01 Nov 2007

A Blessing to the Nations

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Bishop Hwa Yung

This is a slightly modified version of the sermon preached at the Combined Sunday Service of the Methodist Prayer Convention on 2 September 2007.

In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I welcome all of you to this ‘Thanksgiving and Celebration of the Methodist Church.’ The theme of this morning’s message is ‘A Blessing to the Nations.’ It is based on God’s call of Abraham in Gen 12, a passage which has great relevance to us today living in Malaysia.

The Call of Abraham (Gen 12:1-3)

God’s call to Abraham began with, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.’ (12:1) Abraham had moved with his family from Ur to Haran. It was in Haran that God called him to leave his home and his people, to go to an unknown land.
 
For those of us who are not bumiputras, there is a direct relevance here. Our forefathers left behind their home countries and came to an unknown land. But whether we are bumiputras or not, there is a more general application that applies to all of us. We are called to follow God into a future which none of us can foretell. We are called to leave behind our comfort zones, what gives us a sense of security, to follow God!

Then in vv. 2 & 3, God promises to bless Abraham and his family, even as they follow Him into an unknown future. ‘I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ Here God promised to bless all the peoples of the earth through Abraham. The word used for nation in v.2 is goy, and that used for family in v.3 is mispaha. These words are not exact and often used interchangeably. They represent groups distinguished by race and language. Different translations actually use different words.
 
The main point that is made here is that, through Abraham and his descendents, all the peoples and nations of different racial and language groups will be blessed. In fact, the whole world will be blessed through Abraham! This promise is repeated or referred to repeatedly in the Bible: Gen 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14; Ps 72:17; Acts 3:25b; and Gal 3:8.

The NT shows how God’s promise to Abraham was ultimately fulfilled in Christ. In Acts 3:25b & 26, Peter argues that God will bless the peoples of the world through Christ, the descendent of Abraham. Through him salvation will come to all the peoples of the world. This understanding of the Bible is correct. But what we also need to note is that this was not the only way in which God’s promise to Abraham was fulfilled.
 
The promise was fulfilled in part in the book of Genesis itself. This is what I would like to concentrate on in this sermon.

Abraham and His Descendents: A Blessing to the Nations in Their Time

When we read Genesis, there are so many interesting stories there that we fail to see one of the main points that God is trying to teach us. Genesis showed clearly how Abraham and his descendents became a blessing to the peoples and nations around them. We see this again and again in the stories about Abraham and his descendents.

To begin with, this was true of Abraham. In Gen 13, we find Abraham and his nephew, Lot, settling in Canaan. But because both were rich and had plenty of animals they decided that it was better to live apart from each other so that there will be enough water and pasture for the flocks. The important thing to note is that Abraham did not squabble with his nephew, and in fact gave him the right to choose. Unlike many in the world, he was not kiasu! Lot chose the plains where there was plenty of water and pasture. Abraham stuck to the hill country which was rugged and unattractive. But one result was that Lot got badly corrupted morally because he lived near Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, because he lived away from these sinful places, was actually protected spiritually!

The next thing we read in Gen 14 is that Lot, together with the five kings amongst whom he lived, was captured by their enemies. Abraham, at the risk of his own life, went after the attackers and defeated them. He rescued Lot’s friends and the five kings, and got all their possessions back as well. God had begun to use Abraham to be a blessing to the nations!

Further, when the five kings offered to give Abraham all the booty that he had recovered, Abraham’s answer was classic! ‘I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a shred or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, “I made Abram rich.”’ (14:22f.) And sure enough! What we find is that Abraham was richly blessed as God promised. (See e.g. Gen 24:35.) To sum up, even as Abraham obeyed God, God’s promises to bless him and to bless others through him had begun to be fulfilled!

Next comes the story of Abraham’s son, Isaac. Gen 26 tells us of the encounter between Isaac and Abimelech, the king of the Philistines. In v.16 we read that Isaac had grown wealthy and Abimelech was threatened by him. So he asked Isaac to go away! ‘Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.’ Isaac chose the way of peace. He moved away! He gave them space. Then in vv.19-22 Isaac’s people dug some wells. But the local people wanted those wells also. Again, Isaac would not squabble and moved away instead. Note that by moving away and yielding the water-holes and wells to others, once again he blessed Abimelech and his people, this time with space and water!
 
But the interesting thing is that in 26:26-31, after chasing Isaac away, Abimelech one day suddenly turns up at Isaac’s door. Isaac asked: ‘Why have you come?’ Abimelech’s answer is illuminating: ‘We saw clearly that the Lord was with you; so we said, “There ought to be a sworn agreement between us”—between us and you …so that you will do us no harm, just as we did not molest you but always treated you well and sent you away in peace. And now you are blessed by the Lord.’ (26:28 & 29.) The point is that even though Isaac was not welcomed by Abimelech, nevertheless they could see that God was with Isaac. And Abimelech could see that if they live at peace with Isaac, he and his people will be blessed as well! But there is much more to come.
 
We come now to Abraham’s grandson, Jacob. Now Jacob in his younger days was a rascal and a cheat. If there was anyone who did not deserve God’s blessings, it was Jacob. Yet, God would still bless him and use him as a blessing! Thus, in spite of all the wrong that he did, when he finally left Laban, he returned to Canaan with much wealth and a big family—both signs of God’s blessings in ancient culture.

But the most important thing for our purpose is found in Gen 30:26-27. Jacob had served his uncle for 14 years. He was pretty fed up with this man who had cheated and exploited him repeatedly. So he asked Laban to let him return home. But Laban’s reply in v.27 is most instructive. ‘I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you!’ What an amazing statement. ‘Divination’ is the practice of going to look for mediums and ‘bomohs’ to communicate with demonic spirits. What Laban essentially said was that the devil told him that God was blessing him because of Jacob!
 
But it is in the story of Joseph that we find the most powerful fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis. The story is well-known to all our Sunday School children. The eleventh of twelve brothers, Joseph was cruelly sold as a slave in Egypt. But even as a slave, he was a blessing to his master, Potiphar, who had made him in charge of everything. ‘From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.’ (Gen 39:5&6.) Yet, as the story goes, one injustice followed upon another. He refused to commit adultery with Potiphar’s wife despite her repeated advances, and she spitefully accused him falsely to get back at him. He was thrown into jail. But even there he was a blessing. ‘The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.’ (39:23.)

Then comes the story of Pharoah’s cupbearer. Joseph correctly interpreted his dream and the cupbearer was restored to his post. But the cupbearer forgot about Joseph—and he languished in the prison for another two long years! He could have become bitter but he did not. He waited for God’s timing! Finally God intervenes. Joseph is made the equivalent of the Minister of Agriculture or, more probably, what the Egyptians in those days officially called the ‘Overseer of the Granaries of Upper and Lower Egypt’! What was the result? Joseph became a blessing to Egypt and to all the surrounding nations:

‘And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world.’ (Gen 41:57.)

We are Called to be a Blessing to the Nation (s)

The story of Abraham’s call and God’s promises to bless him and to use him to bless the nations contains powerful lessons for us today.

Lesson 1 - We are the spiritual descendants of Abraham (cf. Rom 9-11; esp. 9:8). We are called to be a blessing to the peoples and nations of this world: Abraham was called out of his home country. God promised to bless him and that, through him, all the nations or peoples of the world will be blessed. The final fulfillment of this promise is found in Christ, through whom salvation comes to all peoples. But the promise had already begun to be fulfilled even in the time of Abraham and his family!

In a similar manner, because we are Abraham’s spiritual children and belong to Abraham’s family, we are also called to be a blessing to the peoples and nations of this world. Specifically, we are called to be a blessing to our nation, and the peoples of this nation! This is what being ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light of the world’ means.
 
Lesson 2 - Unwelcomed and marginalized; Yet a blessing to others: Abraham and his family were not always welcomed. The Philistines in fact had told both him and Isaac to move away. Again, Jacob was bullied by his uncle; and Joseph was enslaved and thrown into prison. They were treated unjustly and marginalized! Yet in each of their own situations, they became a blessing to those that did not welcome them or who had treated them badly and unjustly.

There is a powerful lesson for Christians living in this country. Like Abraham and Isaac, some of us are sometimes reminded that we are ‘pendatangs’ and are not welcomed by some people. Or, some of us may also feel like Jacob and Joseph—though bumiputras, we sometimes feel that we do not get what is fairly due to us. Yet, in each of their respective situations, Abraham and his descendents became a source of blessing to those among whom they lived. And this was the case even when, e.g., Laban disliked Jacob intensely and yet had to acknowledge that God had blessed him because Jacob was with him!

The challenge to us is to live in such a manner that even those who may not welcome us or who wish to marginalize us will still want us to be with them, for they know that because God is with us, they too will be blessed because of us! How do we do this?
 
On the first night we spoke about issues like corruption and injustice in our nation. Thus, for example, if a Christian politician makes an effective stand against such social evils and demonstrate a real care for the poor, then even those who are not Christians will want to vote for him or her! Or, if the whole church takes a stand against social evils and demonstrate a real care for the poor, then even those who are not Christians will respect the church and honour Christ! We see this in the life of Mother Teresa of India. At her death, India mourned—not just Christians, but also Hindus, Muslims, and others.

Again, many Christians are in the professions and business world. Some amongst us are even key leaders and captains of industries. If we show ourselves to be the best professionals and most able leaders in the business world, then when people or companies or even the country is in need, they will turn to us. Without mentioning names, we know this is already happening before our eyes! For example, because of his proven record and integrity, one Christian was asked to take over a major GLC which was losing hundreds of millions a year. And in two years or so, he appears to have successfully turned the company around!

Lesson 3 - Our security and our future are in God’s hands: Abraham and his children knew that God had promised to bless them and made them a blessing. Thus they also knew that they did not need to squabble or fight for their rights or for their own advantage. For example, Abraham allowed Lot to choose where he wished to settle, although as the uncle he had the right to choose first! Or, when the local people asked them to go, Abraham and Isaac just moved away and gave up the wells they had dug—even though it must have been costly to them since water was their life-line in a semi-desert land! Yet, as Genesis reminds us, God blessed them and their families abundantly.

This should address the fears of many of our hearts and challenge us as Christians to be faithful to God’s call. Many of us are concerned about our future and our children’s future. But the story of Abraham reminds us that God does not fail in His promises to us! Our security is in God. Remember what Abraham said in Gen 14:22f that he was depending on God alone to provide for his material welfare!
 
Lesson 4 - Holiness and Integrity: We can learn something too about holy living and integrity from the lives of Abraham and his family. Each of them also had to grow in these areas. But perhaps it is Joseph who has most to teach us. He refused to yield to temptation to sleep with Potiphar’s wife, even at the risk of imprisonment and, perhaps, of his own life. He proved his integrity even while a slave in his master’s house, and when in prison. He did not become bitter towards his brothers for the enslavement. Neither was he bitter to the cupbearer who forgot him and left him languishing in prison for two extra years! Thus when a crucial national need arose, Pharoah turned to him because both his ability and integrity had proven rock solid!

Some of us may say that integrity no longer works in our world today. But that is not true. Let me give an example. A few months ago my son passed me a book on a man called Marvin Bower. Bower took a small engineering firm in the US and slowly, through discipline and hard work, built it into a world-class management consultancy firm. My son then added the comment that, although the book was written for the secular business world, with little or no interest in religious things, the author had clearly implied that at the heart of Marvin Bower’s work and success is his commitment to his values as a Christian. Integrity shone through everywhere!
 
For those who do not recognize the name of Marvin Bower, the firm he built up is McKinsey, which is often rated as the top management consultancy firm in the world today. What emerges from the book is that Bower, by sticking to his Christian values and applying them to the company, made it the best in the world! (See Elizabeth H Edersheim, McKinsey’s Marvin Bower, [John Wiley, 2004].)

Joseph was able to be a blessing because of holiness and personal integrity in his personal and professional life. If the Christian community is to be blessing, we will have to live in exactly the same way. The tragedy is that Christians are not always well known for integrity in personal lives, and in our work and businesses. Today the church is not known to be what non-Christians used to call a place of ‘holy-holy’ people! We have become too much like the world. Moreover, there are unfortunately too many examples of Christians who are dishonest and involved in corruptions of various kinds.

If the church is to be a blessing to our nation, then repentance is needed here! Otherwise, we will end up like what Jesus described: ‘But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.’ (Mat 5:13).

Lesson 5 - Obedience: This brings us to the last lesson, obedience. Abraham became a blessing to the nations because he was willing to obey God all the way. Heb 11:8-12 speaks of him obeying God to leave home for an unknown land, and trusted God for a child even when both he and Sarah were beyond the age of having children. The ultimate test of obedience came when God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac, as an offering to God! (Gen 22:2).

What about us? How many of us are willing to obey God to the extent that we are willing to give our sons and daughters for God? If the church is to be a real blessing to the nation, we must not just pray. But we must ask God specifically to raise up a new generation of people, especially among the youth, who are willing to give their lives for Christ. Unfortunately, many young people today are mainly interested in making money and achieving worldly success as their goals in their careers and lives.

We must plead with God to raise up a new generation who are prepared to die to self and willing to place God first in their lives and careers. Some will be pastors, theologians and missionaries. Others will go into various professional fields, the marketplace and business world, schools and universities, the media and mass communications, etc. There they will be salt and light in the world. Wherever they are, they will make obedience to God their first priority. Through their faithfulness and witness, they will impact the nation for Christ. By so doing, they become a real blessing to the nation!

But where is such a generation of young people to come from? It will have to come from homes where Christian parents daily teach and pray for them so that they will learn from young to live for Christ! The greatest missionary that served in China in the 19th century was Dr Hudson Taylor. Many years after he had left for the mission field, his parents revealed to him that soon after his conception and even before he was born, they had prayed: ‘Dear God, if you should give us a son, grant that he may work for you in China!’ Do we wonder why Hudson Taylor’s missionary career had such an impact?

Abraham willingly gave his son when God asked. What about you and me?

Will the Malaysian Church Fulfill Her Calling to be a Blessing?

We celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Merdeka this year. We can thank God for the many blessings that He has poured upon us and our nation. But we cannot forget that we live in tough times. Every one in this country can see that racial tensions have remained high, and in some areas have gone worse.

To this can be added the growing inter-religious tensions, especially between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Corruption appears to have gone up dramatically. For example, the comments by Tun Haniff, a former IGP, on alleged corruption in the Police and ACA are well-known. There have been growing allegations of corruption and inefficiency in the judiciary, and we are told that there is a backlog of hundreds of thousands of unresolved cases in the courts today. On the Transparency International Index on corruption, we appear to have slowly declined over the last few years relative to others. Crime rates have gone up, and drug addiction has reached dangerous proportions with an estimate of 1.2 million addicts today.

Is there a future for our country? Many have already answered with a clear ‘No’ and have packed their bags and left. But the question that we must all answer is: Are we Abraham’s offspring? If we are, do we have a part in God’s promise to Abraham, ‘I will bless you and … all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’?

I have over the last few years come to one sad conclusion. It appears that no political party, no NGO, no institution, no group of citizens have the spiritual, moral and numerical strength to bring about the needed moral, social and political reforms to save this country from slipping into self-destruction. No doubt many groups and individuals have done much good in many ways in Malaysia. But all these good efforts added up do not seem to be able to reverse certain overall downhill trends such as the increasing breakdown of family and community life, the gradual tearing apart of the social fabric of our nation delicately built upon the multi-ethnic and multi-religious identities of our people, the rampant growth of corruption and crime, and the persistent devotion to mediocrity in national achievements despite all the hype over ‘Malaysia boleh’!

But Christians, as the spiritual heirs of Abraham, have been called to be a blessing to the nation! Will the church therefore respond to God’s call and act as His instrument, in cooperation with others, to reverse the downward moral and social slide of our nation? Can the Christian community do it? I believe it can—but not the church as it is at present. Rather, it will have to be a church that is revived and purified! Time does not allow me to elaborate. But I believe that if the Christian community will truly live with integrity and moral rectitude, make a clear stand for compassion, justice and social righteousness, and strive to be agents of reconciliation in the midst of ethnic, religious and sociopolitical divisions, we can indeed be God’s instrument of transformation for this nation. We will become, like Abraham, ‘a blessing to the peoples and nations.’
 
Perhaps some will say, ‘What can a minority like us do? Our numbers are so small!’ In response, I will simply quote Robert Bellah, a sociologist who used to teach at Berkeley. In his comments on the possibility of social transformation, he writes: ‘I think we should not underestimate the significance of the small number of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world …The quality of a culture can be changed when two per cent of its people have a new vision.’

God told Abraham: ‘I will bless you …and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ If we take seriously God’s word to Abraham, I believe three things will happen. First, God will use the church to be a blessing to this nation, and make it harmonious and peaceful, righteous and just, and prosperous and great. Secondly, in ways we do not understand, God will fulfill His promise to Abraham in us far beyond what we dare ask or imagine. Finally, the church in this nation, through faithful missions overseas, will become a powerful source of spiritual and material blessings to other nations in different parts of the world. May God grant us the faithfulness and courage to live as the children of Abraham!