What is the farthest you have ever been pushed outside your comfort zone? For me, it was a park bench in the inner city of Mobile, AL. The guy who pushed me there was Brendan O’Brian. Brendan was a prospect I was working with at the time. He was in classes and was about two or three lessons away from joining my church. Brendan, not unlike many of the people I came across in the deep south was a Baptist who had charismatic tendencies. Before we met Brendan had fallen in love with an evangelism system created by Kurt Cameron and Ray Comfort. He had bought all their tracts. He had the 10-commandment coin, the atheist IQ test, the ticket to heaven and a pocket full of other cute handouts that were meant to convert heathens.
Brendan was constantly handing these trinkets out to people. One day he invited me to join him. He said he was going to go downtown and start handing these things out to strangers he passed on the street. I politely declined, several times, I told him I was not comfortable with that style of evangelism, but Brendan was persistent. “Come on pastor”, he said. “You got to leave your comfort zone.” I tried to explain to him they call it a comfort zone for a reason, but fearing he might become disillusioned with the church and question my love for the lost, I eventual agreed to join him.
We drove downtown together in search of heathens. We stumbled upon two homeless guys who were sitting on a park bench enjoying a beverage. Brendan excitedly pointed at them and said, “there you go pastor!”. I uncomfortably approached the two gentlemen, clumsily handed them one of Brendan’s tracts, and awkwardly asked the two men I had never met, “do you consider yourself a good person” (that was the opening question, according to Kurt Cameron and Ray Comfort, I was supposed to ask) “do you consider yourself a good person?”. Thankfully, the two gentlemen didn’t throw their wild Turkey bottles at me. They just looked at me like I was a complete stranger who had not earned the right to ask them such a personal question. It was awful.
Turns out when you leave your comfort zone it is uncomfortable. I speak from experience. But still today I am going to encourage you to do what I myself still struggle to do. Today I am going to encourage you to leave your comfort zone. But since I think y’all might need to be persuaded by someone other than a recovering charismatic Baptist with a pocket full of trinkets I will be directing your attention to Genesis 12:1-8. There we learn about another man who was persuaded to leave his comfort zone and the one doing the persuading was the LORD.
The man’s name is Abram. Abram was a descendant of Shem, one of Noah’s three sons. Abram and Noah were actually alive and lived on the earth at the same time, though we have no record of the two men ever meeting. Abram was born in the time after the tower of Babel when the LORD had scattered the descendants of Noah over the face of the whole earth. Abram and his family settled in Haran (modern day Turkey) between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a region known as the Fertile Crescent. In the 75 years Abram lived in this land, he became a prosperous and wealthy man.
Abram was no doubt comfortable where he was at when the Lord said to Abram, “1… Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” Leave the familiar land you have spent the last 75 years living in. Leave the community of people where you have invested your time and built relationships. Leave your family who have loved and supported you your entire life. Abram, leave your comfort zone and go… someplace else.
I challenge you to read these words and not get a little uncomfortable. Is it not hard to deny there are a number of similarities between you and Abram? You live in a nice place, you have nice things, and you are surrounded by nice people. I am guessing most of you are comfortable. Which begs the question, “is the LORD telling you to leave your comfort zone, like He told Abram to leave his?”. I believe that is a rhetorical question. I believe the answer is yes, yes He is.
I am not suggesting y’all have to pack your bags and relocate to an unknown destination. But I am suggesting the LORD created you for a reason. Earlier in the book of Genesis the LORD tells us he created Adam and Eve and put them in a garden paradise, not to kick back relax and soak up rays from the non-cancerous sun while drinking a perfect piña colada, but the LORD put them there to take care of the garden; to work. You were created to do something. Doing is what you were designed to do. Further in Jeremiah 29:11 we read, “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord.” God has plans for you. Which means your life has purpose. You see the LORD did not create you to be a place holder, a space filler, or a spare part. You were designed to do; your life has purpose and very often the “doing” you do to fulfill that purpose is, I am sorry to say, done outside your comfort zone.
Now for some of us that is a bigger problem than it is for others. For some of you there doesn’t seem to be any border to your comfort zone. There isn’t anything you are afraid to try, and you get weirdly excited at the potential of risk and adventure. Raise your hand if that describes you.... See what I mean, no hesitation, “Yup that’s me!”. Others have a large comfort zone but only because you have worked hard to increase its size through prior proper planning, extensive training, and mental conditioning. Your comfort zone is big, but around the border is a 12-foot-high barb wire fence that can only be breached if there is a life-or-death situation that calls for it. Raise your hand if this describes you… I’ll give you some time to think about whether it is safe to raise your hand in the middle of a sermon. Still others have a really small comfort zone. They are very selective who they share their space with and are exceedingly reluctant to try anything new. I am not even going to ask these people to raise their hand because I know that just ain’t gonna happen.
Whatever your comfort zone is, you are happy there. It is where you want to be. The LORD knows what your comfort zone is. The LORD created you and He knows exactly how courageous or careful you are. The LORD knows we are happy in our comfort zones and want to stay in our comfort zones. So why does the LORD tell us to leave our comfort zones? As I look at our text, I see at least two reasons why the LORD would tell you to leave your comfort zone.
The first reason the LORD calls you out of your comfort zone is to bless you. Take another look at verse two. There the LORD said to Abram, “2 I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great”. When Abram left his comfort zone he was physically and spiritually blessed by the LORD. Physically Abram (whose wife was said to be barren) had a child, his wealth increased (to the point it was difficult to find enough land for his livestock to graze), and he became famous (he has been referred to as a mighty prince, a powerful prophet, and friend of God). But it is the spiritual blessings that made the greatest impact on Abram’s life. We see Abram as this great hero of faith, and he was, but only because that is what God made him to be. Abram struggled with sin like anyone else. It might surprise you to learn Abram and his family struggled with the sin of idolatry. I tell you that not to besmirch the name of a great man but so that you see the One who made that man great. Martin Luther put it this way, “what is Abraham except a man who hears God when He calls him, that is, a merely passive person and merely the material on which divine mercy acts?”. Abram was nothing special as long as he stayed in his comfort zone, but when the LORD told him to leave his comfort zone Abram learned how vulnerable, exposed, and weak, he really was. As a result, Abram learned to lean heavily on the LORD, to trust His promises, and rely on Him to provide and protect which is why in verse 8 we read Abram “built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.” Keep reading about the time Abram spent outside his comfort zone and you will notice he builds an altar and calls on the name of the Lord everywhere he goes.
The LORD calls you out of your comfort zone to bless you. I have no doubt the LORD has a variety of physical blessings to share with you. But since the works we have been called to do and the way we each fulfill our purpose is so different It is impossible for me to accurately predict what physical blessings the LORD has in store for you. But that is O.K. because it is the spiritual blessings that make the greatest impact on your life. Like Abram, you are nothing special. That passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians comes to mind, “not many of you were wise, not many of you were influential, not many were of Nobel birth…”[1] We, as Luther would say, are “merely passive persons and merely the material on which the divine mercy acts.” The LORD calls you out of your comfort zones to remind you of that fact. The LORD wants you to see how vulnerable, weak, and exposed you really are so that you learn lean heavily on the LORD, to trust His promises, and rely on Him to provide and protect so that you also find yourself frequently standing before the altar of the LORD and calling on the name of the LORD. The LORD calls you out of your comfort zone to turn you into a hero of faith.
The second reason the LORD calls you out of your comfort zone is to bless others. Take another look at what the LORD says to Abram in the end of verse two and verse three. The LORD said to Abram, “2… you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Through Abram all peoples on earth have been blessed. Abram’s family became a tribe known as the Jewish people. That tribe became the nation of Israel. It was to the nation of Israel that the LORD gave the responsibility of carrying the ancient promise of a savior from sin. From the house and line of Israel’s king the Savior of the world was born. Though this Savior was the very Son of God in heaven, the blood of Abram flood through His veins. Though that blood was innocent of all sin, it was that blood that pooled at the foot of a criminal’s cross. Though there was not and is not a man, woman, or child on the face of the earth that deserved it, that blood has washed away your sins and allows you to now stand before God as His holy and innocent child and receive the blessings of forgiveness and salvation.
Through Abram God has blessed you. Through you God intends to bless others. There is a vast sea of humanity out there that knows very little about the Savior Whose blood was shed to wash away their sins. I wish I could tell you to sit back and wait till they happen to enter your comfort zone, but the reality is they probably never will. Which means you will have to go to them. You will have to leave your comfort zone, have an awkward and uncomfortable conversation about sin and damnation, and expose yourself to ridicule as you tell them about Jesus. There is no sugar coating it. It is going to be uncomfortable. To make your discomfort bearable, maybe try to focus on how grateful you are that Abram left his comfort zone so that through him God could bless you. Recall how grateful you are for the blessings of forgiveness and salvation and consider the possibility that the people you are having that uncomfortable conversation with might be grateful to have the blessings of forgiveness and salvation shared with them. Remember that through you God wishes to bless others.
What is the farthest you have ever been pushed outside your comfort zone? Today I encourage you to travel farther outside your comfort zone than you ever have. Maybe don’t leap straight to asking a stranger on a park bench if they consider themselves to be a good person. Maybe start by just going a little outside your comfort zone. Maybe text, or call, or knock on your neighbor’s door and ask them if they will come with you to a bible class your pastor is teaching about the basics of Christianity. If they accept your invitation give me a call and I will quickly start up another class and maybe I’ll text, or call, or knock on my neighbor’s door too. May God give us all the courage to leave our comfort zones, knowing the LORD will bless us and the LORD will use us to bless others. Amen.
[1] 1 Corinthians 1:26