Genesis 12:1-3. 1Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Do you ever think that you would like to be famous? A famous singer or actor? A famous athlete? Or maybe you just want to be popular where you ae. In school. On the team. In your neighborhood.
In the Bible this desire to be famous or popular is called having a “great name.” Do you remember the Tower of Babel story? After the flood, the people decided to build a tower to Heaven. The Bible says that they wanted to “make a name for themselves.” That means that they wanted everyone in the world to know who they are. People still do this today, don’t they? They build giant buildings and put their name on it in big letters.
But that’s not the worst part. The people building the Tower of Babel used slaves to build it. They were mean and hurt others in order to make their own name famous. God hated this so much that he came down from Heaven and mixed up everyone’s language so that they had to stop their building. Now the people of the world would spread out across the Earth like God had told them to in the first place.
But God hasn’t given up on saving people from our sin. And that’s where Abraham comes in. God will call Abraham to go to the Promised Land in order to become a nation that worships God. Look at our scripture again. God not only calls on Abraham to move to the Promised Land, but he makes promises to Abraham. What are the promises God makes to Abraham?
One of the promises God makes to Abraham is that his name will be great. But wait, isn’t that sort of risky? The tower builders in Babel wanted to have a great name too, and they became terrible people. They stopped worshiping God and started hurting people. How do we know that Abraham won’t do the same things when he becomes famous?
There’s a big difference between the people of Babel and Abraham, grace. The people of Babel tried to make themselves great by their own works. But Abraham will be made great by the grace of God. God will do it for Abraham. That’s what grace is – God doing it for us. Abraham will simply need to trust God. And that won’t be easy. In fact, it will be so hard sometimes that Abraham will really mess up, just like we all do. But God won’t ever give up on Abraham. God will keep all of his promises. Abraham will become a great nation with a great name – Israel.
And Abraham will be a picture for us of what it means to be made great by God. Just like Abraham we are part of a great nation with a great name – Christian. God doesn’t make us famous, he makes Jesus Christ famous, and we get to have his same name when we trust in him.
Are you a Christian? If you are, then you have the greatest name ever. With Jesus, we don’t have to try to make ourselves famous, instead we can make Jesus famous. We can tell people about how great he is; not how great we are. He is the greatest ever! Our king and our savior.
You: Who will you make famous today? Yourself or Jesus?
You with Jesus: How does Jesus living inside of us, changing us, make his name even more famous?
Prayer: Father, you have given Jesus the greatest name ever! Now we share his name too. Help me to make the name of Jesus great, not my own name. Amen.
TLICfamily 