I Will Bless You, Part 2

Let's be honest. Could we ever really get enough of "I will bless you"?

I was thinking about how to go about making the next in line of blog posts on God's heptad of promise to Abram that he gives in Genesis 12. Next in line would be the third part: "and make your name great." I know what the thrust of that post will be but I was having trouble deciding how to go about presenting it. So I decided to distract myself by reading a little bit from one of my commentaries, hoping it would get my mind focused in on the task at hand. I picked up this:

And opened it up to the book marker where I had left off last night. Here is the first sentence I read:

"By the Abraham narrative, the author of Genesis reveals how God's promissory blessing at creation intended for all peoples will be acquired through Terah's son, Abram."--Kenneth A. Matthews, Genesis vol. 1b, p.84-85

And that, my friends, is exactly why I chose to teach a series of lessons on Abraham's life. When God sets about to bless humankind anyway, God begins with Abram.

That anyway is a very important factor and it's important that we understand its significance. Humans do not deserve God's blessing. In fact, quite the opposite--we have earned, by our actions, his curse.

What is said about "Babylon" in the Revelation of John could easily be said about the whole human race:

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a mighty voice,

"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
She has become a dwelling place for demons,
a haunt for every unclean spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. (Revelation 18:1, 2 ESV)

Indeed, as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes says,

See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. (Ecclesiastes 7:29 ESV)

God made man perfect, worthy of receiving his blessings, with the full intention of blessing him all his days. In fact, God intended to bless an entire world of people from day one:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it . . ." (Genesis 1:27, 28a ESV)

But man chose his own path, sought his own way apart from God.

Nevertheless, God's purposes are never thwarted. God will bless a world of people. Only now, because of man's sin and rebellion, God must first redeem man and make him "bless-able" again. This he will do, and this he will begin, beginning with a no-name nomad named Abram.

God's grace transcends all human frailty, all human rebellion, all human wickedness. You and I cannot out-sin God's grace. Be honest with yourself. Isn't it true that most of your life has been spent for you with little regard to your Creator? Isn't it true that you have sometimes, maybe even often held his authority over you in contempt, or even expected him to submit to your plans and your viewpoints? Who is really god in that mode of thinking? These are not momentary lapses, this is our nature. This is how we are fallen.

But now God begins the great and wonderful task of changing that. He begins in early human history with Abram. Perhaps he is right now beginning this in you as well. Take the time right now to bow your head in submission to him. Now. Go ahead. You know that's what he wants for you. And having done that you, too, will be on the path of blessing that God has always intended for you.

"I will bless you. . . ."

Unexpected Mercy -- A Sermon

Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” (Acts 9:10-16 ESV)

It's not about us, it's about God's glory.



How can you, how can I, how can our church become an instrument of God's mercy? "

"So often we think that the good we do comes from within us. James 1:17 tells us every good and perfect gift comes from God."

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."--Jesus

I Will Bless You

We are looking at the seven-fold blessing God promised to Abram in Genesis 12. Here it is again:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your 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 ESV)

A heptad of blessing:
1) I will make of you a great nation.
2) I will bless you.
3) And make your name great.
4) So that you will be a blessing.
5) I will bless those who bless you.
6) Him who dishonors you I will curse.
7) In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

In a previous post we looked at the first one: "I will make of you a great nation." Now let's look at that second one.

I will bless you.

No greater words could be spoken to a human being by God. I will bless you. There are no conditions and no clauses. It is a promise without expected performance or precondition. I will bless you. What grace is this!

But Abram hadn't been previously blessed and was probably thinking by this time in his life that he was simply not to be blessed by the gods at all. He had no son. It is hard for us to imagine the impact of that simple fact on a person of his culture and time. He had no son. He has failed to meet the first criterion of a "blessed" person. Don't even try to tell us you are blessed, Abram, if you don't even have a son. It's like saying you're a golfer but you don't know how to hold a golf club. Sure. Right. Whatever.

But God comes down at this point in his life and says to him, based solely on his grace, "I will bless you."

To be blessed means to be the recipient of God's favor. How would Abram have understood this promise? He probably would have understood it to mean physical blessings: health, wealth, children. Obtaining the favor of the gods was an important endeavor in that society and how to do so an important study. The most widely accepted idea in human history has been that favor is obtained from deity in exchange for something offered to the deity. YHWH makes his grand entrance into this culture by making a promise to bless based solely on his goodness.

I will bless you.

How are we to interpret such a promise? How are we to apply it to our own lives? Without going into details as to how and why (details which I will get into later), understand that you, too, as a believer, are the recipient of this promise. How are you to understand this blessing? In what form will it take? Is this a health and wealth and prosperity promise? Well, yes . . . and no. Mostly no. But mostly yes. Confused? Good.

If you thought God's promises of blessing were all about health, wealth, and prosperity in this life as defined by our dominant media culture, then you are not unlike the people of the Old Covenant for whom this was mostly true. Just remember that in that time (before Christ) God was teaching them (and us) truths about himself through object lessons that they could understand. But when Jesus comes along he turns this kind of thinking on its head. Rather than give you a whole series of blog posts on how Jesus did that, let me just sum it up by saying that Jesus taught us to expand our viewpoint by taking a step back and looking at things from an eternal perspective rather than a temporal perspective. Jesus taught us that it was a good thing to suffer for a short time in this life in view of the eternal rewards we would receive in so doing.

Eternity.

That is how long we will exist. And in that context, any and all things we will experience in this life are very brief indeed. With that in mind, as believers we are blessed in Christ beyond imagination for all eternity, even if we do without and suffer for His name in this life, which is but a short time.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18 ESV)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:3 ESV)

Spiritual blessings in Christ. That is what we have as believers and every one of these stems from that first promise to Abram: I will bless you. Does that blessing extend to you? It does if you are in Christ. And if you are not, his arms are open wide. Come and be blessed.

Stop -- A Sermon

A week late on this one, but with all due diligence we will get back on track.




Has God ever stopped you before? God has a plan for you and nothing can stop that plan. Be encouraged.

His Life and Mine: Spirited Faith

How would you describe your life? What is it about? Here is Pastor John's sermon from last Sunday which he titled "Spirited Faith" in which he takes a look at how right belief leads to right practice.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him." (Acts 5:30-32 ESV)

". . . because our lives are meant to be all about him. That's the orthodoxy, the right belief, that repentance, the reorienting of our lives so that our whole lives are about Jesus Christ."



"But I do want to point out that Peter doesn't just do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. . . . If you're doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do then it's the wrong thing. The reason that we, as Christians, do the right thing is because Jesus calls us to do it."

Morning Reflection

A quiet morning.
Coffee is hot.
And good.
Kids are gone.
Lighting is low.
The refrigerator is running.
Every once in a while I can hear a bird outside.
God is good.

My life has been an interesting one. Since I don't know how long I have left, I won't boast about tomorrow, but if it is half as interesting as yesterday then I am in for an adventure. Adventures are always good things, right?

This morning I was reflecting on my life, the places I've been, the people I've met, the things I have lived. I found myself scrolling through my friends list on Facebook and mentally putting each person into his proper place in my personal timeline. I love people. I really do. I confess that sometimes I have hated people, and that was wrong. Usually it was because of some perceived wrong that they had done against me. Sometimes forgiveness takes time. All times forgiveness takes grace. (Thank God for his grace.)  Some people I have disliked. Some people make me cringe. All people I love, not just because Christ told me to, but because the flaws I see in them I see in myself, and I see that if I wish to be loved in spite of my flaws I must be willing to do the same. I love them because I love me and of all things in this life I must have, indeed cannot live without, it is a love that transcends these flaws and loves anyway.

That is God's love.

What would the world be without grace?

My early life was filled with King James Bible. I have memorized so much King James that I couldn't even begin to tell you how much of it I know. That's not a boast, memorization comes easily to me. There are some parts of the King James that I know, not because I've ever sat down and tried to memorize them, but because I'm simply so familiar with them that I know them. No matter what happens to me in daily life, there is a Bible verse that will jump out at me in my head that fits, and it is always King James. So as I was reflecting this morning on my life this verse kept jumping out at me.

The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. (Jeremiah 31:3, KJV)

God has been drawing me to himself my whole life, and most of the time I was not even aware of it. Through my sin, my ignorance, my unbelief, my mustard seed, flawed faith, God has been faithful to me. He has loved me with an everlasting love. And he has been drawing me closer to him through every event of my life.

I had to look up my verse in my new adopted translation, the ESV, and found that, though it was worded a bit differently, in context it conveyed the same idea. 

"At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people." 
Thus says the LORD:
"The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest, 
the LORD appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
(Jeremiah 31:1-3, ESV)

God loves me in spite of me. God has been faithful to me in spite of me. I remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old thinking to myself, Who could ever believe this crazy God stuff? I can remember times when I decided to take the reins in my own hands and do what I wanted in spite of what God thought or wanted. I can remember thinking This isn't right followed up by I don't care, I'm doing it anyway. I can remember more than once being angry, bitter, disillusioned with God. I remember once going years being angry with God, knowing how stupid that was, and not caring how stupid that was. I once wrote this poem:

Jonah and I, we do well we believe

To be angry with God (How dumb is that?)

And forgetting all the good we receive

We sit and we sulk as though we're deceived

Thinking that maybe we're right and God's wrong

And griping because our dear gourd has gone

Underneath which so long we had sat.

Thank God that He suffers fools for so long!

I wrote the poem thinking, I know how Jonah felt. I am Jonah. Yet even that thought did not turn me.

But God's love did.

God has been very patient with me. I am a vessel that he has fitted, indeed is still fitting, for his purposes. And his purposes are glorious.

I have a feeling you who read this are not that different from me.

An Imperfect Faith

Has your faith ever faltered? Was there a time when you knew the blessedness of God and when knowing him and serving him seemed to make your life perfect? And then things didn't go right?

You are not alone. In fact, you are in good company. It happened to Abraham too. Tomorrow in Sunday School we will take a look at a time in Abraham's life when faith led him to doubt, and nearly to despair. Is God always faithful? Come to Sunday School tomorrow and see.

His Life and Mine: Go, Baptize, Teach, Remember.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20, ESV)

John goes expositional! Tremendous message.

I Will Make Of You A Great Nation

Remember where we left Abram? God had made him a promise:

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your 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 ESV)

The promise was in the form of a heptad. We broke it down like this:

1. I will make of you a great nation
2. I will bless you
3. and make your name great
4. so that you will be a blessing
5. I will bless those who bless you
6. him who dishonors you I will curse
7. in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

A seven-fold blessing or promise. Let's look at the first part.

I Will Make Of You A Great Nation

A great nation? Abram does not even have a child. Abram has failed in the most basic measure of greatness in his day. He has no offspring.

It is hard for us to imagine in our culture what it must have been like for Abram to be a man without a son, but to the people of his day a man unable to have children would have seemed to be under a curse from one of the gods. Was there something wrong with him? With his wife? What had he done wrong? If you and I set out to make a great nation of someone in Abram's day, we would certainly not have started with Abram.

Yet here he is. Out of all the people available to God in that day, God chose this one. I am reminded again of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians:

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29 ESV)

I bet if you and I had been around back then as observers, and if we had known that God was about to select someone to make into a great nation, we would never have guessed Abram. But there he is.

But there's more to note about this promise than just its unlikely recipient. I think it is important to note the context in which we find it. In chapter 9 of Genesis we read where God tells Noah's sons to be fruitful and multiply and spread throughout all the earth. Then, in chapter 10 of Genesis, we have the table of nations. All of the sons of Japheth are listed, then Ham, then Shem. All of these people become peoples--nationalities--nations. They are multiplying. But instead of spreading out across the earth they seek to unite and make themselves one great nation in order to have the strength to defy God and what God has commanded.

Then they said, "Come, 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 ESV)

This is the Tower of Babel.

So what does God do? He confounds their languages and thus disperses them. They will fulfill his decree whether they wish to or not. Now consider again what God promises to do for Abram. God promises to do for and in and through Abram what the nations had attempted to do for themselves in the previous chapter without God. They tried to make a great nation for themselves. God said no. Then God goes and takes a nobody named Abram and says to him, "I will make of you a great nation."

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:3-5 ESV)

In the same way you and I can easily observe what goes on in the world around us each and every day. Human beings pursue happiness in every way they can imagine, according to the dictates of their own conscience. But they pursue it apart from God--and they are doomed to fail. There is no peace, no lasting joy, no satisfaction for a human being apart from God. But what the world seeks apart from God, God freely gives to those who give their lives to him.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:25 ESV)

What God gives us in Christ is far better than anything we could hope to achieve on our own. But now let us segue back to Abram and that first promise.

Someone says, "Okay, okay, okay, I get it. God made of Abram a great nation. I get that. He's talking about Israel, God's people. What does that have to do with me specifically in 2013?"

I'm smiling right now because I used to think like that too. The great nation that God promises to make of Abram is more than just ancient Israel. It is more than just David and Solomon and the Divided Kingdom. What God is promising to Abraham is world-wide in scope. This promise points us to the world-wide Church. Think of it like this. Abram is the acorn. Israel is the oak. The Church is the mighty forest that includes all kingdoms of the world.

Speaking to Gentiles (nations) in Ephesians 2 Paul says this, "remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." But now, because of and through Christ, we Gentiles have been brought into that nation. "For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace," So in Christ there is no longer a distinction between Jew and Gentile, Israel and "the nations." In fact, through Christ, the Church is Israel and Gentiles have been brought into the kingdom, which is Christ's. "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,"

Not enough? Paul follows up with this:

For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (Ephesians 3:1-6 ESV)(emphasis mine)

Paul says the same things to the Gentiles in Galatia and in Rome.

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 ESV)

I'll let you read Romans 9-11 on your own time. For now, let's skip ahead to the end and see the ultimate fulfillment of God's promise to Abram.

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15 ESV)

Yep. Every bit of that is in view when God says to Abram, "I will make of you a great nation." Abram and Israel and the Church are, in a sense, God's answer to the Tower of Babel. Those who seek to exalt themselves will be humbled. God alone will be exalted--but those who humble themselves and follow him will be exalted along with him, and for his glory.