The Story of God: Blessed to Be A Blessing

Do you believe that God can use your life to make a difference in our world today? Do you believe that at age 60 or 65, 70 or 75, that God wants to use your life to make an eternal difference in the life of your neighbor or maybe in a village half way around the world? Do you believe that God might just want to do something incredible with you in the years you have left? Well, if you said yes to any of these questions, you are in good company. And even if you said no, you’re still in good company. Because as we return to the Story of God this morning, we are going to see how God took a 75 year old tent dweller and his barren wife and launched the greatest redemption plan in the history of creation.

We now come to the most pivotal encounter in the story of God, where we see where God decides to implement His plan to rescue and restore His kingdom plan among mankind. And how does God initiate His plan?

1) God’s Chooses to Bless the Unlikely  The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great…

God chooses to bless the unlikely.  Abram was not chosen because he was intelligent, gifted or even righteous.  There was nothing particularly special about Abram.  But God decides that it is through this aged wanderer and his barren wife that He is going to bring blessing to all the world – to every nation.

But this blessing is all contingent on one thing: Abram must obey God and leave everything behind. God commands him to leave the three greatest sources of his personal security: his country, his relatives and his father’s house. But then God promises to replace all three: “Abram leave your homeland; I promise to give you a new land to live in. Leave your family; I promise to give you a new one. Leave your source of blessing (your father); for I promise to bless you myself.”

God calls Abram to burn the bridges of homeland, family, and blessing and blindly follow Him into the unknown, while holding on to the promises of God by faith alone. But think of the promises: Through Abram God will create a new people. Abram’s descendants will become a great nation that will become God’s own people. We know this great nation today as the nation of Israel.

To God’s people a new land will be given. This land is Canaan, the promised land. Through Abram’s obedience a homeland will be given for God’s people. Today we know this land as Israel. It is amazing how so much of history has centered around this small piece of land in the middle east.

And through Abram’s descendants will come a blessing for the whole world. What is so remarkable here is that God chooses Abram to be the one through whom God will reverse the curse of the fall: all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.

But what we see here is this: God is rolling out His plan to restore everything that was lost in the garden. God’s promise to Abram is the Promised Kingdom: God’s people (Abraham’s descendants) in God’s place (the promised land) under God’s rule and therefore enjoying God’s blessing.

And God is going to initiate this great reversal by first of all blessing Abram. And what we see here for the first time is the Gospel. God chooses one of the least likely and undeserving of men, and chooses to bless him with every blessing. To prosper him, to give him potency and fertility, and to make his name great. God promises to bless Abram and part of that blessing is to transform Abram into a man of superior character – a man of God. And as God does this for Abram, God is going to make something else of him… God Promises to Make Him a Blessing

2) God Promises to Make Him a Blessing   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.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. Genesis 12:2b-4  Abram will be a blessing. Wherever God leads Abram his life will now be a blessing to those he comes into contact with.   Now the focus of Abram being a blessing is sometime misunderstood. The focus is not on what Abram was to do for God but on what God promised to do through Abram.

This is how the gospel works. God takes imperfect, broken sinners and gives them what they do not deserve. God gives Abram a new family, a new home and a new blessing. Abram didn’t do a thing to deserve this blessing, other than believe. And we know he believed, because Abram obeyed God and left everything behind. “Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:6

Abram had faith because of God’s gracious promises. And that is our story too. The faith Abram demonstrated was a belief that God would bring him a son who would fulfill all the promises He made. In fact, without a son, all the other promises wouldn’t matter. A great name would die if there were no son to carry it on. Land would be irrelevant if there were no son to leave it to when Abram died. How could there be a nation to come after him if there were not even one son? All the promises of God hinged upon the promise of a son to Abram. The promise of a son was the centerpiece of all God’s promises. Abram looked ahead to the Son who would fulfill the promise of Genesis 3, a seed would come through his descendants, an offspring who would come to conquer sin and death forever. We know this promised seed as the crucified and risen Savior of the nations, Jesus Christ.

This is how Abram is to be a blessing to the nations. Salvation will come through the Jews. Abram was blessed to be a blessing. He is the original sent one of God. And his story is our story. For just as Abram was blessed to be a blessing so are we:

3) Blessed to Be a Blessing  Listen to what Scripture declares about anyone who has put their faith in God’s Son: If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:29   What this means for us is truly profound. What this means is that when the promises of God were given to Abram they were given to us. We are heirs of the promise. More specifically, we are heirs to the promise of blessing recorded in Genesis 12:3, that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Abram’s story is our story. God chooses the unlikely, the broken and sinful, the undeserving, and He blesses us with every spiritual blessing in Christ, so we can become a blessing to others. We are blessing bearers! And the blessing we bear is the resurrected Jesus living in us. The blessing we bear is the good news that God forgives sinners. 

We are the good news because God has forgiven us, adopted us, set us free and is with us. We are His beloved. Heirs with Christ. Heirs of the promise. Abram’s story is our story. And as God sent Abram to be a blessing, Jesus sends us today. That’s the core message that Jesus left with His disciples before he ascended into heaven after his resurrection: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

Like Abram, we have blessed by God to be a blessing to the nations.  You see when God initiated his plan to rescue and restore this world by calling Abram to go and be a blessing, God’s story was meant to include all who would share in the blessing of Jesus Christ. And if you believe in Jesus, that means you.  Each one of us together is part of God’s present day story to rescue and redeem every person, tribe and tongue. We are part of God’s ongoing work to bring the good news of Jesus Christ and God’s redeeming love to every nation.

So how does God want to bless the world through us? Well, that’s where I want us to take a detour from the story of God the next few weeks. For if we’ve been blessed to be a blessing; if we are sent just like Abram was sent; and if we are to be a witness right here where we live, and even to the ends of the earth, then its time we begin to unleash our blessing potential…

But as we leave here today, remember this truth: What God began with Abram, He is still doing today. God is still working His plan to rescue and restore our world though His people. God is still looking to make a difference in our world with the unlikelies of the world… people like us, people who follow Jesus.   And Like Paul wrote: If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. We are the ones God has blessed to be a blessing. Abram’s calling is our calling. Abram’s promise is our promise. And His mission is our mission: to bring God’s blessing of salvation through Jesus Christ to our world today.