“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3)
Join us as we begin our series on Biblical Visions, looking at the vision God had for Abraham and his descendants.
As recorded at St. Luke’s
What kind of vision?
We have labelled this year, the year of discernment. As we enter the last third of the year, having spent time, praying, discussing and collecting thoughts and ideas, it is now time to actually discern, to decide what God’s vision is for our churches in the coming years.
But what does a vision look like? It will involve a rational, description and plan of what we want to achieve in the next five years, but hopefully we will be able to come up with a simple vision statement that will encapsulate what we think God wants to be doing with us in the rest of the decade.
To get a flavour of this, I wonder if you can guess which companies had these as their vision statements:
- “Communications empowering people to accomplish more.” – Zoom
- “A global force of learning through play.” – Lego
- “We see a world where everybody is an athlete—united in the joy of movement.” – Nike
- “To create a better everyday life for the many people.” – Ikea
- “To make the best products on earth and to leave the world better than we found it.” – Apple
- “To provide access to the world’s information in one click.” – Google
- “To make people happy.” – Disney
Now, you could be cynical and say, that really the main vision of all these companies is really to make as much money as possible for their shareholders.
But the vision statements do seek to show the good that each company is seeking to create for others. They are not about making money, they are about making a difference. And they are ambitious statements, showing they want to have a large positive impact, they perhaps in Biblical language show how they want to bless the world and most of us have been blessed by their work.
When we come to the Bible, vision statements are not on the whole provided by human beings, but by God. After all the Bible tells the story of God’s initiative to bring blessing to the world. It is his vision for transformation that drives the story of the Bible forward and that drives us as his people today.
So, as we come to consider what God’s vision for us in Ramsgate over the next five years might be, it is worth reflecting on some of the vision statements given in the Bible. Today, we start with perhaps the most important one, God’s calling of Abraham, and it is all about blessing.
Immense Blessing – For Abraham, Eph. 1:3, Psalm 1
In the verses we read, Abraham is called to a new life, a way from all that is familiar, his country, his people and family to take part in God’s mission. This is a key moment in the Bible story, the beginning of God’s dealings with Abraham and his descendants that will continue through the rest of the book. Indeed, arguably, the rest of the Bible is about how the promises in these few verses are fulfilled bit by bit.
When you read the verses, that is not surprising. The vision that Abraham is called into, is positive and ambitious. He will be blessed, he will become a great nation and have a great name and through him the whole world will be blessed. It is a vision worthy of a twenty-first century AD multi-national company, given to a twenty-first century BC solitary individual, by the God who created the universe.
But what is meant by the word, ‘Bless?’ Our world today seems increasingly focusses on our inner feelings and emotions. We want to feel and be happy, to be mentally healthy and resilient. Perhaps when you are looking for a spiritual blessing, you are hoping to feel better as a result.
But, I think the idea of blessing is richer and more real than that. To be blessed is to be successful, to be and do the kind of things God has made us to be and do. To flourish and be fruitful.
The first thing God does to humans after creating them is to bless them:
“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”” (Gen. 1:28)
This blessing is to do with growth of family and an ability to have power to rule over the world in order to be able to bless it ourselves. It is not an inner feeling but external success, something solid and real.
Later in the first Psalm, we are reminded that blessing comes to those who take God’s word seriously:
“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” (Psalm 1:1-3)
Again there is a sense of solidity – a tree planted, of flourishing, a tree planted by streams of water, whose leaf does not whither and of fruitfulness, yielding its fruit. This is substantial, real and wonderful.
When it comes to the New Testament, Jesus begins his first section of teaching in Matthew with the beatitudes, telling us that the people who have God’s attitudes are the ones who will be blessed. But the same sermon teaches us to look for blessing or success not in earthly wealth, but in heavenly rewards, that although less visible are no less real. Indeed, Jesus stresses that earthly riches are not real blessing, because they can be stolen or rot away. It is riches in heaven that is the true treasure and Paul says in Ephesians, that for those in Christ, we have truly been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm!
God had a very specific blessing for Abraham, it was unique to him. But, God from beginning to end wants to show immense blessing to all people, who will come and follow him.
- So should expect the vision that God has for us to be about blessing? A blessing for us that involves, a flourishing and fruitfulness as churches.
If that is the case, why over recent times has there been so much decline? Perhaps we should not be presumptuous about God’s blessing. After all, Psalm 1, says it is those who take God’s word seriously to live by that are blessed. Does that truly describe us?
And in Ephesians, Paul says that the blessings are for those that are “in Christ.” Are we truly, ‘in Christ’? Is our commitment and loyalty to him at the heart of our lives or just a bit of an add on? Jesus himself promises that those who ‘remain in him’ will bear much fruit, but he also warns that dead branches will be pruned away.
We need to examine our hearts, rather than presume on God’s blessing.
Even for Abraham, God’s blessing involved letting go. He had to leave his home, his people and his family in order for God to bless him. Are there things God is calling us to let go of in order for him to better be able to bless us?
Even when our hearts are in the right place and we are obedient to God’s call, however, God’s blessing will not necessarily be immediate. At times it may seem impossible.
Impossible Blessing – Faith in the promise, Heb. 11:8-11
Genesis 12:1-3, contain God’s amazing promise to Abraham, but it is not a promise that is fulfilled immediately. It takes hundreds of years to come to pass.
The story of the Bible is the struggle between God’s promise for a greater future and the reality of present futility.
This is particularly clear for Abraham. God promises that he will become a great nation and makes it clear in subsequent verses that this will involve him having a large number of descendants, as many as the sand on the seashore or the stars in the sky. But for Abraham this seems impossible, he is very old and his wife is childless. You can’t have grandchildren if you don’t have children!
But despite the futility of his situation and the seeming lack of blessing, Abraham trusts in God’s promise of impossible blessing. Eventually, God does bless him and his barren wife, Sarah with just one son, Isaac. By the end of Genesis, Abraham’s descendants his great-grandchildren number 70 or so. It is not until hundreds of years have passed that his family has truly grown to the size of a nation – but by then they are slaves in Egypt, without their own land, the land that God promises them.
That futile situation sets up the next stage of God fulfilling his impossible promise – we’ll come to that next week.
The point is, though, that despite the seeming futility of his situation, Abraham believes God’s promise. He has faith in God’s future blessing:
” By faith Abraham, even though he was past age–and Sarah herself was barren–was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.” (Heb. 11:11)
Abraham did not focus on what the futility of his situation suggested was impossible, but on the promise that God gave him.
- When it comes to God’s vision for our churches, if God calls us into a vision of what seems from a human perspective to be impossible, we must be willing to have faith like Abraham. To trust that the God who brought the universe out of nothing and a child from Sarah’s barren womb can also bring any blessing to us that he promises.
Let’s not be afraid of seemingly impossible visions – as long as they truly are visions from God.
International Blessing – For Outsiders
So, God’s vision for Abraham was for an immense blessing, even though it seemed to be an impossible blessing. But it was also a vision for a blessing beyond Abraham himself. God’s vision was that through Abraham, all nations would be blessed.
God blessed Abraham in order that Abraham could bless others.
This is shown in a number of ways in the story of Genesis, but perhaps most powerfully in the story of Joseph, one of Abraham’s great-grandchildren. Joseph was rejected by his own brothers, sold into slavery and proclaimed as dead to his father, Jacob. He was taken as a slave to Egypt, but through his God given ability to interpret dreams was able to interpret an especially troubling dream of Pharaoh, Egypt’s king. The result was that he was made Prime Minister of Egypt and was able to store up food ready for a terrible famine. As a result when the famine came, Egypt was fed as were many other nations and peoples. Joseph proved a blessing to many nations and was eventually reconciled to his family.
In a sense God’s promise to bless all nations was achieved through Joseph, but it was achieved most powerfully, through Abraham’s most important descendant, Jesus. He too was rejected by his brothers and actually killed. Yet, Jesus was raised up to God, not Pharaoh’s right hand and offers blessing to people from all nations that will come to him. We are part of the representatives of that 4,000 year old promise being fulfilled.
- All of this, however, reminds us that God’s vision is not just to bless his people, but for his people to be a blessing to the wider world. Whatever, vision we discern from God, will have this aspect to it. We will want not just to look to be flourishing churches, but churches that are bringing people to share in the blessings Jesus has won for us and blessing our town and its people in real and positive ways.
We are already doing this in a number of ways: Cafe4All, Play and Praise, the opening up of our buildings to the wider community, the community meal and community pastors. There are even plans for new ways, like the after school club at St. Luke’s. Do we see these activities as ways in which we are achieving God’s vision to bless all nations, given to Abraham 4,000 years ago?
The God of Blessing
God created a world and blessed it! He called Abraham and blessed him! More than that his vision was for Abraham to be a blessing.
The question we face as individuals daily and as churches going forward is, how does God want us to be a blessing to his world today? When we can answer that with confidence we will have our vision statement!
St. George's Church Ramsgate 