Our culture, nation, and world is a mess. A few years ago, a feeling of depression came over me while listening to the news. I cranked up my sound system and played “The Blessing” by Kari Jobe. I basked in God’s presence and imagined the Lord’s arms around me. I took comfort in His blessing, in His love, in His peace. Then God spoke, “This world is not your home. Don’t expect this world to be like heaven.” I pulled out my Bible and began to read Psalm 67.
“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 . . . May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.”
It became clearer than ever why Christians are not taken to heaven immediately after salvation. We are part of God’s plan for spreading His glory to the world. His mission becomes ours.
Psalm 67 begins with a prayer for God to bless His people and ends with a statement of confident assurance that God will answer that prayer. There is little doubt that the prayer in that opening verse is based on the blessing that God gave to His people through Moses in Numbers 6. But see if you can notice the one significant difference from Psalm 67.
Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you;the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
You’ll notice in Numbers that it is the LORD who is blessing His people. The Hebrew word there is YHWH, which in most translations is rendered “LORD” in all upper-case letters. It is the covenant name of God used by Israel to refer to the God of Israel.
But in Psalm 67, the word “God” is used throughout the Psalm. That is the Hebrew word “elohim”, which is used consistently in the Old Testament to emphasize the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others.
That use of elohim rather than YHWH gives us a clue right away, about the far-reaching and universal nature of God’s plan for missions.
The idea of praying for God’s blessing is certainly not new for most of us. We sit down to eat and ask God to bless our food. We pray for God to bless our homes and families. We sometimes make our own plans and then ask God to bless them. But we learn quickly here in this Psalm that the purpose of seeking God’s blessing is not just to benefit us. God blesses His people so that they can bless others.
“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.”
In Genesis, after the Tower of Babel fiasco, God comes to Abram and makes it clear that He is not through with man who had made a great mess of things. In fact, His plan is to develop a new nation that He will bless so that they can in turn be a blessing to all the families of the earth that have now been scattered and have many different languages:
Genesis 12:2, 4 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Although about 1,000 years passed between the time that God revealed His plan to Abraham and the time Psalm 67 is written, we see clearly that God’s plan did not change. Israel’s purpose was still to be a blessing to all the other nations. Over time, Israel lost sight of God’s plan for them. Instead of viewing the blessings of God as something to be passed on to all the other nations, they became proud and inwardly focused, believing that the blessings of God were to be hoarded just for their benefit.
God desires to bless His people so that they in turn can bless outsiders. And that is still God’s plan for His people today. But we don’t get to choose how we want to bless others. God laid out a very specific way in which He wants His people to be a blessing to others. They are to bless others with the knowledge of God’s way and His saving power.
There are obviously a lot of ways that we can bless other people. Sometimes we do that through providing for their physical needs. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But we can’t stop there. If we are going to bless people in the manner that Psalm 67 expects, we must do all we can to meet their spiritual needs, to see their need for faith in the saving power of God that is in Jesus.
God’s plan for missions hasn’t changed a bit since the day Psalm 67 was written. He still blesses His people so that they can bless others with the knowledge of God’s way and His saving power. This task has been given to every single Christ follower. You have been sent on a mission by God. It begins with proclaiming the gospel message right where God has placed us. But our responsibility doesn’t stop there. Our mission is not just to be a blessing in our city, or Alabama, or even the United States. We are to be a blessing to the entire world. For some of us, that might mean going to a foreign land, either for a short-term mission project or as our life’s work. Is God is laying this upon your heart?
Psalm 67:4 “May the nations be glad and sing for joy”
The heart of missions is worship! There is a beautiful picture here of all the nations and peoples worshipping God. That’s the heart of missions – doing all we can to bring as many people as we can to a place where they can worship. John Piper summarized this idea well:
“Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory.” Our mission as followers of Jesus is to become genuine, passionate worshippers ourselves and use that white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory to bless others.
This messed up world is the best that some will ever have since they are facing an eternity in hell. May we tirelessly share the blessing of Jesus’ forgiveness and hope.