The Missionary Character of the Abrahamic Covenant

The young lady came to the table. Earlier, we had a shirt on. The shirt said theology matters, and I thought, how appropriate, because it really does. And that's more than just a trite saying theology does matter. Your theology dictates the way you live. Your theology dictates the way you believe that. Your theology dictates the way you interact with God and with your fellow man. Your theology dictates all of these things. And your theology dictates the way you approach missions. And for many of us, we approach missions in the way that I learned to approach missions. And just to give you, you know, an idea, in my seminary training, my emphasis and my degrees was evangelism and missions. This was the This was my passion, my desire, my heart beat. I was not coming from anywhere near or reformed or even Calvinistic perspective. I had a passion for souls early on, had a passion for souls, and I praise God for that passion for souls. When I came to faith, it was almost instant that this passion erupted in me. I never heard the Gospel when I was growing up. I've said before, you know, I was raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother in South Los Angeles, California. First time I heard the Gospel, I was a university student, and I remember when I came to faith, laying down on the floor in the locker room in tears, and a young man who had been sharing the Gospel with me for weeks at that time, came and asked me about. What was going on. And I told him that I had just basically prayed to receive Christ, and he was ecstatic, and I was still just broken. I was crushed. He picked up on the fact that there was something else going on, and when I told him the rest of the story got it. You see, about a year and a half before that time, I went back to south central LA, where I was born and raised, having moved away from there as a young man. When I got old enough to find some trouble or for some trouble to find me in LA, my mother shipped me out and we moved, and so moved to the South. Was already in the South Los Angeles. Learned that there was a different style, got on a bus for three three and a half days, and I spent the next year and a half living with my mother's oldest brother, who was a retired drill instructor in the Marine Corps. And I lived in Beauford, South Carolina, near Paris Island, where he had retired after twenty two years in the Corps. And I got out of trouble. Who rah, yep, I got out of trouble real fast. But I wasn't the only young man in my family. I had other cousins who didn't leave Los Angeles. And that day, as I'm laying there weeping, just having come to faith in Christ, Steve, who had been sharing the Gospel with me, asked me what was wrong, and I told him about a funeral that I had attended eighteen months earlier, the funeral of my cousin. He and I were about six months apart in age. I left Los Angeles. He did not leave Los Angeles, got involved in dealing drugs, and eighteen months before I was converted, he was gunned down and a drug deal that went wrong. And so here I was, just having comprehended and been apprehended by the Gospel, just having come to faith in Christ, and all of a sudden, two things came crashing down on me simultaneously. Number one that I had. Been saved by the grace of God and was ever grateful. And number two, my cousin had not been and was dead. And so Steve sat and he wept with me, and then he looked at me and said something that I believe would change my life forever. Again. I've already been changed forever, because I'm saying now, I'm about to get changed forever again. He looked at me after we sort of wept for a while, and he said, you can't call your cousin, but is there anyone else you can call? And so I started calling people and talking to people about the gospel with this zeal that God had given me through this frowning providence. It is important to have have zeal and passion when it comes to missions. That zeal and passion has to be tempered because missions is not just about zeal and passion. There is a way that we are to do things. And I'm coming to understand that now more than ever, having spent the last three and a half years living in Zambia, and there are people from all over the place serving there. They are missionaries from all over the place serving there. And I praise God for all who put their hand to the plow. But I must tell you that the overwhelming majority of what I see is discouraging. It's discouraging because it's passion and. Zeal not tempered by, led by, or controlled by the word of God. Doing things that feel good, doing things that appear effective and successful, and, as Conrad just said earlier, doing things that will lead to hands being raised, names being added, sponsoring organizations being excited as they can report the numbers of people. Who have made decisions all the while. The work's not being done. Chris, theology matters. We must have zeal, amen, I mean, we praise God for zeal, but our zeal must be tempered, controlled, led. By a doctrine. And so what I want to do in my two sessions, I have one session today and one session tomorrow. I'm going to talk about missions from the beginning to the end. Today, I'm going to look at missions in the beginning. And you hear that and you'll probably think, well, Okay, he's going to talk about the gret Commission. Nope, I'm going to talk about the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis chapter twelve. And then on tomorrow I'm going to talk about a passage that has been referenced in a number of the messages Already. I'm going to talk about Revelation chapter seven. We're going to go from front to back, Amen, and we're going to talk about Revelation chapter seven. But first I want us to. Look at Genesis chapter twelve and the Abrahamic Covenant. And the reason I wanted to do this is because from a theological perspective, there are a lot of us who think of missions this way. We think of missions and the Great Commission as God's Plan B. Like he had another plan and that plan didn't work out, and then when that plan didn't work out, he said, boys, we got to do something else, right, And and we're all grateful, you know that his first plan, you know, didn't didn't work out. Although you know it's bad when a plan doesn't work out, but you know, Israel's loss is our gain, and you know, so sorry for you guys, but great for us that now we get a Plan B. That's not correct. The nations are not Plan B. Amen, somebody, The nations are not Plan B. And the idea of the Great Commission and the Gospel going to the nations, it is not something that is new or revolutionary and the new Covenant. And as a clue to that, the clue to that is found earlier on in Matthew chapter twenty three and verse fifteen. Just listen to this. You know you're looking at Genesis twelve. But listen to this in Matthew twenty three twenty three fifteen, one of the many rebukes. Of the Pharisees. This is an interesting. Rebuke, though, woe to use scribes and pharisees, So far so good? Right, scribes pharisees WHOA okay, woe to use scribes and pharisees hypocrites exactly, Scribes Pharisees, hypocrites, So far so good, nothing revolutionary, right, That's who these guys are. For. You travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of Hell as yourselves. Time out. Why would the Pharisees and scribes be engaging in what we would call missions, and not just in a small way. Listen to it. Listen to this. Whoa, You travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and we're not talking about in the age of Delta airlines. Right, we're not talking go over here, get on this tram, right over to the airport, fly somewhere. Talk about no, crossing sea and land was an arduous task. And he says that the Pharisees would do that for a single crossly, which means they were passionate about missions. And the fact that they're crossing sea and land means that this is not them saying well, I'm sorry, there are other ethnic Jews out there to whom we need to proclaim this message. No, they're going to the nations. So if the Great Commission the end of Matthew twenty eight, is this radical, revolutionary new idea, why is it that even the Pharisees were already engaging in the practice that we call missions before that Great Commission was given? Could it be that the idea is not radical and revolutionary in the New Covenant? Could it be that that's the heart of God and always has been. I say yes, and I believe it's clear when we look at Genesis chapter twelve. Let's look at it. It's a familiar passage, Genesis chapter twelve. And when we look at this, I want us to look at it in layers and levels. On the one hand, I want us to look at it from the standpoint of Abraham and what it is to which he's being called, because it looks familiar. But then on the other hand, I want us to look at the theological underpinnings here because they are important. And then I want us to see the parallels. 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. That's familiar as it not. Get up and leave. Go ye therefore, 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. What's that. That's the nations. That's the nations. God doesn't say I'm going to make you a nation so that I can set my love on the nation that I. Make in you. No, no, no, I'm going. To make you a nation with a view toward that nation being a blessing to all the. Nations's missions and it's already global. It doesn't become global later, it's global now. And as we unpack this, I just I want us to see a. Couple of things. One, I want us to understand the magnitude of this. The Lord said to Abram, go from your country and from your kindred and from your father's house to the land. That I will show you go. I've already alluded to the fact that this going would have been far more significant than any going that we could possibly imagine today. It's funny, you know, my family and I just came back. We're here on a two month furlough, and people have often shigen their heads, wow, that that must have That must just be far, that must be great. You came all this way, and you know, with your wife and seven of your children, and that's just I can't imagine that long flight. And it did. It takus a long time. It took us about thirty two hours. Do you want to take a gandher or a guess at how long it would have taken for Abraham to cover that distance would have been months. So this don't make light of this going when he says. To go here. So not only is there that going and the distance and the logistics of it. But notice that this going is not just about going from one location to another. This going is also a leaving. Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house. Leave your country. Leave your kindred, leave your father's house. And this leaving is not just a temporary departure. This leaving is something significant, being torn asunder. Here's something that we don't often think about. Abraham's father was not a Jew. Nobody was before him. His Jewishness was not ethnic or genetic or racial. It was a declaration of God. God made a people. So when he says leave your country, leave your kindred, and leave your father's house, he is saying I am about to strip you of airthing, not everything, airthing that's beyond everything. I'm going to take away your ethnic identity. I'm going to take away your nationality. You're not just going to go from one location to another location. You're not just going to go from one country to another country. I'm going to change who you are. I'm going to create a people, and you're going to be the first one of those people that I create, which means that you are essentially going to be ripped asunder from the people to whom you've belonged for your entire life. How about that? I can't even wrap my head around that, can you? I just can't even imagine what that would even sound like. Voting it's time for you to leave. Fine, no problem, You're gonna leave your country. It's okay. They kind of crazy sometime anyway. You're gonna leave your family. They kind of crazy too, right, h. You're not gonna be a black person anymore? How is it even possible? There is going to be a new people, a new ethnicy, a new identity, and everything else that you've been a part of up until now. Will no longer be who you are now. First, let's talk about the significance of this and the reason for this. Well, why does this make sense? This is not arbitrary, it's interesting. One of the things Conrad and I were in the village one day. I'm serving in Lusaka, Zambia. It's the capital city. You know. We've got all kinds of stuff there. There's a KFC there, Domino Pizza. We're not quite all the way there yet because there's no McDonald. I don't even really particularly crave that food, but I just like knowing that they're there. There's no Starbucks, so you know, we got a waste to go. But we're in the city. The big city means of people. He took me to be called the village. And we go to the village. And we get to the village and we have to go find out where the headman is chief. And you go in and kind of check in, and you know, and Conrad's talking. I do I'm not saying anything. I'd rather not say anything because I don't understand what's being said. In little soccer, we speak English. Here, we're not speaking English anymore. Then we go and there's this lady that he's talking to and he says something to the lady and asks the lady, you know something about me, and that pointing at me, and the lady looks at me and she greets me. And I kind of know how to at this point, this is several years ago, I barely knew how to greet someone and Yangre, so I greeted her as best I could, and she just busted up laughing. And then she says something to Conrad, and then Conrad just busted up laughing. I'm looking at him like you're going. And you gonna let me in on this, on this, and she's he looks at me, and he says no. When she heard you speak, she was taken aback because, in her words, he looks like us, but he's a white man. Same thing some of the people in the social justice movement are saying about me today. But that's a whole nother, whole other thing. But what that means is you're not a Zambia and you're not one of us. Now several years later, fast forward, and we're living in Zambia and serving in Zambia and working in Zambia. And one of the difficult aspects of preaching the gospel as an American in that environment is that sometimes people will hear something that may sound a bit radical, that comes straight out of the text, and it's very easy to say, well, that's just American. Of course, you think like that, you're American. It's kind of like, you know, if you're a marathon runner and you work hard and find your way to the top of the marathon world, and you know, and you're doing incredibly well, and then people find out that you're an Ethiopian and they go, of course, you can run marathons because you're an Ethiopia. Immediately your response would be, you know, I kind of trained a little bit. How much do people do that? Anyway? You present the gospel and in many circles people will say, yeah, that's just Western, that's just American. What does that have to do with this? God creates a covenant people that no nation can take credit for that, no culture can take credit for that, no people group can take credit for they They can't say, well, that's just that's just a Canaanite. No, actually it's not. We're not Canaanites. Well, well that's just the Chaldean. No, because we're not that. Well that's just maybe it's it's some kind of Egyptian thing. No, it's not because we're not that. Well what are you? We're Hebrews? Or who are they? They're us? Well, where do you guys come from? From? God? Our religion is not the expression of any particular culture, of any particular nation. How do you get to say that? By God saying to a man, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house and your to a land of house, show you and He's going to make him a nation. Look at verse two. And I will make of you not just a nation, but a great nation. I will make of you. He's speaking to an individual here. 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. Hey, how am I going to be a blessing? Oky? Fine, maybe I'll be a you're trying to I'll be a blessing to lot. No, I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. He's speaking to one individual, and he's saying, I'm going to make you a blessing to the entire world. I'm going to make you a nation that does not exist, a people that does not exist. I'm going to make your name great. People will know who you are, they will know who your nation is. And all of this, why so that you will be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Does this at all sound familiar? Here's the interesting thing. The interesting thing is that although Abraham comes to this place and he is cut off from this people to whom he. Belong, to create an entirely new nation. There is part of this that is still connected if we go back to the fall in Genesis three. After the fall, there is the curse, and in the curse there is a promise. He says to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, in between your seed and her seed. He rebews your head, your bruises, heel. So there is this war between the serpent and the seed. The serpent absolutely believes that the seed of the woman is going to crush his head. So what does he do. In the next chapter, there's the first murder, and the first murder is the seed of the serpent, Cain killing the seed of the woman. Abel. Why do I say that Kine is seed of the serpent, because the Bible does one John three twelve to not be like Kane, who was of the evil one. So there's a murder, the promised seed is murdered. Well, well, now what's going to happen? Well that's okay. At the end of the chapter, Adam knows his wife again and they have another child, and now we're introduced to Seth and so this seed is alive again. And now we have these ten generations from Adam to Noah through the godly line of Seth, so that the promise seed is still alive. Eventually we're introduced to a man by the name of Tara, who is the next line in this promise seed. And he has a son by the name of Abraham, who is the next line in this promise seed. And why is that significant? It's significant because it is Abraham's promised seed who's the blessing and the nation. Listen to the way Paul puts it in Galatians chapter three, beginning of verse fifteen. Look there, if you will. In Galatians chapter three, let's start at verse fifteen to give a human example, Brothers, even with a man made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now, the promises were made to Abraham and his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, who is Christ. So Paul says that this offspring, this one who has promised, is Christ. This is what I mean. The law which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not a covenant previously ratified by God. So as to make the promised void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. Hang in there, go down to verse twenty three. Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, in prison until the coming Faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that Faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God God through faith. For as many of you as we're baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. Who's the promise, Who's the blessing? Who's the Sikh Christ? We're baptized, we put on Christ. Now we're sons of God by faith because we. Are in Christ. But we're not just sons of God by faith because we're in Christ. Look at what else we are. For as many of you as are baptized into Christ, they put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free, There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's don't miss this. Then you are Abraham's offspring airs according to the promise. I am a child of Abraham and an heir of the promise to Abraham. I am and you are the fulfillment of God's promise to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham. I am not an afterthought. You are not an afterthought. This is exactly what God had in mind all along. This is not a new idea. This great nation is indeed a nation, but it's not a nation like any that we've seen before. Remember what God does in Abraham. He takes him away from his own ethnicity, from his own people, from his own land. Borders are gone. There is a new nation that is established. This new nation identifies itself through circumcision. This new nation also identifies itself through the law that they have and the morality that it establishes, the holiness that it establishes. This nation establishes itself through its dietary laws. They don't eat like the nations around them. This nation establishes itself through the temple and the worship that they offer, which is unlike anything that they've seen around them before. This nation establishes the priesthood and the sacrificial system, and their priesthood is unlike anything that's been seen before. This nation has a worship that is unlike the worship anyone has ever seen before. Open the first Peter chapter two. You think this is just. Some sort of theological sleight of hand. Okay, fine, you know Abraham's offspring, the airs of promise. Okay, fine, cool, I get that. But that, you know, the spiritual stuff that doesn't answer the other stuff. On Peter two four. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious. You, yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. What separated is real. Their priesthood. Guess what we have a priesthood. There's a reference here to the temple and the cornerstone in the temple. Who is what Christ? Let's keep reading, for it stands in scripture. Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe. But for those who do not believe. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling and the rock of offense. They stumble because they disobeyed the Word as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal. Priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. What did he do? He made us a nation. He made us a nation the Abrahamic Covenant being fulfilled through the Promised Seed Christ and all of those who were found in the Promised Seed who belonged to Him, who are now a royal nation, a priesthood. This is why he refers to us as the Israel of God in Galatians six sixteen, a people for God's own possession. Not only that, but look at what he says, a chosen race, a chosen race. This is the exact same thing. The only thing that's missing is the law in its holiness. No, not exactly Verse eleven. Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh. Which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the. Day of visitation. We live in holiness and righteousness as the people of God. We are distinguished and set apart as the people of God, just like the nation that God established in and through Abraham. Not only that, but what is he saying. He says he's going to make Amham a great nation, and he's going to make him a blessing. What has he done with us? What we see here in Peter that he's made us a great nation. He's distinguished us as a people, he's distinguished us as a race, he's distinguished us as a nation, he's distinguished us as a priesthood. And he's made us a blessing. How so, by putting in our mouths the greatest news the world has ever heard. We heard earlier about the beautiful feet of those who bring the good news. We are a blessing. And be careful with this, because it is absolutely true that the Gospel has brought. Blessing to many nations. Amen. We're in the middle of one of them right now. Amen. Somebody, and if you're one of those people who complains about America, I have a remedy for you. Go live somewhere else. For six months. We have been blessed. We've been blessed. Are their difficulties? Is their sin? Is their Yeah? Absolutely, but we've been blessed. And while that is true, here's the point that I want to make. Even though you could enumerate all of the myriad blessings that Christianity has brought to nations throughout the world, those blessings are all secondary. The greatest blessing. That this people, this royal nation, this chosen race, this royal priesthood. The greatest blessing that we bring is not economic success. The greatest blessing that we bring is not even intellectual advancements. The greatest blessing that we bring it's not technological. The greatest blessing that we bring isn't even the freedom and liberty that tends to follow where Christianity goes. As great as that is the greatest blessing that we bring wherever. We go, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. That's the greatest blessing we bring. And let me go back to where I started. There are a couple of problems that I see it in the way that we're conducting missions right now. Theology matters. One problem is this that we are ignoring and or negating that greatest blessing that we bring through not preaching the gospel. And oftentimes we're doing it because we believe that other blessings that we bring are greater. So on the African continent right now, one of the difficulties. Is this. That when it comes to mission giving in Africa, if you put church planting, theological education over here, and mercy ministries over here, our mission giving is five to one. For every one dollar that we're investing in Africa theological education, church planting missions, for every one dollar we're investing in that, we're investing five dollars in mercy ministries. Now, hear me, let me go back to what I just said. I am not arguing that the other blessings that Christianity brings are meaningless. I'm arguing that they're secondary. Amen, I'm not arguing that they're irrelevant. I'm arguing that their secondary. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be digging wells or doing dental visits or medical missions, or I am not arguing that I would not dare argue that. Praise God for all of that. That's why ACU is a classical Christian, liberal arts, biblical worldview university and not just a Bible school. We believe in all of that, but. That stuff is secondary and only exist and ownly thrives because of the primary gift that we bring, which is the proclamation. Of the Gospel. It's everything. Theology matters. One of the saddest things that I run into. You know, if, in many instances, if you want to play stump the missionary, right, you want to ask missionaries a question, especially where we are, that will stump them. Don't ask them a theological question. You can probably stump them with a theological question. But here's a question that can stump many of them. What church do you belong to? Because many of the missionaries where we live don't belong to any church. They're digging wells, caring for orphans, doing medical missions, all of these things. But they are not members. Regular attenders are under the authority of any local church. Why Chris, theology matters. And if you believe that simply doing good is enough in terms of the blessing that God created us as a people to bring, then you're fine there. But if you understand that the greatest blessing that we bring, the greatest blessing that has come, is the person and work of Jesus Christ and the proclamation thereof well, then whatever else you're doing, you are rooted and grounded in the church. You're rooted and grounded. Why else, here's why else? I missed the peace. Remember I talked about Israel and how they're distinct. I said, they're distinct because of you know, their nation and their temple. By the way, the temple. What's the temple? The believers, we're being built into a temple. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. But our bodies together are being built into a temple. Amen Ephesians three. So yes, the temple. We got that. We got the temple, We got the priesthood, right, we got the sacrifice. We got the once for all sacrifice. We've got all of that. What about the dietary laws? What about our particular diet that sets us apart? We eat the flesh and drink the blood the table of the Lord, A strange and distinct diet. We heard about that earlier as well. Who are we? Who are we? Who's Israel? They're these people? Man? How do you well, how do you know who they are? Well? They I mean, they get circumcised. And stuff. They don't eat. Well what these Christian people? Well, they get baptized. And eat. The flesh, drink the blood. They're crazy, to which I say, Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. We're crazy, y'all until you understand what it means to be found in the Promised Seed. Who is Christ? Because if we belong to Christ, then we identify with him and his burial and his resurrection and baptism, identified as his people, as that chosen race, that royal priesthood, that kingdom of priests, that nation. We identify ourselves with it. And then what do we do on an ongoing basis? On an ongoing basis, we feast on Christ. No, not a new radical idea just thought up as a response to previous failure. It's the heart of God. It's the heart of God. It was true in Abraham's day, it was true in the day of the Apostles, and it's true in the here and the now. He has called us out, he has made us a people. He has separated us to himself and for his glory, and he distinguishes us. And through the Gospel that we proclaim, he makes us a blessing to the nations. That's missions. Let's pray, God, how we rejoice in your goodness and mercy and kindness towards us. How we rejoice in the privilege of being called your people, being called the sons and daughters of God, being heirs of the promises and fellow errors with Christ, of being. Found in Him, being in union and communion with Him, and as a result, being a blessing to the nations. Grant by your grace that this might drive us, that it might direct our passion, but never quench it. But this we pray in Christ's name. Amen.