May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us — so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

Psalm 67:1-2

Why does God bless His people?

Is it because we have earned His favor? Does God bless the “good people” because they have kept His rules better than “bad people?” Does God play favorites with His children?

The Old Testament rejects such claims. Isaac favored Esau over Jacob (Genesis 25:28), a rejection which is repeated a generation later as Jacob makes the mistake of singling out Joseph to receive the coat of many colors (Genesis 37:3). But in contrast to these human practices, the Scriptures reveal that God offers His blessings so that His people will use them to bless others. As far back as Genesis 12, God tells Abraham that he will receive a blessing which will eventually bless the entire world.

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…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Genesis 12:2-3

Writing centuries later, the Psalmist picks up on this thread. Invoking the priestly blessing of Numbers 6, the writer of Psalm 67 declares that God’s grace has been extended to us not merely for our sake. No, He has been gracious so that His salvation would be known among the nations. He has made His face shine upon us in order to illuminate His ways in all the earth.

In short, we have been blessed in order to bless others.

And this is the mission of God. This is how the Kingdom comes.

Our God is a generous God, which is most fully evident in the gracious gift of His Son. In receiving this gift — the gift of salvation — we become more than mere consumers. We become stewards of God’s generosity for the sake of the world. As those who have experienced God’s goodness, we seek to share that goodness with others. As those who have been served by the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53; John 13), we seek to serve others in His name. Disciples of Jesus inherit this rich biblical mandate to steward God’s blessings in a way that would bless others.

How has God blessed you?

And how might those blessings be used to bless others?

Over the years, I have known many people who have taken those questions to heart. Some of them have given their lives to serve the local church as ministers and elders and deacons. Others have sought to reflect God’s goodness in the marketplace and in their neighborhoods. Some of my dear friends — like Stephen and Amanda Stockbridge — have heeded God’s call to move to a foreign country to expand the borders of the Kingdom. I greatly admire Stephen and Amanda, both for their obedience to God’s will for their lives and for the humble way they pursue this calling.

Our church family has been supporting missionaries at locations around the globe since the early 1960s. And for many years, we have taken short-term mission teams to support the work in these mission points. A few years ago, Stephen and Amanda were a part of one of these short-term mission trips. And they began to feel a stirring in their spirits, a call to dream a Kingdom dream. What if we moved here? What if we served here full-time? And so they sought God’s will. They prayed. They sought wise counsel. They prayed some more. At every turn, God seemed to be affirming their Kingdom dream. It’s such a joy to see the Stockbridges now — using their blessings to bless others, living on mission for the Kingdom of Christ.

To be clear: God’s mission isn’t just for missionaries who live halfway around the world. Or to say it differently, the mission of God is so much greater than “missions.” The mission of God is to work through His covenant people in every time and place to announce the glorious Good News of Jesus Christ. This call is for all who would respond in faith: fishermen and tax collectors, prostitutes and Pharisees, attorneys and day laborers, ministers and missionaries, Jew and Gentile, young and old, rich and poor, male and female. The mission of God is alive in each one of us who has received the blessing of salvation in Christ. We have received this blessing in order to bless others — wherever we find ourselves.

In his book, The Skeptical Believer, Daniel Taylor offers these compass points for believers wrestling with doubt. But they also speak to the mission of God:

First, I remind myself that I have been invited not into an argument but into a story.

Second, I recall that this story gives me not just something to believe but something to do.

Third, I propose to myself that the real test of any story is what it asks me to love and what kind of life it requires me to live.

A story, not an argument.

A story that gives me something to DO, not just something to BELIEVE.

And a story that asks me to love indiscriminately, to pour myself out on behalf of others just as Jesus poured Himself out for us all.

This is the mission of God, alive in the world today.

How has God blessed you?

And how might those blessings be used to bless others?