For the Sake of My Name

Passage: Ezekiel 20:1-20

The prophet Ezekiel has a job no one wants. It’s his job to explain to his people – the people of God – exactly why their life has unraveled. The cause, it turns out, is their serial unfaithfulness to God himself. Through Ezekiel, God reminds his people that he’s given them one second chance after another, after another. They have disregarded his overtures of love and forgiveness; they have disregarded his warnings; and now they will face the consequences of repeatedly choosing their way over God’s.

What most outrages God is the fact that all of his instructions and all of his interventions have been for his people’s benefit. God should have abandoned his people long ago – right after the first time they rejected God in favor of the idols and indulgences of their pagan neighbors. Again and again God has shown them grace, and offered another chance to get it right. Why has God – often labeled a harsh judge – shown so much leniency?

Because as much as God cares about his chosen people, he has a purpose in mind for them that is greater than their comfort and their care. In fact God’s purpose in choosing Israel was to reveal himself, through their life as a nation, to the rest of the world. God refuses to let his people fall at the hands of other nations because those nations must see that, however flawed and weak the Israelites, their God is beyond compare.

God tells Ezekiel:

…the people of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not follow my decrees but rejected my laws—by which the person who obeys them will live—and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and destroy them in the wilderness. But for the sake of my name I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out. 

God’s work through the Israelites can only benefit them. Even God’s Law – which seems like an exacting imposition on them – is intended to shape their life for optimal flourishing. But regardless of their rejection of God and his way, God accomplishes his purposes through the Israelites. The Israelites are exiled to Babylon as a consequence for their unfaithfulness. Yet during this time God uses Israelites to reveals himself to the kings of the pagan Empire – through Daniel; Esther; Nehemiah and many others. God does preserve a remnant of his people. And centuries later, true to God’s promise, the Savior of all humanity is born to them.

God perpetually works on behalf of his chosen people. But more importantly, God perpetually works on behalf of all people. So that even when we as God’s people reject God’s overtures of love and his intervention on our behalf, God has his way. He continues to claim us by the blood of Jesus Christ. And he continues to show his grace and glory to an unbelieving world. Make no mistake. Everything God does is, first and foremost, for the sake of his name. When we appeal to God’s grace, we do so with an eye for God’s glory. When we ask God to bless us in specific ways, we remember that God always answers our prayers in a way that points to him. May we who belong to God be, like God, committed first to the glory of his name.  

Why Obey?

In The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard argues that Christianity ceases to have an impact on the world when Christians cease to be obedient to Jesus. Contemporary Christians balk at obedience to Jesus for two major reasons. The first is that Jesus commands us to do things that go against our nature and put us at odds with the world around us. Obeying Jesus is costly and painful. The second is that, having been indoctrinated into the concept of “salvation by grace alone”, we mistakenly believe that Christians have been set free from any behavioral standard. Jesus teaches clearly that reconciliation with God and eternal life come to us through Jesus’ action on our behalf, and can never be secured by our good behavior. And yet Jesus teaches repeatedly that if you have been ushered into his new life, your life will look radically different. Your new life in Christ comes to expression in clearly defined, costly, countercultural action.

The difference lies, however, in our motivation. A person who is simply religious believes that good behavior is the way to secure a good life now, and a decent life after death. In other words, the motivation for religious behavior is self-interest and self-preservation. And the point at which the religious behavior stops serving the cause of self-interest becomes the moment at which it is abandoned.

Listen to what Jesus says about obedience to him:

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”     (John 14:23-24)

What’s our motivation? Love. Because I love Jesus, I will do what he requires, no matter the cost. If you struggle to do what Jesus teaches – or even struggle with the idea of doing what Jesus teaches – you don’t yet know Jesus. You’re still treating Jesus as an object. As a means to an end. But if you know Jesus; if you know his gentleness, his compassion, his grace that come to us through his poured-out life, then you love him. You see his commands as an expression of his perfect love. Not as an imposition on your life; but as the framework, the foundation, the essence of the new life Jesus gives.   

Sin, Death, and Resurrection Life

In The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus introduces a whole new way of life. But the starting point of this new way of life is not the adoption of a new set of rules, morals or guiding principles. The starting point is that Jesus has ushered in a new reality. Jesus’ teaching is punctuated with references to “the Kingdom of God” and “the Kingdom of Heaven”. Both terms refer to the same thing: the intrusion of God’s presence and God’s restorative power into human space. Jesus’ physical presence on earth initiates a process of world transformation whereby the old rules of death and decay have been replaced with renewal, reconciliation, and resurrection. So when Jesus says, “This is how you must live,” he does not mean, “If you do the right things you will bring heaven to earth.”  He means, “Heaven has come. This is what it looks like to live at the intersection of Heaven and earth.”   

Jesus begins to illustrate this new reality when he turns water into wine, heals the sick and disabled, feeds thousands, and walks on water. “See?” he says, “The old rules no longer apply.”  But Jesus’ words don’t fully make sense until his ultimate sign: Jesus goes to the cross. Is buried, having incontrovertibly been killed. And Jesus rises from the dead. All of a sudden the world has a crystal clear image of the new life Jesus has been talking about.  Resurrection life. Life that death cannot touch.

One of the witnesses of the risen Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul, devotes a chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 to talk specifically about the resurrection of Jesus.  He concludes the chapter with these words:

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 5:54-57)

What is the connection between sin, death, the law, and Christ’s victory? It’s this:

The inevitability of death has shaped human life for most of our history. In reaction to death, our every instinct is survival – the preservation of our own flesh.  But almost every action made in response to the fear of death puts us at odds with each other and with God. In other words, actions made primarily for self-preservation are almost always sinful.  You can act out of nothing but self-interest until you are unconcerned for your own life. The only way you can be chronically unconcerned for your own life is if you are convinced that you won’t die. Nothing in this world can convince you won’t die except the introduction of a person whose life is untouched by death.  Enter Jesus.

Paul says it is only the victory of Jesus over death that sets us free to live without self-interest and therefore without sin.  Prior to Jesus’ victory over death, overcoming personal sin was seen as the only way to gain salvation.  But that pursuit was impossible.  God’s law, which once and for all made clear what is and isn’t sin, proved to be too high a standard for any human to meet unassisted.  The law served the cause of sin, that is, to force people to be preoccupied with their own survival and self-interest. 

And yet, through Christ, two things become possible.  The first is a life that isn’t ruled by self-interest and personal survival.  The second is true observance of God’s law, summarized in two simple commands: love God with your whole being; and love other people as yourself. Love is nothing if not the willingness to set aside your needs for the needs of someone else. You and I can love with abandon because someone has already set down his life to secure everything we need for body and soul, in life and in death. This is the power of Jesus’ resurrection, his victory over death.