Sermons | FBC Boerne
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Sermons | FBC Boerne
Discovering God's Heart for the Nations | Fall 2025 | Lesson 1
What if your salvation was meant for more than just you?
From the opening chapters of Genesis, God reveals a heart that beats for all nations. When He commands humanity to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth," He's establishing a vision of a world filled with people who love and worship Him. When sin shatters this vision, God doesn't abandon His plan—He refines it.
Enter Abraham, a nobody from nowhere, who receives an extraordinary promise: "I will bless you...and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." This covenant becomes the narrative backbone of Scripture, pointing toward the ultimate blessing: Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul explains, this promise wasn't just announcing a future Messiah; it was pre-announcing the gospel itself. Even more revolutionary, Paul declares that every Christian is Abraham's spiritual descendant and heir to this world-changing promise.
This class unveils how God's global mission threads through Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. You'll discover why approximately 7,000 of the world's 17,000 distinct people groups remain unreached, and why natural church growth alone will never cross the cultural, linguistic, and geographic barriers that separate them from hearing about Jesus.
Throughout this journey, we confront a challenging truth: God blesses us not merely for our own benefit, but so we might be conduits of blessing to others. Whether through praying, giving, going, or advocating, every believer has a role in fulfilling God's ancient promise to gather worshippers from every tribe, tongue, and nation.
Join us in exploring how our personal stories of inadequacy—much like Abraham's—become platforms for God's global purposes when we surrender to His calling. Because in God's kingdom, there are no nobodies from nowhere when they're vessels of His blessing to the nations.
Say hello. There'll probably be a few more people join us as we get going, but excited to have you all here with us tonight. Next week this will have roundtables because we're going to want you guys to be able to have some conversations in some group settings as we go along and we really want to have as much interaction as possible. So as we get started today, I want to just tell you feel free to raise your hand and ask questions. We will stop a time or two and have you have some conversations with each other. So probably the best way to do that is sit close enough that you can talk to someone around you and not feel too exposed. Okay, so, hey, welcome to this class. It's called Discovering God's Heart for the Nations, and this is the second time I've led this class here at FBC and I'm really excited for it. There's a lot of, I think, misunderstandings when we talk about the things that are important to God in our day and age, especially in our Western United States worldview, and so what we're going to do is we're going to kind of walk through some basics on that. This week there's a sign-up going around and we'd love to have you guys get your name on there so we can be following up with you each week with an email and then we'll jump in. So if you don't know me, my name is Chad. I'm the missions pastor here at First Baptist. I've been here for almost three years. We have three years in October. It's gone by really quickly. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but we're enjoying it. So I have my beautiful wife, elise, and two daughters, allie, who's 12, and Michaela, that's 15. And you'll see them around the campus, I'm sure, if you're here very much.
Speaker 1:So let's open up with a word of prayer and then we'll jump in. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We pray God that today, as we open it, as we think about how you've been working really throughout all of history, god, we can see what it is that has burdened your heart from day one. We pray, god, that you would help us to see and discern your spirit. May, god, you would speak to us as we seek you. We love you. Be with us in Jesus' name, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, we're going to start all the way at the beginning. If you go all the way in your Bibles and you start really, open up the front cover and go to the first page of Scripture. That's where we're going to be in Genesis, chapter 1, as we get started here today. And there's this beautiful verse towards the end of chapter 1 where it says that God created mankind in His own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them and God blessed them and said to them be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Have you guys heard this before? Yeah, this is once or twice. None of this is new to you.
Speaker 1:Well, I want you to imagine that this command as God gives it kind of lays the foundation for God's heart. And then imagine sin didn't enter the world. Let's just put that whole Genesis 3 and 4 aside for the moment. If there had not been sin, what does this give us? What does the world look like today if what God said in this command were to be fulfilled? Okay, a perfect world with a lot of people. Right now there's almost, I mean just over 8 billion people on the planet, right? So just imagine that there wasn't sin and death to destroy all of those people, or there'd probably be a little few more folks. You know, I have heard that there's more people alive today than all of history combined. Like. When you combine all of the eons, like there's the, there just wasn't as many people. When you add it all up, it's not as much as who are living today. So maybe you have 16 billion people of no one died. It's a lot of people, right?
Speaker 1:Think about this other thing Look at the scope of God's desire. So, at this point, the two people he's speaking to were people that loved him, right? They were in connection with him. What are, what are those people that don't die? Have they have this perfect relationship with God? So we can think about the implications between each other. You know, everyone's nice to each other. We don't have any Ukraine, russian war. You have all these kind of perfect kind of. But even better is, you have a perfect relationship with God.
Speaker 1:So remember how God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden and how, like, the animals were at peace, like, just think about this picture. So what I want you to see is, from the very first moment where mankind first interacts with God, from day one, god's scope. The picture that God puts in front of us is a world full of God-worshippers. The end result of this very first glimpse of God's desire is a full world of people who love God and love each other and do all these things well. We know it doesn't stay like that right. We know that it takes a hard right turn really fast, but I want you to see this. I think this is where we see God hint at this big picture which we're going to see much clearer in a few minutes.
Speaker 1:So, going on, if you remember, sin enters the world and things get really nasty. It gets so nasty that when God ends up talking to Noah, he says that if you remember this verse where it says that the heart of man did evil all the time and God regretted that he'd even made them it's a pretty terrible verse, but just past that, god provides a way out, right, he builds this ark. He has Noah build the ark, and then the floods come and the people perish and God saves a remnant, this one family, and as he releases them, as they come off of that boat listen to the language here God says to them this is Genesis 8, 15 and 17. God said to Noah, come out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives, bring out every kind of living creature that is with you, listen to the language so they can multiply on the earth, be fruitful and increase in number upon it. Okay, so here we have again a family that is uniquely in relationship with God At this moment. We see that they're in good relationship with God, right, they're the ones that were saved. The rest of the world perished in the deluge, right? So here we have this beautiful family Again. Imagine that they didn't make any mistakes. After that, what does the command of God result in? It results in a community of people that follow God and love Him and fill the earth. Do you see that as well? So now, already in the first eight chapters of the scriptures, we have two places there's actually a couple more where you see this referenced. You see this idea that when sin enters the world, that God is going to save mankind from their sin. There's this little prophetic piece about the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head. You get these little hints that God's vision for the world has not been completely and utterly destroyed. But she's just got these little pieces. It's not clear yet, but I want you to think through this story Now.
Speaker 1:When I teach how to study your Bible classes, we start with this idea that there's really three major segments of the Scriptures. There's the first 11 chapters of Genesis, and I often call it the preamble. Do you know what a preamble is? It's like the introduction, right, and it sets up some big stories. It gives you some definition for things that every world history culture has dealt with. How do we come into being? Where do mankind come from? How did sin enter the world, right? How did God make men and women? Are we different? How did ethnic groups develop, right? How do we get different languages? All those things are kind of answered in those first 11 chapters and some people, of course, want to tie into the specifics.
Speaker 1:They want to build real big theologies around it. But I don't know that even the first 11 chapters are meant to be that detailed. They're just trying to give you big answers, and the primary story of Scripture starts with this man named Abram, and then the entirety think about it. From Abram it goes to his family, his descendants, which is the Israelites. Eventually, the person Jesus comes out of that and Jesus gives us this new covenant the people of God, the church, which is the definition and the whole focus of the New Testament, all the way until you get to Revelation chapter 7, where the body it says that people from every tribe, tongue, language and nation are gathered before the throne and before the Lamb, and then from, basically, revelation chapter 8 to Revelation chapter 22,. I call that your distant future. It's kind of answering these other big questions when are we headed? What's it going to look like when we get to the end? How will we know? And Jesus references some of that in Matthew and there's some things in Ezekiel and Daniel that point to it. But all of that is this big picture of things to come that we don't necessarily know how to interpret. Again, you can build whole theologies and there are whole theologies.
Speaker 1:The evangelical world loves talking about the end, but what we know really well is from Genesis 12 to Revelation 7. Like it's clear, and so I would tell you, if you're going to endeavor to teach through the first 11 chapters of Scripture, one is you should study a lot and then know you're going to be right for mistakes or at least for controversy. People are going to argue with you, and the same thing if you're going to preach from Revelation, chapter 8 to the end. Again, you're just opening yourself up because there's a lot of ways to interpret these things and they're kind of fuzzy. It's hard to know exactly what John meant or exactly what Moses meant when he was writing these pieces, but we do know really well this story from Abraham through the church, through the age of the church, we can see it fairly clearly. That's not to say that there's not theological challenges throughout the Bible there are lots. But this story of Abraham is the beginning of the primary story of Scripture. It's how we get to Jesus and it's how we start this conversation that results in what we would call the church age, the age of the church. And so we're going to look here at Genesis, chapter 11, starting in verse 27 through 32.
Speaker 1:You've got this story of a man named Terah and he and his family leave the area of Ur of the Chaldeans which is another fun little thing and they start the journey, but they only go so far before Terah stops. The Bible doesn't tell us why he stops. But then the story picks up with his son Abram, and Abram picks up and goes from there. So look at verse 31. It says Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot of Haran and his daughter-in-law, sarai, the wife of Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. If you were to look at a map on all this, basically you would find that Ur is in what we would call far eastern Turkey today, and then, if you go a little bit over into Syria, is where you have this area called Haran, and so it's still a long ways, many days, travel south to get to Canaan. But there you see, terah lived for 205 years and then he died in Haran, in verse 32. Why Terah stopped, why Terah left? We don't have anything that tells us why he packs up his family and begins to move, but we do know what happens with Abram.
Speaker 1:And so we're going to stop here for a second, and I want you guys to think about a time in your own life where you felt inadequate for the task that was in front of you. Maybe it was professionally. Did you ever get promoted into a role that you felt like was a stretch? Or maybe you took a job, or maybe it was when you had a child and you're like I'm not prepared for this. I think that's how dads feel. I don't know if moms feel that way, but dads feel it. Well, maybe it was when you got married. Maybe it was when you felt you were inadequate for the task that you were given. And if you're bold enough, share it with somebody around you and I'm going to give you just a couple minutes to think about that. Okay, all right, go, yes.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, okay, since we're not around roundtables, maybe we can do this in a large group version. Does anyone have a story they're willing to share? Yeah, share with us.
Speaker 3:I had no idea how to be a mother and I remember bringing my oldest home from the hospital and saying to him, as he was bare, naked, peeing in my face, she told him how to change his diaper. Fear between the two of us would figure this out. I was overwhelmed and unprepared.
Speaker 1:And he survived. He survived, he's healthy, he made it. I often think it's a miracle that any of us made it. And then I look at my kids and they've made it too, praise the Lord. They seem so fragile and then somehow they're so resilient, like yeah, so there's who else? A moment we just felt inadequate, okay.
Speaker 3:Well, I knew I loved him and I knew he was called to the ministry, but I felt very inadequate for being a pastor's wife.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, this is a lot of pressure. He told me when I was young that I was married a pastor.
Speaker 3:I would just laugh my head off. I would have done the same thing, I would have gone to the ministry, surely you jest.
Speaker 1:Surely you jest, surely you jest, yeah, yeah, any pastor's wife deals with that on some level, but definitely, I would say, the generation of pastors before us. There was even much more expectation on their wives than currently, but even wives today feel it. It's not exactly the same, but they feel that pressure. It's almost a political role because everyone's watching how you live.
Speaker 3:She just didn't know how clear that fishbowl was.
Speaker 1:It is a fishbowl, there's no doubt about it. Anyone else? Anyone else?
Speaker 3:I'm just feeling it, people just love me through it and to God we've ended.
Speaker 1:Praise God Because of those people the other ones that were looking in that fishing bowl throwing things at you, didn't stick very much. You still can talk about God's grace. There are many people who have been crushed under the weight of ministry and the judgment that comes with it.
Speaker 3:So you had your hand up, yeah, so my husband and I were both high school teachers and we were called to go work with Ukrainian refugee children that were three to six-year-olds, along with our five-year-old at the time. So we left and moved to Croatia and we were definitely inadequate in everything and but made a little family there and just grew so much in our faith and, yeah, we definitely had no idea what we were doing, but we just said yes great, great, hey any similar stories and quality start history in malawi, africa.
Speaker 3:You know how financially I would do that anything.
Speaker 1:Um almost said no to god said yes, it really is amazing what you guys have been able to accomplish in just a few years too, and if you were to get to know the story, you'd find out how little money it's costing to do this. Like God continues to provide. They've injected some funds, but it's in the tens of thousands, not in the hundreds of thousands or the millions like so many ministries try to put. These guys are doing incredible things, and God is providing sustainment for these people as well in Malawi, which is one of the poorest nations on the planet. So it's not because there's any great benefactors there. It's because the people are taking the work on themselves and beginning to make it. It's really incredible work. Yeah, we have a guy that's going to share.
Speaker 4:Thanks, I guess some five, six years back I worked in a manufacturing outfit. It was a long gas company and a predecessor we unfortunately let go. We had a gambling problem. Anyway, the other girl and I thought I'd step into the role and just try to help this agency manager.
Speaker 4:And when I got in that role, I come to find out he wasn't taking sure of OSHA logs or wasn't in documentation. I mean incidents of that. He was behind on all his directories and all this stuff and all these accidents started happening the first year we had a guy lose his life. We had a guy who lost his eye, so it was a big headache at first. I had to deal with OSHA twice. I never died after that. What I thought was going to be a smooth transition wasn't going to be. Yeah.
Speaker 4:It was rough and it felt very inadequate.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I pushed through and I dipped for about two years. Those are the two years that will put you to death, though, all of a sudden, your hair turns gray. You're like how'd I go two years to gray hair?
Speaker 5:It was junior high youth ministries what turned my hair gray, I'd say probably going into the Navy at 30. So, being a grown man with a family and each red thing about boot camp and all that stuff. Not like the physical part just being away, and then I missed my daughter's birth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gosh.
Speaker 5:Once I was already getting pictures of her. It was good, but the first time.
Speaker 1:Vincent, I didn't know any of this. You're like giving me new information right now. That's incredible.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I was pretty adequate and just not knowing what to expect. And it took me off my feet a little bit.
Speaker 1:But it was good. But that's like a learning experience for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's incredible. I have a feeling all of us have something that brings us. For me, I think about my very first mission trip when I was really young. I was 12 years old, living in Arkansas. My family was really young. I was 12 years old, living in Arkansas. My family was really poor. When I say poor, I mean we didn't have running water, we didn't have electricity in our house, my dad had lost a job and he was a mechanic and tried to start his own company. It just didn't work. It was super, super hard on us and they had this mission trip. I've never been on a mission trip. I was a fairly new believer. I came to faith in fifth grade and I was just finishing sixth grade when I was 12.
Speaker 1:And our youth group was taking a mission trip to Mexico and they said do you feel called to go? And I said Dad, I think I'm supposed to go. And I remember Dad said there's no way we can afford it. It had to raise like $400 or $500, which sounds really cheap for a Mexico trip today. Right, and they put us on these buses and we drove. Anyway, you know they let us fundraise and people throughout the church gave and they blessed us and I remember different people were so kind and gave for me to go.
Speaker 1:And when I went, one of the first things I realized is when we stopped in Mexico there were kids begging for money. I thought how can people be poorer than me? Like I was poor, I knew it. Everything that I had with me was something someone had given me. I didn't have anything and yet I had a whole lot more than these kids I was staring at in the face and that trip shook me. It changed so much for me. But one of the things that I remember is I was a nobody from nowhere with nothing to give, and God used it for me to go and serve these people in this other place. You know, if someone had said then that I would eventually become a missions pastor, that I would lead teams around the world, that I would train missionaries or pastors, I would have been like you guys are crazy. You know I'm a nobody from nowhere. If I say Omaha, Arkansas, you're going to be like there's an Omaha in Arkansas. I thought that was in Nebraska, unless you drove to Branson, missouri, years ago, before the new highway was put in. Then you drove right through Omaha, nebraska. It had 297 people in it, and I think that's how Abraham was. He was a nobody.
Speaker 1:And so look at this next line. This is from Genesis, chapter 12. This is where I would say the primary story of Scripture begins, right here in these verses. And the Lord said to Abraham 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, I will bless you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you. So this is Genesis 12, and already we've looked at three different places where the scope of God's command ended with the entire earth. Right, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth right. That's twice, three times in those first few chapters. Again in Genesis 8,. If you read Genesis 10, where you talk about the Tower of Babel and he scatters the people out, another verse that says they went throughout the nations, throughout the world. And then here you can see all the peoples on earth we bless through you.
Speaker 1:I want you to notice when you see the word peoples there. This is a Hebrew word that we would translate probably nations, but you might also think tribes, languages. The best word is probably the Latin word ethne, which we would call ethnic groups, right? This is talking about all the different people. Missiologists would use the word ethnomax. They would say that it means that they have the same language, culture and custom. It's the largest group of people that share language, culture and custom. So for our purposes, I think the easiest way to describe a people group which is kind of the English translation for this word peoples would be like the American Indian. You know that they weren't all the same, right. Be like the American Indian. You know that they weren't all the same, right? You talk about the Navajo and the Comanche and the Apache Indians and all these different places. They all had completely different languages and cultures. So while they might all be called Native Americans, they didn't hang out together. They couldn't even talk to each other. They might have been enemies as bitter as anyone you can imagine, and yet we might just say, oh, they're American Indians, right? So today in our world there's 17,000 unique people groups. That means they have unique culture, custom and language. Some might share the culture or share the language, but have very different customs. So out of the 17,000 people groups on the planet today, there are some that have yet to hear the gospel for the first time Roughly 7,000, about a third of them altogether.
Speaker 1:But look at the scope of this call of Abraham. God says to him he's going to make him great, he's going to bless him, he's going to bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And then it says all the peoples on the earth will bless through you. So let's just talk about that. How was Abraham blessed? What do you know of Abraham? Was he blessed? How was he blessed? What are the things you're aware of? Did he have a large family? He had a family Like. He didn't have any children. So he even said to God you promised me all these things, lord, but I don't have any kids. And the Lord kind of mocked him. He's like you don't trust me, I don't take care of kids. He was already old, right, he's in his nineties. And what has happened? So then Abraham's wife gives him her handmaid and says here, have a child with him, then at least your inheritance won't go to a servant, it will at least go to your own. So he has Ishmael Remember the story and then a year later he has Isaac through Sarah, his wife, and then you have this whole division where the promise of God is going to go through Isaac and Ishmael is sent away.
Speaker 1:And it's a hard story. And it continues to have importance today because all of our Muslim brothers and sisters, all of your Arab background peoples, identify as descendants of Ishmael and they still call themselves sons of Abraham. That's another interesting thing in our world is you have two different, very different groups that are somewhat enemies with each other, that claim the same birthright from Abraham. So this is a very important story, even in our world today. Right, whether you're Jew or Arab or Christian, these are important stories.
Speaker 1:But think about again this idea that the peoples of the earth, all the peoples of the earth, will be blessed through Abraham. So there's a lot of one of my professors I've had in the past talked about the threefold blessing. If you've taken the perspectives class, you've heard this before, but it said the first thing that God did with Abraham was he blessed him materially. He made him a wealthy man. In fact, he was so wealthy that as he moved his herds around. There were different times where the kings that he would interact with would demand some sort of tribute, or he would feel threatened and feel like he needs to do something to hide his wealth. He was so wealthy. And then the second way that it was fulfilled this promise was fulfilled is that God did in fact give him a large family through Isaac. Isaac had two sons and through those sons, one had 12 sons.
Speaker 1:Right, and by the time you get to the end of Genesis, there's many, maybe as many as two million, descendants of Abraham living in Egypt at the time. So you see that fulfillment is that God did bless us. He said that the descendants of Abraham were as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, and so you get this picture. But then, ultimately, what's the ultimate fulfillment? What's the fulfillment? What's the idea that all the families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham? How's that fulfilled most fully, jesus?
Speaker 1:Jesus is a bloodline descendant of Abraham and through him, think about the Great Commission. Jesus speaking to the disciples and say I'm with you. Right? He says all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you and I'm with you always, at the very end of the age, the ultimate fulfillment of this verse Genesis 1, chapter 3, is the person of Jesus, and then the life and the work of the church to make this gospel known. Paul is so convinced of this that he writes in Galatians, chapter 3, that God forgave I can't remember the right word. He pre-told the gospel to Abraham. Now, if I was to ask you, what is the gospel? How would you answer?
Speaker 1:me, it's definitely the New Testament. Someone I heard whispered Jesus, it's like the right answer in any class, jesus. But think about this what is the gospel? Let's help me, like you've been in church life, death, resurrection, literal translations, the good news right Jesus, I love Jesus. Words he says repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. God is drawn near to you. The good news your sins can be forgiven, you can be in right relationship All of those things are the gospel. So how does Paul say that God revealed the gospel to Abraham 2,000 years before Jesus existed? Abraham 2,000 years before Jesus existed.
Speaker 1:He did. He provided the picture. But the same God that draws near to us in the life of Jesus was the same God that drew near to Abraham in Genesis 12. The same God that drew near to all of these. So, when you get to Hebrews 11, and it talks about these heroes of the faith, they had faith in Abraham. He was willing to sacrifice his one and only son, isaac. And then it goes on to all these other heroes of the faith. Well, all of them were counted righteousness for the faith that they had, even though the fullness had not been revealed at that time. It says they were looking forward to a city not built by human hands. Right, like this idea that the gospel was still being revealed, but they had faith and lived by it, even though they didn't see it fully fulfilled within their day. I would say we have that same faith. Looking back, it's hard to see it 2,000 years removed, right, there's moments where it seems like it's fantastic, like it's too good to believe, right, but it's that same faith that allows us to act tangibly, behave in a way that says our faith is bigger than our questions, right? So this idea that God has been pursuing from the very beginning of time, all the peoples of the earth is really clear right here in Genesis, chapter 3. Genesis, chapter 12. John Stott says that in these three verses you can find encapsulated the full heart and passion of God that was revealed in Jesus, this idea that through Abraham's ascendance, all the peoples of the earth be blessed. This is a really clear early statement of the Great Commission.
Speaker 1:Some people have this idea that the Great Commission is an afterthought of Jesus' ministry. You know like he's lived his whole life. He went through the cross. Now he's resurrected, he's about to be ascended into heaven. He's like, oh wait, before I go, guys don't want to forget but it actually exclamation point of a whole life, lived for this same purpose, right, his very ministry, most of those three years in Galilee, among the Gentiles. He even says to them I didn't come to serve you, I came to serve God's people. But where did you do all of this work? It was in the northern part of Israel. He didn't start in the capital. If we were designing a really good strategy, we would have started in Jerusalem and worked out from there. Jesus did the opposite. He went to the furthest extreme part of northern Israel and does almost all of his ministry for three years there and then ends his life in the capital. And it's such an interesting thing that Jesus lived a life that was engaging both Jews and Gentiles throughout his three years of ministry. Okay, so here we go.
Speaker 1:Next question what do you think about this idea that Abraham was blessed? I already gave you some of the answers here. What do you think he means when God says to Abraham I'm going to bless you, abraham. What are some ways that God blessed Abraham? His relationship with God? That's a big deal. Yeah, how do you interpret the word bless? If I said to Jim Jim, you've been such a blessing to me, what does that mean to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, abraham was, yeah, yeah, in our everyday walk, how do you bless one another? How do you bless your friends or family? What do you do? You encourage them. You're kind to them. You maybe say something nice to them when they're having a hard time. If it's your kids're kind to them, you maybe say something nice to them when they're having a hard time. If it's your kids, maybe you give them some money. You do something.
Speaker 1:My kids are very blessed when I buy them Icy's. It's like if they go out with Dad. They know they think If I ever don't get them something, they're somewhat irritated with me. They're like what are we getting today? That ice cream or icy icy is 99 cents. So icies are great, but, um, faithfulness, yeah for sure. Like when you read the first 10 chapters of scripture, you almost see god cast as like this angry, frustrated, somewhat irritated. I'm going to reject them because of their sin. I wish I'd never even made them. But by the time you get to 12, god is very stable in Abraham, right. Even when Abraham makes these big mistakes, god's faithfulness is like, directed towards him.
Speaker 1:In fact, one of the great things about that promise in Genesis 12 is the promise is not incumbent or inherent on the people, that the person that received the promise. There's these places in scripture where you find these statements are called if, then statements. If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray, then I will hear from heaven and heal their land. You guys heard those verses before. So for the promise, the then statement, what has to happen, the if has to happen. Right, it's a contingent promise. If you do this, then I'll do this. But this promise right here is contingent on only the promise giver. I will bless you. I will curse those who curse you and all the nations there who are blessed. So if this promise doesn't come to fulfillment, whose character is impugned? God's character Himself. It's a big deal.
Speaker 1:It's a major part of this conversation, alright, so let's keep going. You get this idea that God has called Abraham and he makes this covenant with Abraham and it's for the nations, and he makes this covenant with Abraham and it's for the nation. So you can see that this passage Genesis 12, 1-3, we call it a missional mandate. It's not a conditional mandate, right? This is a? Again, it puts the onus, the responsibility, on the person making the promise. So Genesis 12 shows that God's clear intention is that by blessing Abraham and his descendants, he would be blessing all the nations, tribes, tongues and peoples of the planet. The fulfillment of this promise rests entirely on the character of the promise maker, on God alone. So here we go.
Speaker 1:Another question here for us. Oh, I already gave you this answer, I just jumped all over the place already, guys. So the three-fold fulfillment of this Abrahamic promise God did indeed bless Abraham with wealth, descendants and fame. Right, and think about those descendants, the Israelites. He gave them Canaan through the story of Joshua and the conquest, and then you've got the kingdom, first with Saul, then David Solomon and then the kings. And then that ultimate blessing we already talked about of Abraham is the blood descendant, jesus, who walks on this earth as the ultimate blessing to the Jews and to the nations there's.
Speaker 1:Actually, paul develops this theology in a major way. Over and over again he talks about how we as Gentiles are grafted in to the family of Abraham right. And then he also makes a whole case in Hebrews how the true Jew is not one who has the blood of Abraham, but the one who has a relationship with God of Abraham Right. And he takes away this idea that the ultimate Jew is not the person who is a bloodline relative or part of the tribes, it's the one who is grafted into Abraham's true lineage as a follower of the God of Abraham.
Speaker 1:And so this is that verse from Galatians 3.8. It says Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham, saying All the nations would bless through you. And so the announcement of Abraham to Abraham in Genesis 3 is a precursor to the gospel itself Good news for all people, jew and Gentile alike. All Christians today are spiritual descendants of Abraham. So let's look at Galatians 3, 29. Somebody open your Bible and let's read that one who wants to read that for us? I need a volunteer, alright, thanks, thank you.
Speaker 4:The scripture preceded that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. Preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying All the nations will be blessed in you 329?
Speaker 3:3.29.
Speaker 1:There we go. Those two work together really well. Right, the 3.8 passage that all the nations will be blessed and that God foresaw in Abraham. But then that verse 29, that God foresaw in Abraham. But then that verse 29, that if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. What promise it's, this promise? It's the Genesis 12, 1 through 3 promise. It's the Genesis 12, 1 through 3 promise that if you are in Christ, then God is saying to you. Paul says that if you're in Christ, god is saying to you I'll bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you. You are heirs according to that promise. Okay, so what's the scope of the promise that God has given you? You understand Scope. How big is the implications of the promise that God has given to you? His heir, according to the promise, come on the nations Guys. God has blessed you so that, through you, he can bless all the peoples of the earth. Have you ever realized that God has a global purpose for you? No, every single one of us that's in Christ. You're an heir according to that same promise. According to Paul and I got to tell you this is like OG Paul when I say OG original Paul Like Galatians is probably the very first book of the New Testament.
Speaker 1:Did you know that? What I mean by that? If you were to be living in the first century and you were trying to figure out what is all these things that these guys are talking about? The first written material is probably the book of Galatians.
Speaker 1:Some people argue that James might have been written early, like that, but they don't interact at all. James' book is kind of like standalone, it's almost like one one off. It doesn't interact with any of the New Testament books. Someone could argue that one was early 45, 48, something like that but Galatians is right there in that same time frame. And since Paul and his disciple Luke wrote most of the rest of the book, most of the rest of that New Testament.
Speaker 1:It seems really important to me that the first letter that Paul wrote was this letter to the churches of Galatia who were struggling. They were struggling because someone showed up after Paul planted those churches and told them that they were going to be Christians. They had to be Jews first, they had to be circumcised and abide by the law or they couldn't be Christians and the whole book of Galatians is this argument Paul's making, saying why have you departed so quickly? What I gave you, you've taken on a yoke that we can't even carry. The Jews already know we can't live by all those laws. Remember he also had a letter with him from James the apostle that says don't eat meat, sacrifice idle and abstain from sexual immorality. Those are the only laws we want you to keep and that really protects the relationship with the Jews. Of all the Ten Commandments, to nail it down, why did they pick those two? Well, I'm like rambling all over the place, guys, sorry.
Speaker 1:What I want you to see is for Paul, these verses that define Christianity in this place, where you're linked into the promise of Abraham, it's center, it's core to his theology, and you see it reiterated in almost all of his letters in some form, especially Romans, especially Hebrews, which someone can argue wasn't Paul, pauline but not Paul. Some anyway argue who wrote Hebrews, but if, if Galatians is the first letter of the New Testament, hebrews is one of the last letter of the New Testament. Hebrews is one of the last letters of the New Testament. So it's really cool to juxtapose those. You get early Paul and late Paul-ish, because not necessarily Paul, but someone Pauline Okay, all over the place. So Paul writes that that promise was literally the Scriptures announcing in advance to Abraham the gospel itself. What a big, beautiful thing that is.
Speaker 1:So Ralph Winter he's a missiologist that passed away a few years ago. He said this Abrahamic covenant becomes a guiding light through your entire Bible, shaping the purpose and mission of God's people. This guiding light shines beyond the ancient Israelites and the land, squarely on the gathering of God's people, the modern church, which is now charged with fulfilling the mission of blessing all the nations. So when you think about this, when you think about the Old Testament way that the Israelites fulfilled this mission, how do you see it? It's obscured at best. It's really hard to see, in fact, the places where you see the Old Testament engaging in blessing of exterior nations. It's almost accidental.
Speaker 1:And when I say that, you might think of the story of Jonah. Jonah hated the Ninevites, literally hated them. At the end of Jonah you find out he doesn't not want to go to Jonah or to Nineveh because he's afraid of them, which it kind of makes you think about that the Ninevites are the superpower of the world. At the time They've already destroyed the 10 southern tribes of Israel. They've disappeared, they're gone. And you can get all kinds of reasons why Jonah doesn't like the Ninevites, but at the end, jonah's accusation to God was that you are a God who is abounding in love and slow to anger, and I knew that you would relent. That was the reason why Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh because he knew that God would forgive them.
Speaker 1:It's like the worst missionary in the entire Bible, with the best results. Do you know why it's the best results? The entire city repents. Man. If you ever wondered if you could be faithful and useful in the mission field, I'm just going to tell you you can. Even if you're really bad, you can Like. Jonah is the example, the worst example of mission and missions history, and so successful. I mean he is so successful that he is miserable. These are the people he hates and God's saving them, and he's going to sit up there and say God, why me? Just kill me now. I'd rather die in this stupid heat than see these people come to faith. Like literally. That's the kind of language he's using and the story.
Speaker 1:I love the Jonah story because he doesn't give us an answer. He doesn't tell us what he did? Did he go back in and disciple them and teach them how to follow God? Does he die in the desert? I think he doesn't, because we have the story Somebody wrote it down Right but beyond that, it just leaves us this big picture of God's willingness to send us people. But that's like one.
Speaker 1:Can you think of another example where God sent his people to foreigners and foreigners were blessed? Oh yeah, paul's missionary journeys, for sure. I'm thinking Old Testament. Old Testament examples? There's not many, there are a few. There's this, most of the stories where the other nations are blessed, or when they come to Israel, like Naaman, the Syrian general that had leprosy. He comes and he thinks it's ridiculous. Why am I going to bathe in this muddy Jordan? There's beautiful lakes and rivers in my own country. Why, if you came and had to offer a million dollars, you would have given. But now it's something simple. Just do the simple thing. His little servant gives him such good advice and God heals him.
Speaker 1:Or you think of the Nebuchadnezzar story. He took all the Israelites into captivity and while he's there, three different times in Daniel we find Nebuchadnezzar praising the Lord Most High and the last time when his sanity is restored. He's like God of the Israelites, is the God of heaven. He's the Most High God of all the places. You see this almost salvation experience of a king of. At that time, pre-assyria, babylon was the superpower in the world. You see God using his people to make the nations know him, but you do not see his people intentionally engaging other nations for the purpose of their own deliverance. You don't really see that until the New Testament.
Speaker 1:Again, jonah being kind of the stark, unique idea. Daniel's another beautiful picture as an exile in another country, showing and living out the heart of God's people in a foreign environment, a pagan environment we would probably call it a fairly what's the word? Aggressively opposing environment. Right, like they didn't just not like Israelites, they were slaughtering them and Daniel's willing to serve them faithfully. So now you get to the New Testament and you see the way God's people begin to take on this mission of God, and it's slow. Jesus tells them go make disciples. And then they go right out and start doing it. Right, they hide in a room, they're afraid they're going to get crucified, like Jesus was crucified. And then God sends his helper, the Holy Spirit, and all of a sudden they're filled with this fervor, this vision, this energy, and immediately you begin to see this fire, not only the vision of the fire on their heads but the impact of that fire in the lives of people that interact with him. Right Within that first day, 3,000 are added to their number. And then the next chapter says that daily are those who are being added to their number. And then by the time you get to chapter 5 of Acts, the church has grown from the 3,000 to 5,000 to says 5,000, just counting the men. Some people estimate it might have been 3,000 to 5,000 to it says 5,000, just counting the men. Some people estimate it might have been 15,000 people in the city of 25,000 at the time. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:By the time you get to chapter 7 and you hear the story of the deacon Stephen and his stoning and his death, the church is so overwhelming the city that the religious leaders are furious Right, they're furious, someone's going to die. Church is so overwhelming the city that the religious leaders are furious, right, they're furious, someone's going to die. Jesus already had, but this is now gone a hundred times worse. There was about 500 when Jesus died. Now we have 15 to 20,000 believers gathering in the temple courts every day.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine if a faith that wasn't represented in this church showed up here and worshipped every day? It'd make you mad, you know. If you were a pastor you'd be like what are we going to do with this thing? Like the Pentecostals are showing up here every day at four and taking over the place. Like what are we going to do? That's kind of what the Pharisees were dealing with. Like there's 15,000 people gathering daily in the courts of the Jews' temple to worship God, and they're worshiping this Jesus who we just crucified a couple of years ago. This isn't okay. It was a big deal. And from the moment that Stephen dies through the end of the New Testament, there were no large church gatherings and buildings. Do you know that From that point on, acts, chapter 8, to the end of the book, there are no churches like what we have today? None, they didn't emerge again until the third century, after Constantine allows Christianity freedoms. So imagine that From the temple courts to roughly 323 AD, there's not a single large church building that was erected. So if you ever find some of these oldest churches in the world, they're always built in that time frame 320, 330, 340 AD because before that it was illegal Guys, this blessing to the peoples, especially first century.
Speaker 1:As you see Paul start embarking on his missionary journeys. He's taking this gospel to the nations with this passion that God gave them. So how can you respond to the call of God to be a blessing to the nations? How do we make that personal? What are ways that you and I can interact with this particular calling? It's a promise, but it also has a calling Pray, pray, absolutely Pray, pray, give and go. Those are like three good slogans. There's more, there are other ways we can do that.
Speaker 1:But another one was advocate right, talk to people about what's happening in the world, be aware, educate yourself Like did you know that a third of the world's peoples, almost two billion people on the planet, have yet to hear the gospel for the very first time? They can be born, live their entire life and die never hearing the message of the gospel. It's something like this In their entire people group's history they've never known Jesus, so their grandparents didn't have access to the gospel and their grandparents didn't have access Like. Their entire history is outside of the work of the God that we love Roughly 2 billion people on the planet.
Speaker 1:Jesus said that all the nations will be blessed through Abraham. Jesus told the disciples go, make disciples of all the nations. And John prophesied that one day, before God's throne, there'll be people from every single tribe, tongue and language and nation on the planet. So we know that there's a task that remains to be fulfilled. It's not done yet, but it is happening. We're moving towards that. But God has called His people, each one of us, to be a part of this blessing, to be a part of this calling.
Speaker 1:So I think some people think that when we receive God's blessings, oftentimes we receive the blessing as if it's just for us, even our Western form of salvation. We confess our sins, we ask Jesus to forgive us, we want to grow, get involved in the church. And then what? Stay involved in the church, maybe give more, get involved more. We talk about heaven, which I think is fantastic. We should. But how often in your Christian life has someone told you that you have a responsibility to take the gospel to the lost? It's not just to come and enjoy the benefits of the gospel. That's fantastic and it's a wonderful byproduct, but it's not the purpose. The purpose is that, through you, god is going to reach people that I can't reach without you, Every single believer, is a new stream of gospel output into places that I don't have access to. But God has given you unique access to Right. So again, I would call it your classic.
Speaker 1:The last 50 years, maybe even 100 years, the classic education and training for Christian growth church has been called the church growth movement. Have you guys heard called the church growth movement? Because heard of the church growth movement and it postulates it's like it has this idea that if churches continue to grow, then eventually it will encompass all the peoples of the planet. Right, if we can get enough people to come to church, then eventually everyone will hear. Do you have that? You what I'm talking about? Why is that concept flawed?
Speaker 1:It's not Jesus' model. It's definitely not Jesus' model. We never see him set up a super mega church in Galilee. Bring them all here, we'll heal them all every night. We didn't see Jesus do that at all. So definitely it's not his model. It's not Jesus' instruction either. Oh, it's definitely like Kelly, you got it. It's not his instruction either.
Speaker 1:But here's the problem. If that is our model, it only goes so far as your language, culture and custom can take it, and then you run into these huge barriers and those barriers prevent people from understanding. Unless those barriers are overcome and to cross those barriers it takes, I would call it, excessive effort. You have to learn languages, you have to fund someone to live among them, you have to understand their culture and custom and worldview, and that's really hard. In fact, I would tell you, it's impossible.
Speaker 1:Has anyone in here learned a second language? Anyone Kind of your English is your second language, right, okay? So when you learn a second language and you've been living in this second language for a lot of your life now but the most difficult thing in a second language is understanding what I would call a street language. It's the language that everyone talks, not the one you learn. All right. So here's a fun example.
Speaker 1:My second language is Spanish, which is her first language, and I'm in Mexico. I'm trying to learn this language. I'm terrible at it. You know, I tried to convince my wife we should go to language school before we moved to Mexico. She's like no, we'll be fine, just go there without the language. He's like, no, we're fine, so go there without the language. We weren't fine, but it was okay. And so my language even now Spanish is really.
Speaker 1:My Spanish is bad, but there's a word mano means hand, right. And I just hear these people all the time calling each other hands, mano, mano, mano, and I'm like I just don't get this and it just makes no sense to me. Well, well, it's the shortened version of hermano, which is brother, right? Well then I realized pretty much all of the language that they're speaking around me are slang terms like that. So, like I don't have any idea. Yeah, exactly, it's like Spanglish. Or we, we joke in the valley, you know it's puro baile. Like if they speak. Or we joke in the valley, you know it's puro valle. Like they speak a different language in McAllen, that's some combined version of Spanglish. It's English and Mexican, but they don't all say the same, so there's words like in the valley.
Speaker 1:You hear someone say I'm going to put my car in the parquear. Like parquear. They've combined the word park and I don't even know estacionmento is parking, but they say parquear and everyone knows that that means parking, except for people that don't speak that language, because I have no idea what parquear means. It's not in any book you can find anywhere. My point is trying to share the gospel in a way that someone that doesn't speak your language can fully understand is an extremely difficult thing, and so your natural growth of the church will never surpass those cultural customs and language without intentional focus and energy and resource. And so, guys, I want you to see that if we think that the blessings of God are just for us, it will never go beyond us. If we think that the blessings of God are just for us, it will never go beyond us.
Speaker 1:There's lots of stories throughout history where God's people have become almost so blessed by God that they had so much that the nations around them came and took it all away from them. You might think about the Vikings in Northern Europe. They literally sacked and massacred and raped and kidnapped all across Northern Europe. And you know where the places? They attacked the churches, because the churches were where all the money was being held, it's where the places of learning were, it was where all the monasteries had the virgin girls Like. They literally went to all these places because of all these hyper-focused things that the church was doing and they just ransacked it. And here's the crazy thing you know who? The first seafaring missionaries were Descendants of the Vikings. You know, when you try to find out, how did the Vikings come to faith. It was through the testimony of some of those ladies that they kidnapped and made their wives. They had children. They taught their children the gospel and those children grew up to become Christian Vikings, and the first missionaries to cross the Atlantic Ocean were the descendants of the Vikings who massacred and murdered all the Christians in Europe.
Speaker 1:What in the world were you doing, god? It's like the worst, but one of the lessons is if God's people choose to hoard His blessings, he eventually is going to give it away. That's a warning to the church today Is that if we don't use the blessings that he's intended for the nations, eventually the nations will come and take it. John Piper, who is, I don't know some people call him the evangelical pope today. He's a theologian, lives in Minneapolis. He's quite elderly now but still writing a prolific writer.
Speaker 1:He said that missions is not the ultimate goal of the church, worship is. He says that missions exist because worship doesn't. The reason why we take the gospel to the lost is because they were created for God's purposes. They were created to be His identity and His representatives. They were created for His mission and yet they're not glorifying Him with their lives. That's why we go. That's why we take the gospel to the lost so that they can do the very thing that they were created for be worshipers of God.
Speaker 1:And so the goal of the Abrahamic blessing in Genesis, chapter 3, there in chapter 12, it's not to try to boost or make this God famous. What it is, it's to help all the peoples of the earth come and know the very God that created them for His purposes. It's all about Him. So, throughout the Scriptures, the theme that is constant is that God is working through His people to call all of the peoples of the earth to Himself. From the patriarchs to the psalms, to the prophets, the apostles, the same truth is evident this promise to bless all the peoples of the earth will be fulfilled by God's people. Guys, that is why we're here. It's so that through us, others will know him and eventually, through them, the whole world will know.
Speaker 1:So here's some more questions. If God spoke this to you today, if you walk in here like I don't know, chad, you made a decent case. Let me think about this some more. And eventually you're convinced that this is God speaking, that he's created you for a purpose that goes beyond yourself and your salvation, and you're going to heaven. Those are all good, but there's a purpose that goes beyond that. How should you respond? What is God asking you to do differently?
Speaker 1:The next question is how does God speak to His people today? The next question is how does God speak to His people today? The same way he talked to Abraham? Does it look the same? Does it feel the same? Maybe it seems more people do things like this. They go to a church or a class and they open God's Word. Maybe they hear a pastor preaching about God's Word.
Speaker 1:But guys, seek Him, know him, discern his voice. I don't want you to go home and hear Chad's voice trying to convince you to take on this task of the nations. Good grief, it's an overwhelming burden for anyone. The last thing I want you to do is feel bad about it. I want you to know that God's calling you, so you need to know how to hear Him.
Speaker 1:So, before you leave, I would ask you think about what is God saying to you, not what is Chad saying to you. What is God saying to you Over the next several days? I would ask you read through these verses. Read through this section of Genesis 12. Look at the next several verses. God takes some time with Abraham and walks through this covenant relationship. And it's some weird stuff dreams and smoke and things getting burned up and dividing beasts in half. There's a lot of stuff in there, but all of it is pointing back to this, this promise that he's developing this relationship between God and Abraham, and it's going to define the future of Abraham's descendants, which becomes a core theology for the New Testament. How do you hear from God today and what is he saying to you? And then the last question there is what are two ways that you will respond to what God is saying? What are some things that you're going to do differently as you leave today? Like I said, next week we're going to be around tables and I think it will be a little more conducive to having some of those conversations there at the table. But I really do hope that this is encouraging for you. We're going to pray before we leave, but I want you to make sure you have my contact information so you can send me an email or send me a text or a phone call. If I don't answer, I'll try to call you back as soon as I can. Texts do seem to be easier these days, but I'll be praying for you. I hope you signed up. I'll try to send you a recap email before the end of the week so you can kind of think through these things again. A recap email before the end of the week so you can kind of think through these things again.
Speaker 1:Nobody is from nowhere, right With nothing to give and really no hope to do much in this life. If you had interviewed 12-year-old Chad from Omaha, arkansas and it really is only by the grace of God that anything good has come out of it but I think about all the good that has it's just a miraculous thing that God could take any one of us and use us for His kingdom and His glory. And how much more so. Someone was so little Like. If you knew me, you would know like. It's even less than that. My parents were divorced. My mom was adopted Like there isn't. I'm a nobody from nowhere. You don't get any more nobody than I do. And yet God uses us, despite our flaws, our brokenness. You know, another beautiful thing about our amazing scriptures is that nobody in there except for one is perfect. There are a bunch of messy people just like us, and somehow God uses it. He literally has used His people throughout history, to retain the understanding and knowledge of God for all generations.
Speaker 1:He has a purpose for you. If you're here, you have a purpose and that purpose relates somehow to this promise to bless those who bless you, curse you, and bless all the nations of the earth we bless through us, through you, let's pray, father, we thank you so much for your word. We pray, god, that you would help us to learn how to be your people. God, to represent you moment by moment throughout each day. God, that people would see us and God, they would glorify you, they would see your work in us and, god, they would be amazed, father, they would fall in love with you. We pray, god, that you would help us to not be the last link in this chain. That, god, others generations would come because of our faithfulness. That they would hear about your love. That they would love you and lead others to love you. Father, we pray that you would be with us as we go. That we would not only hear your word but, god, we would obey your word as well. Help us to know how to respond and be your people wherever you send us. God, we thank you in Jesus' name, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:We've got a couple more minutes. Do you guys have any questions or comments? This is a seven-week class, so this was week one. We'll do six more like this and then the second half of the semester. I'm designing and writing another seven-week class that's called Equipped to Serve. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's really about how do you discover your gifts and learn how to use them for God's purposes. So if you choose to stay through the semester, we'll walk through this first seven sessions and then go into more of this gift discovery and coaching on how to use them for God's purposes. So idea here is we're going to focus on God's heart and then see what he's given us to participate with his work. So keep that in mind. We'd love to see you back, but if you have any questions or thoughts, we've got a couple minutes. Do you guys have any comments? But if you have any questions or thoughts, we got a couple minutes. You guys have any any comments? You guys are like so quiet.
Speaker 2:We have the idea how long it was from the time God told Abraham gave him a promise until, let's say, isaac was born, and was there any time frame? I mean talk about faith.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, of course he faltered there are some charts I don't know that anyone has. There's no definition so I would say it's best guesses. But seeing how terah, abraham's father, began the movement towards canaan before abraham did, there is speculation that abraham's father also had a relationship with God and that maybe this was something that Abraham had grown up knowing God. So maybe there is a relationship there. Historically, the place that's called Ur doesn't have any. There's no geological or archaeological record of them being followers of the Most High, so it's really hard there that whole part. Erutu is the name of the region of Turkey in that.