“Chosen People”
(Genesis 12:1-9)
Corinth Reformed Church
150 Sixteenth Avenue NW
Hickory, North Carolina 28601
Robert M. Thompson, Pastor
July 12, 2009
(© 2009 by Robert M. Thompson. Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible,
New International Version, Copyright 1978 by New York International Bible Society.)
There are three principles of the Christian faith – humility, humility, and humility.
A boy named Jean
Everybody’s life is a story. Today I’d like us to think about three stories – a boy named Jean, a man named Abram, and you.
Jean was the second of seven children born to his father by two different wives. The first wife bore five of the children, all sons, before she died when Jean was six years old. His father remarried and the second wife bore him two daughters.
A second child often feels he’s not good enough. Whatever he does, there’s always someone ahead of him – smarter, stronger, faster. He’s always trying to catch up. The older brother was stubborn and cantankerous, and one can only imagine he often put Jean in his place when they were growing up.
Whether it was his birth order or his mother’s death at a tender age, something caused Jean to grow up with a low self-image. His low self-confidence gave him a sense of shame all his life, especially when his temper flared. He was better at expressing himself in writing than in person, and when he was angry he could be hostile.
It didn’t help that the church in which he was reared tried to control people through guilt and fear. They explicitly taught that if you weren’t a member of their church, conforming to all their rites and rules, you would go to hell.
Jean’s father, Gerard, was a lawyer, and he was kicked out of the church. He had displeased his pastors because he didn’t handle two estates in a way that benefited the church. Later Charles, Jean’s older brother, was also kicked out of the church. He had become a pastor in the church, but as I said, he was a belligerent fellow. So he was excommunicated for insulting one fellow pastor and fighting with another.
Jean was brilliant and hard-working. He went to college at age 14, not that unusual for a middle class kid in his time (kind of like going off to prep school), but he stood out among his peers. He got up in the morning before the other teenagers, and stayed up after they had gone to bed. Not to party, though – to read and study. He often skipped meals. He didn’t just read what was on the assigned list. He secretly read banned books in his thirst for knowledge. His lack of self-care ruined his health later in life, and he died at age 55.
Jean also lived with fear much of his life. He was afraid of God, but he was also afraid of people, and for good reason. When he was about 25 years old, the same church that had earlier tortured his soul with guilt and excommunicated his father and older brother went after Jean with an intent to kill him. He would write thirty years later, “I was so afraid that I wanted to die to be rid of those fears.”
So he had to leave the land of his birth. Maybe this would be a good time to tell you that land was France. And maybe I should pronounce “Jean” correctly – or call him by the English version of his name, “John.” The reason his story is important is because this past Friday, July 10, was the 500th birthday of his birth. His last name was Calvin.
John Calvin is among history’s most debated figures. But he’s not just a dead guy who lived five centuries ago and continues to have influence around the world. He is a story. A story of a human being with pain and struggle and a search for God.
The boy named Jean grew up without his mother. His father died when he was a young man. He was a second child always trying to catch up. He struggled with low self-confidence, shame, guilt, and fear.
Herman Seldenhuis’ biography of John Calvin, published just this year, is titled, John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life. A pilgrim is a person on a journey. He’s a traveler, often by no choice of his own. John Calvin became a refugee at age 25, and spent much of his life reaching out to and comforting other refugees.
Along the way, he found the peace that his heart craved. He learned to release his guilt to the grace of God. He overcame his bad self-image with the realization that he was chosen by God. And he arrived at the conclusion that his life as a pilgrim, as a refugee, was also God’s choice. That was what gave him peace.
He wasn’t in charge of his own life, his pilgrimage. Someone Else was running things in the world. He often felt that he was called by God to do that which he wouldn’t choose for himself. But that was OK with him. He thought Christians should be humble enough to say, “I’m messed up, broken, far from God. But God chose me anyway to be part of his family. My life is his to do with what he wants.”
Does Calvin still matter today? If you’re in a Reformed church, he does – or Presbyterian or Baptist or Congregational or Episcopal, for that matter. He profoundly influenced a very large proportion of Christians around the world. He also paved the way for the American system of government. Our forebears were overwhelmingly from Calvinist traditions. So it’s all about dry, dead history, right?
Not exactly. The New York Times earlier this year included The New Calvinism in a list of 10 ideas changing the world today. If you listen to speakers like Louie Giglio or John Piper, or listen to music like Chris Tomlin’s “Indescribable” or The David Crowder Band’s “Wholly Yours,” you are tapping into the legacy of John Calvin.
A man named Abram
John Calvin saw his own story mirrored in the story of a man named Abram. He left the land of his birth and his family not knowing where he would land, or what would happen. He left comfort and familiarity for an unknown adventure. He left for one reason alone – an unwavering belief that God had called him.
Like John Calvin, Abram was born in a place and time far from here. We have to go back 4,000 years – as far on the other side of Christ as we are on this side. Abram’s father, Terah, had three sons – Abram, Haran and Nahor.
Abram’s birthplace was a city named Ur. Weird. We only use that syllable when we stutter. The city lay near the northern end of the Persian Gulf, now in southeastern Iraq. That part of the world offers spectacular views of the Milky Way galaxy with its innumerable flickers of light, and of the bright white midnight god of the night sky – the moon.
I say “god” because that’s what the Ur-ians believed about the moon. They worshiped the moon as their protector and provider. There’s no way that big ball in the night-time sky is there by accident, they surmised. It’s there to watch over us.
Their culture had little concept of a universal God who created and sustains all things. Each city, each locality identified its own god, creating its own forms of worship to appease that god and to find direction and blessing from that god. Gods were kind of like “sponsors” for an individual, a family, or a community. They were good luck charms. Terah and his family apparently joined the other Ur-ians in worshiping the moon (see Joshua 24:2). We might call them “Moonies” or “people who engage in mooning.”
While he was still in Ur (note “had said” in Genesis 12:1, cp. Acts 7:2-4), God spoke to Abram and said, “Leave Ur. Leave your family. Leave your Moon-god.” Talk about abandoning your comfort zone. Abram was asked to leave everything familiar to him, and everything that brought him a sense of security. God was moving him to Canaan.
Surprisingly, Abram’s father Terah wanted to go along. By this time, Abram’s brother, Haran, had died, having left an orphan son named Lot. Abram’s brother, Nahor, and his wife decided to stay put with the Moonies. So the key players in the caravan were Abram, his wife Sarai, his father Terah, and his nephew, Lot. Servants and their families, perhaps other relatives, and livestock accompanied them.
They traveled up the Euphrates River intending to take the long curve around the fertile crescent and wind up in Canaan. (It would have been unwise and unsafe to go across the desert). But they didn’t make it the whole way. The group settled in a place called Haran. Maybe they liked it because it had the same name as Terah’s deceased son. More likely, they settled there because the people of Haran also worshiped the moon. Familiarity. Comfort level. Security. Who knows what Abram was thinking? I’m guessing he was appeasing his 200-year-old father. Terah had agreed to move with Abram, but maybe this was as far as he would go. And Abram figured he would continue on when the old man died.
Which he did. Abram followed through. God had not only given instructions; he had given promises. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you…You will be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth” (Gen. 12:2-3). You will father my chosen people. It will be later when Abram increasingly realizes Yahweh is not only his personal sponsor – he is God Almighty (17:1), the Judge of all the earth (18:25).
When Abram arrives in Canaan, he walks through the land from north to south. He arrives at “the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem” (v. 6). Shechem was a trade route, centrally located, and probably well-populated with Canaanites – who had their own gods. But there Yahweh appears to Abram and promises, “To your offspring I will give this land.”
So he builds an altar to Yahweh – his sponsor – right there in front of the Canaanites. It’s like planting a flag on enemy territory. He continues on south through the land. He is believing God that his descendants will be God’s chosen people – even though he is 75 years old and doesn’t yet have any children.
This is just the beginning – the beginning of Abram’s story and the beginning of the Bible’s story. It is the beginning of the story of the world the way you and I know it. There’s more to come. But what’s important about Abram at this point is this sense that God is doing something in and through Abram that (a) has nothing to do with his worthiness, and (b) is bigger than he can possibly understand.
You
I want to connect the dots between the story of a boy named Jean, the story of a man named Abram, and the story of you.
What is the story of you? Where were you born? How did you get from there to here? What have been some of the major turning points? Do you struggle with low self-esteem or fear or anger or uncertainty? Where have you sensed the presence and help of God? Where has God seemed distant? How far along in your story are you? Is it just starting out, or are you getting close to the end? Are you at a fork in the road? Are you being called to step out in faith, not knowing what comes next? Do you feel like a pilgrim sometimes? What is your story, and how does it connect to Calvin and Abraham?
John Calvin has left a lot for us to consider and even debate. From his own time until now, there have always been people who loved him and those who loathed him. Probably for good reason on both counts. I’m somewhere in the middle. We definitely need to learn from him. That’s my quest across the next few weeks.
Calvin is probably best-known (unfairly, I might add) for the doctrine of predestination. It means that God determined in advance your eternal destiny – and everything else about your life. If you don’t like that teaching, don’t argue with Calvin. Argue with David (Psalm 139:16). Argue with Jesus (John 15:16). Argue with the Apostle Paul (Ephesians 1:4-5).
Or maybe do what I have learned to do. Stop arguing altogether. Don’t feel the need to defend or attack predestination.
Instead, learn some lessons that put your story into perspective. Here are three.
First, your life has meaning. It fulfills a destiny that exceeds your capacity to plan it or manipulate it. There are some days I feel in charge of what’s happening in my life. But not many.
There are certainly responsibilities I have to choose Christ, to follow Christ, to do the right thing. John Calvin would absolutely believe that, by the way. The way Calvin lived his life and taught others shows that he didn’t believe the doctrine of predestination makes us passive. We don’t sit around and wait for God to do his thing. We believe, we make choices, we fill our minds with Scripture, we live out the calling of the gospel.
But aren’t you aware, as I am, that a lot of what happens to you is beyond your control? Did you choose your parents? Your DNA? The environment that shaped you? Did you choose the amount of money you started out with – whether a lot or a little? Did you choose the injuries and illnesses you have faced? Or the disabilities you or your loved ones have (or don’t have)? Did you choose how long your loved ones would live or how they would die? How many people in this room are doing the job you expected to be doing, living in the house you expected to live in, and sharing a home with the people you expected to be sharing it with ten years ago?
A lot of life happens to you. We all know that, and our general response is something along the line of “Do the best you can with the opportunities you have.” John Calvin would want you to go way beyond that. He would want you to choose to believe that it’s not all happening because the Moon is watching over you or your lucky stars have lined up or you’re stuck in bad karma or “stuff just happens.”
Herman Seldenhuis writes,
Calvin found that the nation of an electing or decision-making God left people not only humble but also at peace….If, for example, terrible things happen to one in this life, one can learn that this world is passing away…If God does nothing randomly, there must always be something to learn….As Calvin sees it, something of lasting value must always come from everything that happens. (Herman Seldenhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life, p. 38)
Where we usually lose him – and God – is when we try to figure out what the meaning is for everything that happens. Nobody is suggesting we can understand why bad things happen to good people or good things to bad people or good things to good people or bad things to bad people.
Calvin wants his teaching on predestination and on God’s providence – that God is control of the world – to give you a deep sense of confidence in God, and a sense that your life has meaning.
Second, life is a maze. One of Calvin’s favorite images of life is the labyrinth. Calvin believed that we as human beings are prone to lose our way to a proper understanding of God and of self.
But he also believed that God has given us a guide through the maze – Adriadne’s thread, if you’re into Greek mythology. There is a string through the labyrinth that guides us where to go next. It’s the Bible. Calvin wanted to be known more for pointing people to the Bible than for any doctrine, including predestination.
I’m fascinating by the metaphor of life as a maze. Calvin himself never knew what was around the next corner. Neither did Abram. Take the next step and trust God.
Here is what Calvin wrote in his commentary on Genesis about Abram in Genesis 12 –
It is as if God said, “I command you to go out with your eyes closed. You are not allowed to ask where I am about to lead you until, having renounced your country, you have given yourself wholly to me.” It is true proof of our obedience when we are not wise in our own eyes but commit ourselves entirely to the Lord. Whenever, therefore, he requires anything of us, we must not be so concerned with success as to allow fear and anxiety to hinder our course. (Genesis [Crossway], John Calvin, 110)
Life is a maze, but God has not left you without a guide.
Finally, be humble. Calvin quoted St. Augustine, who said that there are three rules for a public speaker – (1) delivery, (2) delivery, and (3) delivery. Sort of like the three rules for real estate – location, location, location.
Calvin responded by saying there are three basic principles for the Christian faith – humility, humility, and humility.
Unfortunately, neither Calvin nor his followers consistently lived out that humility. I’ve often wondered why people who say they follow Calvin’s teaching can be among the most arrogant and adamant followers of Jesus. If God in really in charge, why do you need to be?
At least in principle, Calvin wants the teaching on predestination to remind us that as we are not in charge of our own destiny, neither are we in charge of God’s world. We can take our hands off the wheel of our lives and from around the necks of those we are trying to control and manipulate and transform. We can rest in God. He’s the one who chooses and changes his people. Amen.