God’s Blessing: Given, Received, Extended

gospel. And Lord, now we pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts

will be pleasing in your sight, Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Now, as I mentioned, we've been going through this sermon series, The Mission of God's People.

Last week, we looked at the creation story, how God created Adam and Eve to live in the garden,

to rule over creation, to rule and subdue and care for all that God had created.

But today, we've advanced a little bit further in the book of Genesis. We know what happened to Adam

and Eve, right? They sinned against God. They were taken out of the garden of Eden. And now they're

suffering the curse that is experienced by all earth. And so now we see that this seems like a

very quick spiral of humanity here, this downward spiral that's occurring. Wickedness is recounted

over and over again in these first few chapters of Genesis. We see in Genesis 6, it actually says

this about man at that time, that every inclination of the thought of human heart was only evil all the

time. And so if you're familiar with the story that follows the story of Noah, where God decides he's

going to destroy the world with a flood, but saves Noah and his family. However, this doesn't eliminate

sin by any means. We see that sin persists in the hearts of man. And we come to the story of the Tower

of Babel in Genesis 11, where man, again, is motivated by pride and selfish ambition until God comes and

confuses their languages and scatters them all over the face of the earth. So this is the setting.

When we walk into Genesis 12, what we're studying tonight, this is the setting, a rather bleak outlook.

Man seems to be in a hopeless situation, corrupted by sin, worthy of God's judgment. And yet we see God

enter in, come to a single man named Abram, and he promises to bless him. And so this is what I want

us to focus on tonight, this blessing. Specifically, I want to think about three things. I want to think

about the blessing as it is given, the blessing received, and the blessing extended. So let's look

first at the blessing given. Now, if you've grown up in church or you're familiar with Bible stories,

maybe you've heard of Abraham before. In this passage, it calls him Abram, but we know that God

changed his name when he gave him this promise from Abram to Abraham. Maybe you've heard these stories of

Abraham's faithfulness and obedience to God, but it's important to look at how Abraham's life started

here. What was Abraham like when he came, when God approached him with this promise? Maybe you have

this kind of Sunday school mentality of what Abraham was like, because we've heard all these great stories,

right? So you may think, well, Abraham always loved God and God always loved Abraham. But that wasn't

actually the case. That's not what the Bible says. When Abram and his family are introduced in Genesis 11,

it says nothing of his virtue or his obedience or his faith at all. In fact, if we jump to Joshua 24,

it says that Abraham and his family actually served other gods. And so Abraham did not stand out in his

day among the other idolaters that he lived with. Abraham himself was a pagan.

But we see that God still came to him and extends a blessing to him. And so we may ask them, well,

why did God choose to bless Abraham? If he wasn't special in any way, why didn't he choose somebody

else? Why did he choose to bless anybody at all? The fact is the Bible doesn't really give an answer

to that story. It doesn't say why God specifically chose to bless Abraham. But we know as we go through

the story and the whole arc of the gospel message in the Bible, the simple fact that God chose to love

Abraham because God chose to love Abraham. And so that is what grace looks like. And that's what I want

us to look at just for a second here. My minister in the States back in South Carolina, he, I remember

him talking several times about his own understanding of grace and how it evolved over time. He said early

on in his ministry, he defined grace as favor in the absence of merit. And that may sound like a pretty

good definition, right? But he said that actually grace is so much more than that. He came to understand

that grace is not just favor in the absence of merit. Grace is favor in the presence of demerit.

Meaning not only has man done nothing to earn God's favor, we've actually done a lot that we should never

deserve God's favor. If we look back at the, we looked at Genesis 12, if we go back to Genesis 11, we see this

stark contrast between the acts of man and the promises that are coming of God. We see that over and over again in the

story of the, of the, of the, the building of the tower of Babel, what did man say to themselves? Let us make bricks. Let us build a city and a tower. Let us make a name for ourselves.

We see here that man is working by themselves and for themselves. There's no thought of God here. There's no desire to please him or to serve him or to know him. Yet God enters in and he shows his grace.

And so the same is true for each of us. There's nothing good in us that God should be attracted to us. There's nothing that we can possibly do to earn God's favor. And maybe you struggle with this thought.

Maybe you think that man is basically good, that God should be pleased with us because of something that we've done. Sometimes I'm tempted that way myself to think that God and I make a pretty good team, right? That, that God was pretty wise in choosing me because I have some redeemable quality about me.

But that's not what the Bible says. That's not what God teaches us. It says that God chose you and me when we were dead. God chose you and me when we were enemies.

And so it's only by his grace that he makes us alive. It's only by his grace that we can become sons and daughters.

And so then it's worth looking at then. What is this promise specifically that God makes to Abraham and to his descendants?

Well, first of all, we see that the promise is a promise of posterity.

If we look at verse two, God says to Abraham, I will make you a great nation.

I will bless you and make you a great name.

If we jump a couple of chapters forward to Genesis 15, it says this.

It says, God says to Abraham, he says, look to the north and to the south and to the east and to the west.

All the land that you see, I'm going to give this land to you and your descendants.

And so this little insignificant man from the land of Ur, God is promising a future kingdom.

Not only that, we see that this promise is actually God is promising his own presence to Abraham and his descendants.

We see throughout this promise here in Genesis 12 and onward, a lot of relationship language that goes with this blessing.

We see that God, he's choosing to bless Abraham and he's going to bless those who bless him and he's going to curse those who curse him.

We know that this blessing is extended not only to Abraham, but to his son Isaac and beyond.

So if we actually look when God talks to Isaac about this blessing, Genesis 28 verse 15, it says this.

Genesis 28:15

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.

And I will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

So we see in this blessing that God promises his nearness.

God promises his loyalty to Abraham and his descendants.

And lastly in this promise, we see that God promises people.

He tells Abraham repeatedly that even though he is old and even though he is childless and even though his wife is barren, his descendants are going to number the stars.

And not only that, but through his family, through his descendants, all the nations of the world are going to be blessed.

Think about how unbelievable that would have been to Abraham.

That would have been, I mean, naturally would have thought that story is too good to be true, right?

And so that brings us to our second point.

How is this blessing received by Abraham?

Well, we know that this covenant is talked about more than just in Genesis 12 where we just read.

If we jump forward to Genesis 15, we actually see the inauguration of this covenant, this covenant ceremony that's performed.

And we see that God tells Abraham, he tells him to do this.

He says, take a calf and a goat and a ram.

And I want you to cut them in half and lay them out with a walkway between.

And this would have been part of the ceremony that was performed.

In fact, it sounds weird to us, but in that day, this would have been a custom that would have been known by two people that are making a contract or a covenant with one another.

That these animals are split, their carcasses divided.

The two people meet in the middle and make this covenant, make this agreement.

And it symbolizes that if either of them broke this covenant, that they should suffer the same result as those animals.

And so we see here that something different happens, though.

Abraham is given this instruction to lay out these animals, but he doesn't go to meet God in the middle.

We see that God puts Abraham into a deep sleep.

And God then sends this smoking pot and this flaming torch that crosses through those animals all the way to Abraham.

And so we see this imagery, it symbolizes, it shows us that God has taken this covenant upon himself.

That he will be the one to fulfill this covenant.

And if the covenant is broken, he is the one that's going to pay the penalty.

And so we read further in Genesis where it talks more about this covenant between Abraham and God and Abraham's descendants.

And we learn that there's a condition that Abraham has to keep as well.

Genesis 17, verse 10, God says to Abraham,

Genesis 17:10

This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep.

Every male among you shall be circumcised.

He continues in verse 14,

Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh will be cut off from his people,

for he has broken my covenant.

You may think this is kind of weird, right?

Why in the world would we have a condition of a covenant that's going to be fulfilled by God,

symbolized by something like this?

But we see, in fact, that this is talked about in the New Testament.

We read from Galatians earlier here in Romans.

Paul is also giving an answer to the sign.

He says,

Abraham received circumcision as a sign,

a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

So we see circumcision was a picture of receiving righteousness by faith.

And so this condition that's given to Abraham is not just the circumcision itself.

It's that he needs to have faith.

And so that's why it says,

Genesis 15, 6,

Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness.

And so this may confuse you.

We just finished talking about the grace of God, right?

There's nothing that we can earn.

There's nothing we can do to earn God's favor.

But yet now, as a condition of the covenant,

Abraham has to have faith.

So isn't having faith, in a way, a means of earning God's favor?

Well, think about it this way.

When I was growing up in the States,

I liked to play football.

Of course, we called it soccer.

Probably a lot of you grew up playing as well.

And one thing I remember growing up

is that professional soccer was kind of coming into its own.

It was a new league had just formed when I was young.

The major league soccer.

Certainly a far cry from Champions League

or any sort of European soccer,

but it was big for us in the States at the time.

And I remember the closest team to where I lived,

it was the Tampa Bay Mutiny.

And they were playing an exhibition game before a season

in my town where I lived.

And so I went with a lot of my friends

from my soccer team and my family,

and we watched this exhibition game.

And at halftime, they were giving away season tickets

to the Mutiny.

They were doing this raffle.

So you had to look at your ticket that you came in with,

and they read out the ticket number,

and I actually won the raffle.

I won these season tickets to the Mutiny.

I got to go down to midfield and receive this certificate,

and I got to go to every single home game

that Mutiny had that season for free.

Now, if you think about it,

that having a ticket would have been a necessary condition

for me to get into the stadium to watch them play, right?

I could fulfill that condition

because I had those season tickets.

But I hadn't actually earned those tickets.

Those tickets were given to me for free.

So being able to fulfill that condition

wasn't based on anything that I had actually done.

And so that's a picture of what faith is like for us.

Faith is a necessary condition for our salvation.

But the fact is, faith itself is a gift from God.

Ephesians 2.8.9 says,

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

This is not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God,

not by works that no one can boast.

And so we see that Abraham received God's blessing

through faith.

So the question is,

what did he have faith in, right?

It shows that Abraham had faith

that God would keep his promise.

Obviously, Abraham was long before

the coming of the Messiah, Jesus.

And he didn't know exactly how that promise

was going to be fulfilled,

but yet he had faith that God would keep his word.

And we know how that promise was fulfilled,

that God would send his son, Jesus,

who lived a perfect life,

who offered his own body on the cross,

as a penalty for our sin.

And so if we go back to that picture

that we talked about in Genesis 15

of this covenant being made

between God and Abraham,

the splitting of these animals

that were walked between,

we see this relationship

between death and the covenant.

These animals had to die

in order for this covenant to be made.

And now we have Jesus

who fulfills this promise

by offering his own body

and his own blood

as a sacrificial victim

for this covenant curse.

And so this is what we're going to be celebrating here

in a little bit,

the Lord's Supper.

This is what we are remembering,

the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus,

who willingly gave of his body

and his blood.

The blood that he says

is of the covenant

that was shed for many,

and he invites us all to drink of it.

And so just like Abraham,

he received this blessing

through faith in the promise of God.

He was looking forward to the promise

and how it would be fulfilled.

And so the same holds true for us then.

If we are going to have faith,

we have faith in the promise

that God has given us.

We can look back to how that promise

has been fulfilled in the life

and death of Jesus

who ushers in a new covenant

in his blood.

And so it doesn't end there, right?

We talk about how this blessing

is given by God,

how it's received by us through faith,

but there's that third element

of how this blessing is then extended.

You know, as we've already read,

God, he tells Abraham

that he, at the very beginning of chapter 12,

he says,

I'm going to make you a great nation.

All nations through you will be blessed.

So although God is choosing this one man,

in no way is this promise

or this blessing supposed to be exclusive.

It's not something that Abraham

is supposed to hoard.

John Piper puts it this way.

He says that Abraham was meant

to be a conduit of God's blessing

and not a cul-de-sac.

And so how was it then

that Abraham and his descendants

were supposed to spread this blessing

to all people in all nations?

Well, if we look at the very beginning

of Genesis 12,

before God even gives this promise

to Abraham,

he first gives Abraham a command.

He says,

Go from your country,

your people,

and your father's household

to the land I will show you.

Continuing in verse 4.

So Abraham went,

as the Lord had told him,

and Lot went with him.

Abraham was 75 years old

when he set out from Haran.

He took his wife Sarai,

his nephew Lot,

all the possessions they had accumulated,

and the people they had acquired in Haran,

and they set out for the land of Canaan,

and they arrived there.

But it doesn't end there.

Verse 6.

Abraham traveled through the land

as far as the site

of the great tree of Morah at Shechem.

Goes further.

Verse 6.

From there he went onward

toward the hills east of Bethel

and pitched his tent there

with Bethel on the west

and Ai on the east.

Then again, verse 9.

Abram then set out

and continued toward the Negev.

Now, if you're familiar with the story,

I think the significance

can really be lost.

But consider this.

Consider how significant

of a command this is.

Because Abraham, it says,

is 75 years old.

He's not 22 years old

just graduating uni

with this desire for adventure.

He is an old man.

He has been settled in Haran

his entire life.

He has an aging wife

that he has to take with him.

He has an elderly father

that he has to leave behind.

And so though Abraham

is promised blessing

in the future,

it's not without disruption

and heartache in the present.

There's nothing easy

or convenient

about this command

that he receives.

And so thinking back again

about my minister in the States

who he's friends with,

one of the things

that he would always stress

to us as a church

is actually something

I got to share

with community group leaders

not too long ago.

is this desire and intention

that we should have

within the church

toward disruption.

That disruption

should be a key point

in our Christian lives.

Because the sooner

that we realize

that God is not committed

to our comfort,

the better.

How often do we try

to fit into our own

little Christian bubbles?

We want to be surrounded

by our Christian friends.

We don't want the awkwardness

of having to deal

and have these encounters

with others

that aren't believers

because of our faith.

We certainly don't want

to think about

the possibility of God

calling us to leave jobs

or homes or families

for the sake of the gospel.

And so ultimately

the problem is

that even though

we want to focus

on the blessing

that God has given us,

we often overlook

the command for obedience

that accompanies it.

And so the reality is

that those two things

go together.

God's command

and blessing to us

is accompanied

by that command

for obedience.

So it says,

Christopher Wright says this

in the book

that we've been following

as our guide

through this series.

It says,

if we are to inherit

God's blessing,

we also inherit

God's mission.

And so from the time

of Abraham,

we see that this mission

has not changed at all.

Right?

This mission is

for God to see

the nations blessed

through his people.

And so we see

that this command

that God gives Abraham

is actually mirrored

in the New Testament.

We see that Jesus

gives this very similar command

to his disciples

before he ascends

to heaven.

It's what we call

the Great Commission.

Right?

God tells Abraham

to go,

to trust and obey

so the nations

would be blessed.

Likewise,

Jesus gives his disciples

and he gives us

the same command

to go and make disciples

and baptize them

and teaching them

to obey,

remembering that

I am with you always.

And so what does this

look like for us?

We receive the same blessing

that's been given

to Abraham.

We receive it through faith

and now we are called

to extend it.

So what does it mean

to bless the nations?

We've talked a lot about this

as a church recently.

I really think this is important.

This is something

that we should have

the forefront of our minds.

This should be our mission

as a church

to see the nations blessed

starting right here

in the Southside community.

Especially now.

We think of all that's gone on

with this pandemic

over the last 18 months

with isolation

and frustration

that we've experienced

and now we're starting

to feel this return

to normalcy, right?

And you know

what's accompanying that?

Ministry opportunities

abound.

Relationships that need

to be made.

People that are hurting.

We've heard over and over again

these last few weeks

of all the ministry opportunity

that's happening

within our church.

Serve with the praise team.

Attend the women's Bible study.

Help with university students

or international students.

Help with children's church.

Whatever it may be.

Get involved in community group.

But the fact of the matter

is that the mission of God

is not just centralized

on the programs

that we have here at Buclue.

It's so much more than that.

And so we need to ask ourselves

what are we doing

to show love to our neighbors?

How are we going to care

for the vulnerable

in our community?

How are we going to profess

the truth of the gospel

to those who are lost?

I mentioned at the beginning

this video of this Olympian

who is trying to get people

to run on this treadmill

willing to give them

some free money.

And while the video showed

a lot of these people

who just walked by

refusing to do this challenge

because they just thought

it was too good to be true,

eventually there were

these people that recognized

the value in doing this

who hopped on that treadmill,

ran for 30 seconds,

and walked away with $100

or more in their pocket.

But it's interesting

because it's not only

those people that did it,

but then the video shows

a lot of these people

that complete it

then pick up their phone

and call their friends.

Hey, come down here.

There's this challenge.

You can get some free money

but just run on a treadmill.

People that left

to go get their coworkers

in return

because they didn't want them

to miss this opportunity.

And so let that be

our desire as well.

May we experience

the blessing of the gospel

and desire to share

that goodness,

that treasure that we have

with those around us.

May we desire to participate

in God's mission

to bring all people

from every nation,

from every tongue

and every tribe

into new relationship

with God the Father,

this everlasting covenant

that we receive

through the blood of Jesus.

Maybe you aren't a Christian.

Maybe this is all new to you.

The truth is

that this promise

is being openly extended to you.

The blessing of the gospel

is available to all.

And so come.

You are welcomed

by the blood of Jesus

to be an everlasting covenant,

everlasting relationship

with a God who loves you.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you

for your promise to Abraham.

We thank you

that you were the one

who fulfilled that promise

through Jesus.