Last night's college football championship game made history. Alabama
had already won more titles than any other team. By beating Clemson,
which was ranked number one in the country, the Crimson Tide added
another trophy to their remarkable collection. (For more on the game,
see Mark Cook's 3 Aphorisms that Explain the Clemson Alabama Game.)
We want to leave a legacy. We want to build something that outlives us
to show the world that we were here and our lives mattered. The builders
of Babel are in the Bible because their story is our story: "Let us
build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let
us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the
whole earth" (Genesis 11:4).
God dispersed them, not because he opposes our leaving a legacy, but
because he wants to build it. In the next chapter we find his promise to
Abram: "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. . . . in you all
the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2, 3). The
people of Babel wanted to build a city—God wanted to build a nation.
And not just any nation, but a people through whom he could bring the
Messiah who would bless "all the families of the earth." If you're a
Christian, you're part of "Abraham's offspring, heirs according to
promise" (Galatians 3:29).
Clearly, the sovereign Lord can make more of us than we can make of ourselves.
When God called Nehemiah to build the walls of Jerusalem, he began with
the man's natural leadership gifts, integrity, and courage. Then, as
Nehemiah says, he "put into my heart" a vision for building the city.
And the people rallied around this vision, constructing the Holy City
for the glory of their holy God.
By contrast, when Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum rejected Jesus'
ministry, he denounced them (Matthew 11:20–24). Today these
once-thriving cities on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee are
nothing but ruins visited by tourists.
I read this morning from C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity.
When Lewis was preparing his "Broadcast Talks" for the BBC during World
War II, he had no way to know that they would be turned into one of the
best-selling Christian books of all time and would change my life
fifteen years after his death. Paul didn't know he was writing half of
what we call the New Testament. Lydia didn't know she was helping to
build the first church in the Western world.
Their obedience illustrates advice I once received from a wise mentor:
Always stay faithful to the last word you heard from God, and open to
the next. Oswald Chambers: "We have simply to obey and to leave all
consequences with him. Beware of the inclination to dictate to God as to
what you will allow to happen if you obey him."
I don't know how long the world will remember Alabama's victory last
night. But I know that your next act of faithful obedience will echo in
heaven forever.
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