For His Name's Sake

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Numbers 14:13–16 (NIV) Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, LORD, are with these people and that you, LORD, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’” CONSIDER Let’s begin by remembering the last thing God said to Moses in yesterday’s text: “I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they” (v. 12). Moses does a fascinating thing here—and in quite subversively, lawyerly manner. He doesn’t defend the people. He appeals to the honorable reputation of the Judge. “If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’” Moses’s client (a.k.a. the people of Israel) have given him no leg to stand on. They are guilty as charged. He is not appealing for mercy or even one more chance—just yet. He is not throwing himself on the mercy of the court. No, Moses is appealing to the glorious reputation of God. Let me take what will seem like a left turn here. In the mornings, on the way to school over the years, I tried to claim the time to rehearse key texts of Scripture with my children. I cherish especially the last year of driving the last child to school—Sam. For his eighth-grade year, we rehearsed Psalm 23 every single morning—okay, most of them. For his ninth-grade year, we did Psalm 24. In those last months before he turned sixteen and started driving himself to school we worked on Matthew 5:1–10 (the Beatitudes). I will say one verse, and he will say the next and so on. My favorite text, though, to revisit now that Sam is 19 is Psalm 23. We do it whenever we talk on the phone and through text messaging and of course when we are together. Back then and to this day, Sam makes an error, almost habitually, (and now I think perhaps intentionally) every single time we do Psalm 23. Here’s how it goes: Dad: The Lord is my Shepherd . . . Sam: I shall not want . . . Dad: He makes me lie down in green pastures . . . Sam: For his name’s sake . . . Dad: He leads me beside still waters . . . Sam: For his name’s sake . . . Dad: He leads me in paths of righteousness . . . Sam: For his name’s sake . . . “Finally!” Most days I would pause and say, “For his name’s sake” comes after “he leads me in paths of righteousness, Sam!” And yesterday, it finally hit me. Sam is exactly right. “For his name’s sake” comes after everything he does! Thank you, Sam! This is what Moses was getting at in today’s text: “If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’” For his name’s sake! Anything and everything God does is done for his name’s sake. And here’s the amazing grace part: when his name is exalted, it is simultaneously and irrevocably for his glory, for our gain, and for others’ good. So, yes, Lord. Hallowed be your name! For your name’s sake! All the time! PRAY Our Father, for your name’s sake we live and move and have our being. Make it more so today than it was yesterday. Lord Jesus, yours is the name that is above every name. Mountains bow down and the sea will roar at the sound of your name! Thank you for naming us “Christian,” a name after your own name. Come, Holy Spirit, and write the name of love and holiness on our hearts, that our lives would be lived for your name’s sake. Yes, Lord, this is my aspiration and ambition. In Jesus’s name, amen.