"Luck Versus Providence"

[Read Genesis 22:1-14]

Frank Selak is one of the luckiest or unluckiest men alive – it’s hard to say which.

That’s because he has the distinction of surviving an unprecedented number of fatal accidents.

In 1962, this man from Croatia escaped, with minor injuries, a train wreck that killed 17 passengers.

In 1963, the cockpit door of the plane he was flying in blew off.

Nineteen passengers were killed.

Selak landed in a haystack and suffered minor injuries.

In 1966, he escaped unharmed from a bus crash that killed 4 people.

In 1970, his car caught on fire.

You guessed it; he escaped unharmed.

In 1973, Selak lost most of his hair in yet another car fire but was otherwise unharmed.

In 1995, he was hit by a city bus but walked away with minor injuries.

In 1996, trying to avoid an oncoming truck, he drove his car off a cliff and landed in a tree, where he watched his car explode.

Then in 2003, a surprising twist: Selak won $1 million in the Croatian lottery.

Lucky or unlucky, Selak has been quoted as saying, “I know God was watching over me all these years.”

I just wonder how his wife is doing?

You know they say that “lightning never strikes twice in the same place.”

One who would disagree with that if he could is British officer Major Summerford.

While fighting in the fields of Flanders in 1918, he was knocked off his horse by a flash of lightning and paralyzed from the waist down.

Summerford retired and moved to Vancouver.

One day in 1924, as he fished alongside a river, lightning hit the tree he was sitting under and paralyzed his right side.

Two years later, Summerford had recovered to the point where he was able to take walks in the local park.

He was walking there one summer day in 1930 when a lightning bolt smashed into him, permanently paralyzing him.

He died 2 years later.

But lightning would find him one last time.

Four years later, during a storm, lightning struck a cemetery and destroyed a tombstone.

Well, we all know who was buried there: Major Summerford.

How’s that for bad luck?

During the recent economic downturn, a lot of people have been cutting back on things.

They have been doing things like eating out less, delaying the purchase of a car, downsizing their homes.

Some people are wisely cutting back on using credit cards.

Some people are vacationing at a local park rather than heading to some exotic destination.

What some Americans are not cutting back on is the dream of striking it rich.

During these difficult days, many people are no longer going to the bank for financial advice.

Instead, they’re heading for the local convenience store to purchase lottery tickets.

A 2009 report by USA Today indicated that more than half the states with lotteries saw an increase in sales.

In 2010, total revenue from state lotteries was up by $1 billion from the previous year.

It seems that in desperate times, more people are indeed relying on luck.

Albert Atwood of Nashville spends $100 every week playing the Pick 5 and Lotto Plus.

He said, “Someday somebody is going to win, and I hope it is me.”

He goes on to say, “I imagine that I would be a heap better off if I saved this money, but everybody has dreams.”

Do the math on what saving a $100 a week might add up to over time.

Over 30 years, that adds up to $156,000.

That doesn’t include any interest earned or investment returns.

Many people in our world simply are hoping for good luck.

We have today what is called “luckology.”

The luckology.com web site defines the term as the ability to successfully attract good luck and turn bad luck into good luck over and over again.

Ric Wallace, the proprietor of the web site, says the formula for being lucky is Belief + Attitude + An Item of Luck = Results.

Ric would say “If you just believe and think positively, plus hold on to a rabbit’s foot as a good luck charm, then the millions you are seeking will be yours.”

I. The Philosophy of Luck

The Philosophy of Luck has been around a long time.

People in ancient times assumed the world was a rather random place.

They believed that forces beyond their control gave them good or bad luck in arbitrary ways.

Pantheistic religions believed the gods used fortune and misfortune to manipulate human lives.

As a result, they believed that it was best to please the gods who might give them fortune.

They tried to avoid ticking off the gods who could give them a run of bad luck.

In the Roman Pantheon, for example, a cult formed around the goddess Fortuna, whose worship emerged around the time that the Carthaginian general Hannibal was threatening Rome.

Then, as now, people in crisis tend to organize their theological worldview around the immediacy of the lucky break.

The altars of the gods of fortune or luck can be found in a casino or at the counter of a convenience store.

It has been labeled as “secular religion” by Christian author Wayne Oates.

In his book titled Luck: A Secular Religion, he traces the human fascination with luck and challenges it as being bankrupt.

Oates defines luck as “confidence – that is, faith – in fate, in chance, in cleverness, in figuring out probabilities. . . All are focused upon the immediate time situation, upon the here and now. All are distinctly dependent upon human existence apart from any fellowship with or interdependence on the supernatural or the everlasting realities of life.”

Luck is an isolating belief, where the individual stands over and against the community.

It’s the realm of arbitrary winners and losers.

There is an old saying that says, “Luck is the idol of the idle.”

II. Was Abraham Lucky or Blessed?

Abraham certainly could have considered himself to be really lucky.

After all, God had seemingly chosen him at random out of all the people living in Mesopotamia at the time.

At least, that’s how it could have appeared to someone watching from the outside.

God had given the wandering man from Ur the news that he had hit the patriarchal jackpot.

God said to Abraham:

“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. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”   Genesis 12:2, 3

God said, “I will make of you a great nation.”

Remember Abraham and Sarah were basically beyond the child-bearing years.

The Apostle Paul would later write in the letter to the Romans that Abraham was as good as dead.

Secular religion would look at Abraham’s good fortune and say “He’s a lucky man!”

God would teach Abraham that luck really has nothing to do with his fortune, his prosperity or the birth of his son.

Abraham’s God is different from the gods of the pantheistic Cannaanites.

Pantheism is the belief that the universe or nature and God are identical.

Pantheists do not believe in a personal God or a Creator God.

They believe that God is the sum of all beings and forces in the universe.

You may have heard someone say, “May the force be with you.”

Now, how encouraging is that?

Abraham’s God doesn’t dole out arbitrary blessings and curses.

He doesn’t hand out luck and unluck.

Instead, Abraham’s God is focused on obedience and what we might call “providence.”

The binding of Isaac on Mt. Moriah is a lesson in radical dependence on God as the real Provider of all we need.

III. Abraham is Tested to the Nth Degree

God said to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

Those words must have cut Abraham to the heart.

The son he had waited for was now being demanded from him.

We don’t know exactly what Abraham’s thoughts were but he may have had some of the following thoughts:

“Lord, I will do anything but please not this.”

It’s a story that makes every parent cringe at its seeming randomness.

Some people in a similar situation with a secular mindset might think of it as the day their luck ran out.

I remember hearing this story of Abraham and Isaac in Sunday School as a child.

It scared me.

I’m thinking “God, don’t give my dad any ideas.”

Now, according to the text, Abraham doesn’t seem to flinch.

He saddles up and does what God tells him.

On the third day of the journey, Abraham identifies his destination.

He tells his servants to wait while he and the boy go up on the mountain to worship and “then we will come back to you.”

It’s a strange statement for a man who’s facing the prospect of killing his own son as a sacrifice to God.

Even at the point of a tragic ending, Abraham seems to know that God will somehow provide.

From Hebrew 11, we see that Abraham reasoned that God can raise the dead.

So if Abraham did sacrifice his son, perhaps, God would raise him from the dead.

As they walk up the mountain, Abraham tells Isaac, who’s curious about this whole project, that God will provide “the lamb” for the offering.

God had already provided Abraham with his son, and Abraham somehow believes that God will provide for him again.

We have to remember that this story comes after Abraham has walked with God for quite some time.

Abraham has seen God provide for him over and over again.

He has come to rely on God, rather than on luck, to sustain him.

Now, in this ultimate test of faith, Abraham puts everything on the line and demonstrates a radical dependence on God.

Abraham is ready to offer God the most valued part of his life.

We know how the story ends.

At the critical point, when Abraham is ready to put everything on the line, the angel stops him.

A ram is caught in a nearby thicket and the sacrifice is provided.

Abraham names the place “Jehovah-Jireh” which means “The Lord Will Provide.”

What was thought to be a cruel twist of fate is turned into a lesson on providence.

If believing in luck is a secular faith, then believing in providence is a sacred faith.

Divine Providence refers to God’s activity in the world.

Wayne Oates describes it this way:

“A believer in providence, although not able to see the hand of God at work in a given situation of one’s lot in life, nevertheless holds to the faith that God will deliver him or her from that forced situation according to the distinct purpose God has for his or her life. “

Faith in luck is a lonely faith.

If you win, very few people will rejoice with you.

If you lose, very few people will share your pain.

It is a fatalistic submission to chance.

Faith in God’s providence is different.

It is faith in a relationship with God who promises to supply what we need, when we need it.

Abraham believed in providence and his beloved son was spared.

God is the One who provides, even to the point of sacrificing his own Son, Jesus Christ, for us.

If luck is all about the individual pursuit of everything we think we want, then providence is about accepting the promise that God supplies everything we need.

While luck seeks to obtain, providence invites us to share.

Luck buys lottery tickets.

Providencepractices trust.

Abraham was never into luck nor are we.

Faith is a reminder that we are never really lucky.

Blessed, but not lucky.

The topic this morning has been the providence of God.

Providence, again, refers to God’s activity in the world.

Some of you are going through the fire.

Some of you are experiencing severe trials.

You may be wondering how does the providence of God relate to my difficulties.

I would like to close with an excerpt from a writing called A Guide to True Peace.

“We should give up our whole existence unto God from the strong and positive conviction that while we are faithfully following Him, the occurrence of every moment is agreeable to His immediate will and permission, and just such as our state requires.”