed neither. God promised him both a family and a land, but many years passed without visible fulfillment. Even after God confirmed the covenant, Abraham learned that he would not personally witness the full realization of the promises and that his descendants would first endure generations of enslavement. Basma compares Abraham’s disappointment with modern experiences such as losing a hoped-for job or promotion, missing an achievement, or enduring the pain of childlessness. She acknowledges that hope can become painful when reality appears to contradict everything a person expected from God.
From Hoping for a Blessing to Hoping in God
Romans describes Abraham as believing “against all hope,” and Basma presents this as the sermon’s central spiritual transformation. She describes a seismic shift in Abraham’s faith: his hope moved from the blessing itself to the God who had the power and faithfulness to accomplish what He promised. Basma illustrates this with a child standing at the edge of a pool, trusting not merely that arms will appear, but that the father waiting below is dependable. Abraham believed that God could bring life out of bodies marked by age, barrenness, and apparent death. That trust, rather than the immediate possession of land or descendants, became Abraham’s true legacy and was credited to him as righteousness.
Hope for a Church That Appears to Be Dying
Basma then applies Abraham’s experience to concerns about declining church attendance, church closures, and younger generations leaving both the church and the faith. She cites a report estimating that 10,000 churches may close during the year, using that figure to illustrate why many believers fear that the church’s legacy is weakening. She recounts older residents grieving congregations they served for decades and mourning that their children and grandchildren have walked away. Empty sanctuaries can appear, in her image, like barren wombs unable to bear witness to the life and light of Christ. Yet she argues that the apparent decline of the church is not the final word because Jesus promised to build His church and declared that the gates of Hades would not overcome it.
The Covenant of Christ and a Living Legacy of Faith
Basma concludes with three sources of hope: God’s promises remain dependable, Christian hope must rest in God rather than visible results, and death is never the final answer in the work of God. She compares God’s covenant with Abraham to the new covenant established through the body and blood of Jesus Christ. She argues that if Abraham’s covenant displayed God’s determination to keep His promises, then the blood of Jesus gives believers confidence that the promises of redemption and the life of the church will also be fulfilled. Through faith in the God who raised Jesus from the dead, believers receive righteousness and become bearers of light in a dark world. She closes by urging believers to live so that their obituary could truthfully say they left a legacy of faith in Jesus Christ.
LaGrave Live
If you’re looking for a warm church that commits to an intensely pertinent Gospel in the Reformed tradition of the Christian faith, we invite you to worship with us. Our 1,800 members come from across West Michigan and gather weekly in our sanctuary for relevant Biblical preaching, beautiful music, and inspiring worship. We expand our worship through intentional outreach in our community and world, attentive care for our members, and plenty of spiritual enrichment and social opportunities for everyone.
We focus on a living Savior who provides genuine solutions to the deep needs of a hurting world. We are committed to need-meeting ministry in His name, and we are committed to being real people who enjoy real life and who cry real tears. Because we are a fairly large and diverse group in terms of age, occupation, marital status, lifestyle, and physical ability; our members create many accessible opportunities for community service, Bible study, and small social groups.
We worship God, the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, and we enjoy expressing our vision of His holiness through traditional music and formal liturgy.
Music plays an integral part of our weekly worship gatherings. Congregational singing—of both traditional hymns and newer ones—is typically supported by our pipe organ. Vocal choirs, handbell choirs, small ensembles, instrumentalists, and vocal soloists provide additional music offerings.
Led by the Holy Spirit, we seek to worship and serve God in all of life, transforming His world and being transformed to reflect the character of Christ.
Founded by 36 Dutch immigrants on February 24, 1887, LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church has always been deeply committed to both this local community and worldwide missions. God has seen fit to guide and bless these commitments with sustained growth, spiritual gifting, and a continual stream of new work for our members.
Speaker Identification
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Music Segment
Speaker 3 - Scripture Reader / Worship Leader where not separately identified
Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Music Segment
[Opening music and congregational singing are heard. The automated transcript captured this section as repeated vocal sounds and incomplete lyric fragments. Spoken content begins with the call to worship.]
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
I call to worship this evening is from Matthew 9 through 13. As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. Follow me, he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came in to eat with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And on hearing this, Jesus said, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick, Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Thanks be to God. All the way back in Genesis 3, God came to his people. God came to Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening and called, where are you? Jesus also did not give up the practice of coming to us and calling us.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Sinners tonight, you have been called to this space. Let us respond with a hearty, come, thou almighty king. Having responded to our Lord's call, receive His greeting. The love of God the Father, the grace and the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be and abide with you forever.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Amen. Good evening. My name is Trisha Basma and I am a member here at LaGrave. LaGrave has ordained me and has sent me to be a chaplain. I serve at Resthaven, which is a senior living facility in Holland, Michigan.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
I serve in the facility that we call the care center, which is the building that houses our long-term care, our rehabilitation unit and our memory care unit. And it's a pleasure to be here with you this evening.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
But welcome to all of you to this worship service. We are thankful for your being here, whether you are here in person or utilizing our digital technology and joining us online. We are so thankful that you are here and we treasure your presence.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
As we bless God with our worship, we are also blessed by one another. Our Old Testament reading this evening is from Genesis 12. We have just rejoiced at being called by our God, but not only does He call us, God also sends us.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
The Lord had said to Abram, go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land, I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. Let us continue our praise. Let us praise the God who continues His story from antiquity all the way up to the present by purposes of us to be His sent agents in this world.
Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Music Segment
[Congregational hymn continues. Repeated lyric artifacts omitted for readability.] Amen. Our reading from the Psalms this evening is Psalm 8. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all of the earth?
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants, you have established a stronghold against your enemies. To silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them?
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Human beings that you care for them. You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You have made them ruler over the works of your hands. You put everything under their feet, all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, all that swim, the paths of the seas.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all of the earth? Recognizing that our Creator God that only cares for us, he also gives us the honor and the glory of his purpose in his creation. Let us return to praising this God.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord, our Lord brilliance.
Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Music Segment
[Music segment continues. Automated transcription of lyrics is uncertain and has been condensed.] Amen. Let us approach the throne. The throne of our calling, our sending, and our purposing God in prayer this evening.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Pray with me. Our blessed triune God. Soon the day will give way to night. And looking into the night skies, we can feel so insignificant. The sparkly brilliance of the planets visible against the dark sky or the hazy stripe of the Milky Way.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
We all hint at our smallness and your astounding greatness and our hearts resound how great our art. And yet sometimes when we look out at the vast world, we focus on the vast darkness and we can also feel small in the great shadow of sin and evil in this world.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
We feel powerless to affect the change that you call us to. And if we're honest with ourselves, we must also bear the shame of our part in the darkness of sin. Forgive us, Lord. And Holy Spirit, drive out darkness in us, put your light in us anew so that you will shine in the darkness for only you are not overcome by the darkness.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Thank you, Father, for the eruptions of the light of your kingdom in this world. We see the brilliance of your light, Lord, in the sacred service of hospice caregivers. And we pray that Sylvia Hugen, Bev Vandenbosch, and George Zant will feel the light of your love as they continue receiving hospice services.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
While living in the world as it currently is, we experience the darkness of disease. But you use even that backdrop to reveal your light. May your light be proclaimed in the lives of our members who battle cancer.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Joanne Arnoise, Dan Beemerse, Jolene Dehere, Marsha Hahn, Jim Crowell, Lloyd, Tin Holt, Anne, Sharon, Vennhoughton. Bless them and keep them with your strength and endurance. Oh, Jesus, as we broaden our view from inside the grave walls to outside, we see challenges that seem too hard to solve.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
But would you shine your light on our church's plans to care for our neighborhood friends? Lord, prepare our right already, the hearts of those who will serve and be served. May the life and the light of your kingdom come in the heart-side district, even as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Spirits, prepare our hearts now as we turn our attention to the words that you have given us in Scripture. They truly are holy words preserved for our benefit. They are words of life and words of hope.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And we covet that you would open our hearts so your ancient words would speak to us. In your blessed name we pray, amen. In your sweet, our soul, we wish to have a prayer. We cheer to God our soul. We cheer to our church's plans.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
We cheer to our church's plans. We know we're allRA and we can retrieval. We are now in the highest moment. We are now in the highest moment. We are now in the highest moment. We are now in the highest moment.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Our reading this evening from the epistles is our scripture that will be reflecting on Romans 4:16-25. I'm told it's on page 1750 of your pew Bibles. In the first three chapters of Romans, Paul has outlined the misery of sin.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And in chapter three, he quotes from Psalm 14. He says, no one is righteous, not even one. And then he begins to describe how righteousness will be by faith. And he uses Abraham as an example. And the promise that Paul refers to in our scripture is the promise that God had made Abraham.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
We begin in 16. Therefore, the promise comes by faith so that it may be by grace. And may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring. That only to those who are of the law, but also to those who have the faith of Abraham.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
He is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations. He is our father in the sight of God in whom we believe. The God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. And so became the father of many nations just as it had been said to him. So shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Since he was about 100 years old. And that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God. Being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
This is why it was credited to him as righteousness. The words it was credited to him were written not for him alone, but also for us. To whom God will credit righteousness. For us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. If you work in a medical field or social work or even education, you know about assessments.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Now, chaplaincy also has a growing bank of assessment tools used to determine what spiritual needs that an individual may have. These spiritual assessments are also unique to different contexts. For example, there is an assessment tool for oncology patients.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
There is also an assessment tool for those who are experiencing palliative care. And there is also now an assessment for the geriatric population. It is called the G.E.R.O. 6. It stands for six themes that are common among people who are in their latter stages of life.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Those six themes are death and dying. Spiritual, religious, autonomy, connection, identity, and legacy. If you would compare these assessment tools, you would see that there are some overlap of those themes, except that legacy is unique to the G.E.R.O. 6.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
I suppose legacy is a growing older theme. Indeed, in my work with this population, sometimes the residents will wonder with me. Did my life matter at all? Did I make a difference to anyone or anything?
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
How will I be remembered? I find that individuals who have received a new diagnosis of dementia often wrestle with these legacy questions. They anticipate that moving forward, their lives will become small, contracted, completely dependent.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
They will increasingly become someone that they are not, and they wonder, how will I be remembered? Have I made a difference? Because soon, I'm not going to be able to make a difference at all. And if dementia reduces my life, will that life matter?
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
We have to wonder, how do we measure legacy in our culture? When you think about legacy, you might think about a monetary inheritance that you lead to your children or your grandchildren. Perhaps legacy is your name on a building that stays there even long after you are gone.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
As I read the obituaries of residents who have passed away in our facility, sometimes family will write, our mother left a legacy of family, or a legacy to community service. Our father left a legacy to higher education.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
But if they are families of faith, they will often say, our mother left a legacy of faith. In Genesis 25, we are told that Abraham lived to be 175 years old. He breathed his last and died at a good old age.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
I wonder if he considered what his legacy would be. In the culture of the ancient Near East, legacy was defined by land and family. Poor Abraham had neither. You see, his own father had uprooted their family and brought them from the land of Ur of the Chaldeans, all the way to the north in Haran.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
There are no ancestral lands for them. And bringing his wife Sarah, Abraham and Sarah realized that there would be no family for them either, as Sarah's womb was barren. But then God reveals himself to Abraham and he promises both of these things, land and family.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
He says your descendants will be a nation and they will number as those stars in the sky or the sands that are on the shore. And you will possess Canaan, which was an influential crossroads in the known world then.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And so Abraham set off full of hope, hope for family and land and a legacy. Years go by though, and neither land nor family comes. And in a fit, Abraham complains to God about this, and God cuts a covenant with him.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And he says to Abraham in this covenant, there will be a child. I guarantee that even in your dead body in old age and in Sarah's dead body, her barren womb, you will have a child she will conceive. But in that cutting of covenant, God also reveals to Abraham that he will not see the fulfillment of those promises that he had made to Abraham.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
In fact, it would be generations before the land would be inherited. And that nation that he promised Abraham, that nation was going to be enslaved for 400 years. Now it seems like a bit of bait and switch to me.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
First, he says, leave your family. I'll show you a land that's going to be yours. I'm going to make you into a nation, a great nation. And you will be a blessing to all other nations. But now you won't see any of it, Abraham.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Neither will your son or your grandson for that matter and your descendants. Well, they're going to be lowly slaves for a long time. I have to imagine that as hopes were a bit dashed, there would be no immediate legacy for Abraham.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
We've all had times in our life when hopes were dashed. Something you really want or something you counted on didn't come your way. A job, a promotion, maybe first chair in the orchestra or that varsity team jersey.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Or maybe more profoundly, maybe you're like Sarah and Abraham, you've hoped for a child. And you know the pain, the childlessness. When reality smacks you in the face, hoping for something can hurt. And yet, Abraham gets smacked in the face with his reality and he manages some kind of sustaining hope.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And it wasn't just any hope. Verse 18 is translated different ways and different versions of the Bible. One of them says Abraham hoped beyond all hopes. But in our version tonight, it says against all hope, Abraham in hope believed.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
He trusted in. He had faith in. This was quite a shift. Seismic really. No longer had he a hope for the blessing, for receiving what God had said he would get. And instead, his hope was transformed into hoping in God.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
In a God who could accomplish everything that he had promised. When a child stands on the edge of a pool and daddy says jump, the child is not hoping that there will be arms to catch him. Rather, he is hoping in his father's trustworthiness to have the arms to catch him.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Abraham's hope was in God who could take a hopeless situation where death seemed to rain in his body and his wife's. And he would make a life out of that death somehow. God would. This faith. This hope.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
This trust in was credited to Abraham's righteousness. Even as death did still rain in his life. This is the legacy that Abraham had. It was not the legacy of a nation, Israel. It was not the legacy of a land.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
The Middle East. It was a legacy of faith. Faith in a God of life. Faith that did not require the proof of blessing. Now, if Abraham's legacy through the generations is faith in God. And that it's a faith that credits righteousness.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Is that faith still alive today? The National Opinion Research Center reports that across the board, in every age group, every sex, every race, every marital status, and every education level, there is lower church attendance.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And the reported reason for that people tell us is that, well, their faith, their beliefs, what they believe in just doesn't match the churches anymore. In fact, it's estimated that 10,000 churches will close this year alone.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Where is the legacy of faith? Have we failed somehow? Do we believe that legacy? Perhaps the situation of church is like Sarah's situation. The church is barren. Each empty sanctuary out there is just a barren womb that cannot give witness to the light and the life of the world.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
The one who brings life from death. Is the church destined to lose all vitality as the legacy of faith is lost? Or perhaps the situation of the church is like Abraham, just to archaic, to be relevant in the 21st century.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
When I talk to my residents, I hear a common lament. They grieve that their churches, that they have served for years, are closed, and even the building is gone sometimes. They lament that their children and their grandchildren have walked away from the faith and the church.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
They look at the world on the news, in their television sets and in their rooms, and they see the proverbial hell in a hand basket in this world. It can be grim sometimes when we think about it. Where is the church?
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Well, I'd like to share with you three brief points of hope for us. Things to remember to give us hope. When personal or congregational blessing seems lacking, do not forget that like Abraham we have been given promises.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Promises that we can rest on because they are promises made by a God who brings life from death. Matthew 16, Jesus said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And Jesus answered him, you are blessed, Simon, Son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in Heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Abraham's legacy of faith and the church will not end. We have this promise from Jesus himself. However, if we rest only in the promise, we may become discouraged because we do not see its fulfillment.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
So let us have our hope in the God who will accomplish it, accomplish it, and is accomplishing it. Like Abraham, we have a covenant cut in blood. Ours is a covenant cut by the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Luke 22. In the same way, he took the cup after he had eaten, saying, this cup is poured out for you and is a new covenant in my blood. We celebrated that this morning. Abraham's covenant was cut with animal blood.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And it was cut as a symbol of God's sheer dedication to fulfilling those promises. The promises were to be kept regardless of whether Abraham was able to keep his side of the covenant. How much more so then with the blood of God's own son?
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
The blood of Jesus was not for naught. The promises will be kept. With the same covenant fervor led us, never ceased in celebrating the faith that we have in Christ for our redemption from what is dead and is dying.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
And third, death of the church or the seeming death of faith is never the final answer for our God. The legacy of faith is alive. From our verses this evening, faith was credited to him as righteousness, was not written only for Abraham's sake, but also for our sake, to whom it also will be credited.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
For those who believe in the one who raised Jesus, our Lord from the dead, he was given over to death because of our transgressions and was raised to life for the sake of our justification. Again, like Abraham, our faith credits us with Christ's righteousness and are justified as righteous.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
This righteousness allows the Holy Spirit of Christ to come and reside in us and in through that spirit. We are the light and the life in a dark and dying world. We give thanks for this promise and the power in Christ to accomplish it.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Our life's labor is to leave a legacy of faith. A faith in a God who raises Jesus from death to life justifying us with his righteousness. When your obituary is written, may it be said he left a legacy of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
Amen, pray with me. Lord Jesus, work in us through your spirit to grow our faith in you. Make our life's significance be through that faith. And may our faith in you bring your light and life to a dark and dying world.
Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Preacher, Trisha Basma
In your power, amen. Amen. As we are sent out tonight, receive this blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he turn his face toward you. And may you receive all of his peace and hope.
Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir
Amen.
