Why is it Important to See God is a Missionary God? – (Gen. 12:1-20)
Quote: God only had one Son and He sent Him to earth as a missionary. W. T. Watson
Quote: For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory both now and to day of eternity. (Rom. 11:35,36)
1. God is a Lord of promises. (Gen. 12:1-15) God gave a great promise to Abraham which we are now able to participate in. The emphasis is on what God would do far more than on what Abraham was expecting to attempt. There was a triple fulfillment of the promise:
A. The promise was partially fulfilled in Abraham’s day and throughout the period of the OT.
B. The promise was fully portrayed in the life of Jesus.
C. The promise will be perfectly fulfilled at the end of the age.
D. The promise is now being fulfilled as He builds His church.We must understand the grounds upon which missions rest otherwise we will tend to give in to the hostile, apathetic or incorrect views that people have about the great commission.
Many people think that the Christian missionary enterprise is politically disruptive and religiously narrow-minded because it makes exclusive claims that Jesus is the only way to salvation. People say, “Religion is my own affair. You mind your business and I’ll mind mine.” Only when we understand the Lord’s attributes as one who gives His love to the whole world, every tribe, every tongue, every people and every nation (Rev. 5:9) will we fully be able to worship, obey and trust Him in all things.
2. God desires and commands that we worship Him alone. Only when we worship God, Christ and the Holy Spirit as a missionary God – true apostle (sent forth one) will we be able to have the perseverance, courage, humility and love to be effectively involved in the missionary enterprise.
3. God is an overcoming God who makes us more than conquerors through Him who loves us. (Rom. 8:37,38) We can then claim the promise, “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:21) Allow the life of Christ to overflow, overshadow and overpower any oppositionary force to the advancement of Christ’s church and kingdom. (Matt 16:18) Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
4. God can only be understood when we love, trust and obey Him. (John 14:21) Jesus said, “He who has my commands and keeps them He it is who loves me and I will love Him and disclose myself to Him. When we understand Gen. 12:1-12 then we see that missions are a matter of trusting, obeying and worshiping the Lord instead of merely responding to the need of the hour. Let us trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
5. God is the source of true satisfaction, fulfillment and meaningfulness. True satisfaction comes when we hunger and thirst for righteousness. (Matt 5:6-8) Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied. God’s righteousness is the only hope for peace, blessing and reconciliation in the world. All other promises, process and patterns are mere false hopes or temporary solutions for problems that do not treat the root cause - the sinful nature of mankind.
6. God is a global Lord on mission of whom Jesus said, “God so loved the world.” We need to be on mission with God. Many people in American think narrowly about the USA only represents 4% of the world’s population but the Lord loves all 6.3 billion people on the planet equally because He created us for His glory, fellowship and purposes. God is a God of global purposes whereas we tend to see life through our shriveled vision that is limited by our own concerns and culture and worldview. We lay hold of God’s vision by knowing and following the Lord toward a vision which extends far beyond ourselves and horizons.
7. God is the foundation by which we get everything pertaining to life and godliness. We must understand the grounds upon which missions rest otherwise we will tend to give in to the hostile, apathetic or incorrect views that people have about the great commission. Many people think that the Christian missionary enterprise is politically disruptive and religiously narrow-minded because it makes exclusive claims that Jesus is the only way to salvation. People say, “Religion is my own affair. You mind your business and I’ll mind mine.” Only when we base missions and everything upon a complete understanding of the character of God we will be able to see our complete adequacy, source and power in His divine nature and the fulfillment of everything we need.
Peter wrote, "Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who calls us by His glory and power. For by these He has granted us His precious and magnificent promises that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature having escaped corruption that is in the world by lust." (2 Pet 1:3,4)
8. God is a God of history, a God of covenant and a God of mission. God is a Lord of the past, the present and the future. Through God’s fulfillment of His promise we find a God who gives assurances and completes every promise. (I Cor. 1:20)
9. God is one who gives fruit and multiplication. God wanted Abraham to fulfill what He had originally intended for Adam and Eve. He promised Abraham that he would be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with spiritual and physical descendants that would be blessed and be a blessing to all the nations. (18,800 people groups of the world).
10. God is a builder and He is interested in us building upon His foundation. God repeats His promise to Abraham five times as it is the foundation of the people of God. We were created in Christ to be blessed and to be a blessing to all the nations. To the extent that we fulfill this apostolic nature of Christ living through us we will participate in the blessings, fulfillment and promises of God. (7000) in the Bible.
11. God is one who expects and blesses obedience. God does not obligate Abraham to obey but believes that He will gain loving obedience in Genesis 22 by expecting Abraham to demonstrate that he would freely obey in faith. He still reserves the right to determine how and when He will keep His promise. At the moment of Abraham’s obedience by offering Isaac on the altar, God declares that because of Abraham’s obedience His promise for Abraham’s part in global destiny was sure to come forth. The righteous man will live by faith. (Rom. 1:17 – theme of the book). Anything not done out of faith is sin. (James 3)
12. God wants us people to ambassadors and instruments of His blessings. God’s people were formed to participate in His greatest priority purpose – “blessing the nations” by reconciling them to Himself through Jesus Christ the only Lord and Savior. No world religion or system has a Savior except Christianity. Jesus is the only hope, redeemer, and power who gives us the victory and conquering ability over sin, death, hell and self-destruction. Outside of Him there is nothing but misery, emptiness and fear, anger and defeat. (I John 5:4,5)
13. God is a pro-active Lord not a reactive or passive King of kings. He initiates through apostolic efforts to reach out to areas and people and groups that are yet to be reached with the gospel. He is not a maintenance God but the Lord of the harvest. (Matt 9:36-38) God is a mobilizer, multiplier and magnificent God who does not sit back and say do it on your own. (Jer 29:11)
14. God is one who promotes and gives us a great reputation through His blessings. God would make Abraham’s name great instead of being like the people of Babel who wanted to make a name for themselves. (Gen 11:4) God assured Abraham that He would make Abraham’s name great. The way of highest significance in life lies not in acquiring security and self-made prestige. Instead significance lies in being the best blessing to the nations, people groups as possible. It is more than our duty it is our destiny. We are to be a kingdom of priests (a holy people) to the nations, a light to the nations. (Isaiah 49)
15. God blesses us so that all the nations of the earth will fear Him, worship Him and serve Him alone. (Psa 67:1-7)
16. God’s greatest purpose is to be glorified, (2 Cor. 10:31) second that we love Him with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and our neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27) and to serve Him through the completing of the great commission. (Matthew 28:18-20) When we embrace and follow these three highest priority purposes of God we are best fulfilling His image, identify and purpose in our lives through the empowering of the word and the Holy Spirit that wants to overflow His living water out of us and be a spring of life for many to receive God’s blessings. He is the only one who adds blessings without adding any sorrow to it.
17. His greatest purposes are fulfilled through His redemption, life giving blessings and the supremacy of His kingship. (Psa. 67:1,2, 6,7) He is objective more than subjective in His intentions.
18. God’s purpose involves worshiping Him, blessing His people and overcoming all evil powers (Eph. 6:10-18) I John 2:15, 16 Love the Father, but renounce, reject and resist the love of the world, the flesh and the devil. These pervade all human systems, world religions and the sinful nature of each human being.
19. In Gen. 3:14, 15 we see the proto-evangel (first gospel) as there was a double challenge of evil in that Satan counter-attacked with his own kingdom building attempt (Isa 14) Then God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seeds, He shall bruise you on the head and you will bruise him on the heel. Satan is always attempting to usurp God’s reign by stealing the allegiance of people and then deceiving and destroying people. (John 10:10)
20. God is one who works through the dramas of and conflicts of life. Humans in rebellion abdicated their kingdom position as appointed caretakers of the earth and in a bid for greater power, succumbed to the lie of Satan’s counter-kingdom, which resulted in the slavery to sin and death.
21. God’s two-fold strategy is pre-figured in two crushings. God pledges that Jesus would destroy the devil and yet Satan would wound Jesus as the redemptive sufferings that the Savior would endure. God redeems in order to rule. He gains victory in order to redeem. The overriding purpose is so we can give greater glory, love and commitment to our Lord.
22. God is a warrior. God is waging a war of liberation upon satanic counter-kingdom efforts by thwarting the darkness in order to rescue humankind and ultimately destroying the works of the devil. God is at war because He is a warrior. Let us see that God’s attributes determine His attitude and then they flow into His actions. (Iceberg illustration) – We only see 10% of an iceberg but 90% of its mass is still hidden below the water line. So we see God’s works and revelation in His word but we need to look below the surface to understand His attitudes and more importantly His attributes.
