A man of faith - and failure

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go 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... and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram left... Genesis 12:1-4

I wonder exactly how Abram heard these momentous words spoken to him by God? Did he receive an angelic messenger? Was it an irresistible inner voice? Or perhaps an audible voice from some unseen visitor?

We aren’t told. But what we know is that they were words which transformed not only his own life, but the very course of human history.

What has been going on? In essence, God is looking in sadness on the ruin of the beautiful world he has made. The first human pair has fallen into sin. The first murder has been committed. Male/female relationships have become twisted. Corruption has set in - so much so that God has seen fit to “de-create” the world by means of the flood. A new, clean start is needed.

But things get no better. The building of the tower of Babel, a monument to human arrogance and self-glory, sets in train hundreds of years of decline.

So what is God to do? Wash his hands of the whole human project? That would seem reasonable. But he has, if I can put it this way, a problem: he loves the world he has made, and the people he has put on it. How then can he destroy everything?

So he decides on a rescue mission for planet earth... He will bring into being a nation of people who will be, so to speak, his representatives on earth. He will make known to them something of his character. He will give them laws to live by. They will be “a light to lighten the nations”. They will be, in effect, the light of the world.

But how can even God bring such a people into being without a founding father? He has to find someone to fill this role. 

Step forward... Abram.

And so the long and bumpy journey begins which leads ultimately to Jesus, the supreme light of the world; to Acts 2 and the day of Pentecost, when representatives of the various nations hear God’s good news in their own languages; and to Revelation 7, where we find “a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the lamb...”

There is so much that could be said about Abram. I’ll stick to just two things.

First, God didn’t choose him because he was particularly good. He wasn’t. Go to the second half of Genesis 12 and you find him involved in a grubby, squalid little scheme to save his own skin, even at the expense of his wife Sarai’s honour. The faith that caused him to leave Haran and set off into the unknown has shrivelled and withered away. 

Read further in Genesis and you find that his descendants could be not much better - especially the sneaky, cheating Jacob, the man whose name is actually changed to “Israel”. Oh yes, later we do find further displays of faith and obedience; but the overall picture is really pretty mixed.

So? If nothing else this reminds us that all human beings are sinful, and that God’s blessing and salvation really do arise from his grace alone. If God is going to work through human beings, then he has to work with some pretty rough material - think Moses the murderer, David the adulterer, Elijah the quitter, Simon Peter the denier.

But doesn’t this also mean that there is hope for you and me? We, no doubt, have plenty in our lives that we feel ashamed of; but God loves us, and wants to change us and use us. No excuses for bad behaviour, of course. But if we come to God humbly, just as we are, there is no limit to what he might do with us. Let’s get that great truth into our heads!

Second, God didn’t choose Abram only in order to bless him, but, much more, to make him a blessing to others. Sadly, this is what his descendants over the next two thousand years so often forgot - and this is what broke Jesus’ heart. And this is why we - all who claim to love and trust Christ - have inherited that role of “light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). 

Which all leads to a searching question: when we pray, are we more likely to pray “Lord, bless me” or to pray “Lord, make me a blessing”? There’s a massive difference! It’s not wrong to ask God’s blessing on ourselves, not at all; but it should come well down our list of priorities. 

And let’s never forget- it’s in blessing others that we find our own truest blessing. Yes, really!

Lord God, thank you that you choose to work through deeply flawed human material. That description fits me - so use me, Lord, use even me, just as you will, and when, and where. Amen.