Blessed

The sermon this Sunday was from Genesis 12:1-5 (for listen or download, you can go here) and was the first message in a series we are doing called We are the Church.  It focuses on Abram's call and mission to leave everything and go to a place God will show him.  It's easy to casually read over Abram's willingness to follow God in this situation.  It would've taken Abram tremendous trust and faith to leave everything and do what God is calling him to do.

I believe the point of the text is the purpose of the church.  God establishes this mission for Abram, then in Exodus, God expands the mission to apply to an entire people group: the Jews.  Then in the New Testament letter to the Galatian church, Paul writes in 3:29 that "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs to the promise."

In other words, the promise God gave Abram is still active for those who belong to Christ.  What this means, is Abram's mission is the church's mission.  And that mission, if you read 2-3 carefully, is to be a blessing.  The main idea I shared on Sunday is that we are blessed to be a blessing.

And we are blessed with everything that we have in Christ.  Being blessed isn't only about being wealthy, or healthy or getting our way, the kind of blessing I'm talking about is spiritual.  God's love, grace, mercy, justice and forgiveness that's available to anyone who chooses to belong to Christ, that's the blessing.  We have the greatest blessing to share, we just have to share it without an agenda.

I'll talk more about that in the next blog.  For now, I pray that you might be a blessing to someone this week, because if you belong to Christ, then that's your mission, that's your purpose, that's your calling!