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.