Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your own country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And 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. I 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.”
Genesis 12:1-3
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Galatians 3:7-9
I apologize in advance that what follows may be pretty jumbled. God is in the process of impressing this truth on my heart and calling for the obedience of faith. I haven’t arrived at solid conclusions other than to say that I believe the message of the above passages regularly occurs in Scripture and that I need to respond to it by faith.
When I say I need to respond, I mean that God’s Word carries with it a responsibility for me and every other disciple of Jesus that is part of God’s goodness to us. I hope in the body of this writing to express what I believe that responsibility is and hopefully offer a few thoughts on what that might look like practically.
Before I get into the responsibility, let’s remember that from which it springs forth. Paul is saying in Galatians 3:7-9 that God preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham. What did God preach to Abram in Genesis 12? He essentially said that he would make Abram into a great nation and bless him so that he would be a blessing to every family on earth.
God’s covenant to Abraham was fulfilled in part through the nation of Israel, but the complete fulfillment is in Jesus Christ. The blessing that God intended Abraham to be to the nations comes to its peak in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Good News of Jesus is the covenantal blessing that God promised to Abraham.
As we see in Galatians, all of us who are “of faith” are blessed with Abraham. We have been justified and granted salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of the God-man Christ Jesus.
And here is where I am so often tempted to stop. Can you relate to that? Aren’t we so very quick to receive this great promise of God and rejoice in his grace and yet never really consider the fulness of this promise? Or put another way, I am simply tempted to thank God for this salvation without ever considering the implications of this blessing.
But we can see so clearly in Scripture that the Good News/covenant blessing/salvation that God promised to provide to his people carries with it a responsibility that we cannot ignore and expect to ever enjoy the fulness of his blessing! And that is because to ignore the call to obedience wrapped up in the promise of blessing is to ignore the blessing itself.
If we become so absorbed and caught up in the personal benefits of God’s promise to Abraham, and through Abraham to us, we have failed to realize the blessing.
God’s blessing is universal in scope. We see that in Genesis 12 when God says that through Abraham (and ultimately through Christ) all the families of the earth will be blessed. God’s blessing carries with it God’s mission.
We live in a culture that makes it so easy to ignore the mission of God by focusing exclusively on the great blessing of knowing Christ. But what I’m starting to wonder is whether or not we really know Jesus if we aren’t continuing his mission to bless all the families of the earth. That was God’s plan from the beginning and it continues to be his plan going forward.
If we as individuals and as the church are not seeing how we are part of God’s story and his mission, we will most likely sit on our butts never really knowing God’s blessing and maybe never knowing God himself.
I think this is partly what Paul was getting at in Philippians 3 when he said that he wants to know Jesus and share his sufferings becoming like him in his death so that however possible he might attain the resurrection from the dead. Paul doesn’t simply have heaven in mind. He wants to attain the resurrection so that he can be face to face with Jesus who he has already declared is of surpassing worth.
If the Jesus we are enamored with doesn’t cost us anything to love and follow, have we done more than set an idol before us?
That is the question I have been asking myself and I offer to you for your own reflection and benefit.
I think my answer to this question has to be yes. Following Jesus costs us our lives. To believe anything less is to believe in a Jesus who exists apart from the Scriptures rather than to believe in the One who is alive in each and every word of our Holy Bible. The Jesus I know who is revealed and manifested in God’s Word calls for a radical and costly obedience that seeks to enter into God’s story of redemption and play a role (albeit a super small role) in partnership with God…that we might see the Kingdom come and God’s will be done.
Bringing people face to face with the Kingdom is costly, but it is essential to discipleship. Being an ambassador for Christ is a fearful thing, but it is also the gracious privilege granted to us by our Master. Entering in to the needs, hurts, despair, etc of others is uncomfortable, but it is the call on our lives made by the One who became nothing for our sake and hung on a cross.
And to forsake our very lives for the sake of Jesus is to find life. It is to be liberated from self-preservation, inflated importance, materialism, and the whole lot of worthless idols that we treasure above Jesus. It is to choose joy over temporal safety. It is to choose blessing over continuing in the curse of sin.
That’s our mission because it is God’s mission!
So I continue to ask myself what this looks like on a practical level. Who are the folks around me who are hurting, who are lonely, who are desperate for companionship? What blessing can I offer my neighbor? I have Christ to be sure, and I also have my time, my friendship, my presence.
What I’m tired of settling for is putting a stamp on an envelope and sending some money to someone in Africa and feeling like I’m fulfilling God’s missional call on my life! It certainly is a good thing for me to do, but it isn’t the same as rolling up my sleeves, slopping through the brokenness all around me, and bearing the burdens of those in my community.
So God has at least challenged me to consider how I might be a blessing to those around me, both those who are part of the church and those who are not.
For now, this looks like attending a breakfast for the homeless at church praying that I might show the affection of Jesus to them, that I might hear their heart as they speak and provide hope, that I might meet their need of true friendship, and ultimately that they might come to saving faith in Christ. I also am trying to make the most of a weekly opportunity to tutor some 4th and 5th graders at an elementary school. Most of them seem to have the odds stacked against them for success, but I know God is kind to have Christians loving them.
I am convicted to try and love my next door neighbor more selflessly. In the same way that it doesn’t cost me much to mail some money to a poor family, it doesn’t cost me so much to shovel his driveway or carry some food over. I want to truly bear the reproach of Christ and enter into the sadness my neighbor is facing. I want to patiently walk beside him as he tries to make sense of declining health. I want to share my life with him so that he might see Jesus and glorify God.
Let me wrap this up.
We have been so very blessed by our great God and Savior. We know life because the Good Shepherd has called to us and we have recognized his voice and followed him. He has promised to give us pasture and rest. Let’s set that hope before us and trust in the promises of Christ enough to join in with God’s mission to usher in the Kingdom of God and redeem all of creation from the curse of sin! Let’s consider our lives as expendable so that we might be a blessing to others.
This is my desire and prayer.
To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
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