February 18, 2007

Abraham : Living by Grace

Hebrews 11:8-12

            Abraham’s experience with God began when the Lord appeared to him and said, “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. . . all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-3).  This is purely an act of grace on the part of God, for Abraham has done nothing to deserve the blessing of God.  As far as anyone could tell, there was nothing special about Abraham.  He was an ordinary person.  He and his relatives most likely worshiped idols at this point.  And this is long before Moses has gone to the Mount Sinai to receive the ten commandments.  There are no moral laws in place, and Abraham has not been circumcised, which was so important to the Jews of Jesus’ day.  Abraham was not a perfect person, as we shall see.  But when God appeared to him and told him to leave his home and his country, he believed the Lord and obeyed.  He does not have a clear understanding of who this God is, what he is like or what he expects of him, except that he has asked him to leave his homeland.  He was seventy-five when God asked for this dramatic change in his life.  It was difficult to leave his home, as well as all his family and friends, but he went.  It was an adventure which would change the world forever. 

            I see the first lesson from Abraham’s life as: God works through imperfect people.  The Lord said to him: “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”  God promised to bless him.  How wonderful to know that God had a special purpose for him and would be with him wherever he went!  But the very next verse of scripture says, “So Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.... He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran” (Genesis 12:4-5).  What did God tell him to do?  He told him to leave his extended family and he would give him directions as he went along.  But Abraham did not do what God told him to do.  He wanted the security of other people.  He wanted protection.  He wanted to have people around him whom he knew and understood.  So Abraham took Lot with him.  And the problems caused by Lot were many.  Tensions arose between the families and Lot moved away from Abraham and settled in Sodom — and you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

            But bringing Lot was not Abraham’s only mistake.  God told him that he would be with him and protect him, but twice, when Abraham entered unfamiliar territory, he told his wife to tell the people in those places that she was his sister.  He was afraid to tell them that she was his wife, because she was beautiful, and he feared that they would kill him in order to have her.  His fears were not unfounded, because this often happened back in that time.  It was the prerogative of kings and other powerful people.  But Abraham’s fears overruled his trust in God, and because of his deception, Sarah was taken into the palace of two different kings.  God had said to Abraham: “Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your very great reward” (Genesis 15:1).  But he did not listen to God, and he foolishly and selfishly placed his wife in danger trying to save his own hide.  God would never have approved of what he did, and neither would God have approved of Abraham endangering his plan for him and Sarah.  How could he become the father of a nation if his wife was no longer with him?  What if Sarah was returned to him, but was bearing another man’s child?  What an enormous mess he created. 

            But even Sarah became frustrated with God’s slowness to act.  Abraham told her of how God had him go out into the night, telling him that his offspring would be more numerous than the stars in the sky.  But nothing was happening, and it had been many years since God made that promise.  Finally, Sarah decided to take matters into her own hands.  She offered her maid to Abraham so that she could bear children for Sarah.  This was also a common practice in the culture of that day.  There was only one problem: it was not God’s plan.  They were trying to do God’s will, but they were doing it their way.  The resulting birth of Ishmael, the child of Sarah’s maid, caused enormous problems for Abraham — and continues to cause problems to this very day — for Ishmael is the father of the Arab nations who follow the Muslim faith.  If it were not for this huge mistake of Abraham, we would not be having the violence between these two sons of Abraham today: the Jews and Muslims.  Muslims say that they are the true sons of Abraham through Ishmael, and deserve to have the land promised to Abraham, since they are the descendants of Abraham’s oldest son.  The Jews, on the other hand, claim that they are the legitimate sons of Abraham and Sarah through Isaac, who was the son promised to them by God.  They believe that they therefore deserve to have the land promised to Abraham by God.  Abraham’s lack of faith continues to haunt us to this very day. 

            There are many other ways that Abraham failed but, suffice it to say, Abraham was a very imperfect human.  He was full of weaknesses.  He made lots of mistakes.  He was really foolish many times.  He was a failure in many respects.  But I am encouraged by this story, because it means that there might be hope for a failure like me.  Abraham was so human he seems like me.  If he had sailed through all these tests of his faith, it might have discouraged me and made me feel like I could never be a person who could follow God.  But because the Bible is faithful to the full story of Abraham, I know that he was a man like me, and that God can use me — imperfect as I am.  He struggled with trusting God and waiting on him in faith.  He messed up at times, and even threatened the fulfillment of God’s plan for his life.  Abraham’s life was a life lived by grace, and God powerfully used a very imperfect man. 

            It is important to understand what we mean by grace.  Grace is different from mercy.  Think of it this way.  Justice is getting what you deserve.  Mercy is when you don’t get what you deserve.  Grace is receiving something you do not deserve.  You deserved to pay a fine for speeding.  That’s justice.  But the judge does not give you the fine you deserve.  That’s mercy.  But if the judge not only pardoned you, but took you to his home for a steak dinner, that would be grace.  You received something you did not deserve.  Abraham, as each of us has, received something he did not deserve.  We live by grace. 

            The second lesson from Abraham’s life is: Having received grace, we give grace.  Abraham could have been bitter toward King Abimelech who had taken his wife.  He overpowered Abraham and took the woman he loved.  But God appeared to Abimelech and told him to let Sarah go.  But he also told Abraham to pray for Abimelech.  Then the Bible says, “Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech” (Genesis 20:17).  He could have prayed for God to kill Abimelech, but he extended the same grace toward the king that had been given to him by God. 

            Because we are imperfect people, we need grace extended to us.  Because others are imperfect people, we need to extend grace to them.  We stop expecting others to be perfect.  We put aside our little annoyances, grievances and peeves.  We love people in spite of their imperfections, and hope they will overlook ours as well.  The problem with us as human beings is that we want to receive grace, but we are not very good at extending grace to others.  It is said that General James Oglethorpe, the British army officer, once remarked to John Wesley, “I never forgive.”  At that, Wesley looked at him solemnly and said, “Then, sir, I hope you never sin.”  If we expect forgiveness, then God expects us to be forgiving. We share the grace that we have received with others.  Out of gratitude for being forgiven, we forgive those who have sinned against us. 

            To receive grace means that we have received forgiveness that we did not earn and blessings that we did not deserve.  The Bible says, “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.  He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7).  That is the grace we have received and the grace that makes us want to share it with others.  To give grace means that we overlook other people’s faults.  We forgive disappointments and hurts.  We stop keeping a list of things that the person did wrong.  The Bible says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).  And then, at the end of the prayer, he said, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15).  Living by grace must result in giving grace. 

            The third point from Abraham’s life is that: A life of grace will sometimes be difficult.  It surprises some people when doing God’s will becomes hard.  But then, Jesus found it hard.  Paul found it hard.  Jeremiah and the other prophets found God’s will hard.  Moses found it hard.  And certainly Abraham found doing God’s will hard, even though it was an experience of grace.  God graciously gives Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age.  The whole thing is so outrageously funny that they name the child “Laughter” — Isaac is the Hebrew word for laughter.  Just the thought of this very old couple having a child made everyone laugh, and no one more than Abraham and Sarah. 

            But God was about to test their trust in his grace.  He asked Abraham to do something that the worshipers of pagan gods often did — sacrifice his child on a fiery altar.  Abraham did not understand God’s request, but he was moved to obey God nonetheless.  He took his son, whom he had waited so long for; this son they loved so much; the son who made them laugh, and placed him on an altar.  It was a normal thing for people in that culture, but Abraham knew that the God who had visited him was not like the pagan gods.  He was confused by the request — and hurt.  This gracious God was asking him to do the unthinkable.  But just as Abraham was about plunge the knife into Isaac, God stopped him.  The angel of the Lord said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy.  Do not do anything to him.  Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son” (Genesis 22:12).  All along, Abraham had been saying to Isaac, “God will provide the sacrifice” (Genesis 22:8).  And suddenly, in the thicket there was a ram caught by its horns. 

            But this was not just about Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice his son to God.  This was a prophesy of what God would do in the future.  He would not withhold his Son from being sacrificed for the sins of the whole world.  The ram would not only take Isaac’s place as a sacrifice to God, but the perfect Lamb of God would take your place and mine.  God the Father’s love would not stop short of giving everything.  He would hold nothing back, to the point of giving his Son.  As the Bible says, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). 

            Many people find doing God’s will hard.  Rosa Parks found it hard when she was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man.  It is difficult to imagine such an arrest taking place today, just a little over 50 years later.  But that is because her simple act of faithfulness changed the landscape of America.  In her book Quiet Strength she writes: “When I sat down on the bus that day, I had no idea history was being made — I was only thinking of getting home.  But I had made up my mind.  After so many years of being a victim of the mistreatment my people suffered, not giving up my seat — and whatever I had to face afterwards — was not important.  I did not feel any fear sitting there.  I felt the Lord would give me the strength to endure whatever I had to face.  It was time for someone to stand up — or in my case, sit down.  So I refused to move.”  Even when God’s will is for you to sit down, it can be very difficult.  God is good to us, and his grace is abundant, but walking in that grace can be hard indeed. 

            It was also hard for a man who had seen the worst of the British slave trade.  John Newton had been the captain of a slave ship.  But he experienced God’s amazing grace and became a Presbyterian pastor for more than twenty-five years.  He also wrote several hymns — among them was the hymn “Amazing Grace.”  His burning passion became to find a way to abolish the evil that he once propagated.  His outspoken views won some converts.  And there was none more important than a twenty-seven-year-old member of Parliament named William Wilberforce.  He wrote a letter to Newton in 1785 requesting a secret meeting.  He was under a lot of strain.  He told Newton that he had heard him preach when he was just a boy, but he “was afraid to surrender to Christ for fear of what others might say.”  He went on: “Now I have come to a crisis of my soul.  I am afraid of turning my back on Christ.  But I also fear losing face and prestige.  If my constituents were to hear that I embraced … religion, my career would be over.”  Then he added, “But maybe that would not be so bad.”  He told of giving his life to Christ, but he said, “When I returned to London that enthusiasm cooled and I eventually got into politics.  Still, as I read the Bible and Christian books, I am convinced that I must act on what I have read.  I’ve come to see you about this before I go out of my mind.” 

            Wilberforce talked of getting out of politics and going into the ministry.  But John Newton advised against it.  He said, “If God can use an ex-slave trader for his work, imagine what He can do through a gifted member of Parliament.  There’s nothing in the Bible that says you cannot be both a Christian and a statesman.  True, these two seldom are found in one person, but it happens.”  Wilberforce accepted the challenge and went public with his newfound faith — facing the ridicule of his peers.  He turned his considerable energy toward abolishing the slave trade which had become a blight on the soul of the British Empire.

            In 1788, after a stirring three-and-a-half hour oratory on the subject, Wilberforce made his first motion to abolish the slave trade.  It was defeated.  Every single year, for the next seventeen years, he would make the motion to abolish slavery and his motion would be defeated.  Then in 1806, after eighteen years of hard work, Wilberforce finally saw the fruits of his labor, and the slave trade was abolished in Britain.  Eventually, just four days before his death in 1833, Parliament passed a vote to abolish slavery in all the British territories.  Wilberforce had experienced God’s grace, and he was determined to pass it along to others, even when it proved exceedingly difficult. 

            We join the chorus of those who have gone before us: Abraham, Rosa Parks, John Newton and William Wilberforce, and we sing:

Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
was blind, but now I see.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
‘tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.

 The Lord has promised good to me,
his word my hope secures;
he will my shield and portion be,
as long as life endures.

Rodney J. Buchanan

February 18, 2007

Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org