Galatians 3:6-9 6 Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. 7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. 8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.
In Genesis chapter 12 God commands Abraham (then named Abram) to leave his home and go to a land that God will show him. This new land was Canaan, which later became known as the Promised Land. This was the land of faith and blessing.
In Genesis 12 two things were to happen to Abraham. First, he was going to be blessed by God. And then God would do something else that would change everything that came afterward, He would use Abaraham to bless all who came from him. This is as revolutionary then as it is now. It turns our natural inclination to get as much as we can for ourselves on its head.
This happens right after the story, in Genesis 11, of the Tower of Babel. In that series of events, we see the people of that time, just like the people of our day, trying to gain recognition, acceptance, and material blessing for themselves, ignoring the people around them. This is in direct opposition to the concept of the promised land.
This contest, the one between the selfishness of our world and the generosity of the gospel message, continues today. The question is “where is our promised land?”, where is the land where we are blessed in order to bless? That land, if you will, is in the local church.
“How so?” you may ask. Well, in Galatians 3 we see that those who believe and follow Jesus, obeying Him in faith, are part of the family of Abraham. We in the church are literally part of the family God created in Genesis 12. (We are not replacing the Israelites.)
Whenever we are tempted to get for ourselves, we should know that this is the way the people thought when they attempted to build the Tower of Babel. The church, especially today, cannot afford to think that way. We must stand with Jesus and His message of grace, hope, and forgiveness and oppose the greed and self will we see in our world. And we must live that way and forgo the “give me” mentality of our day. If we do so we will show people, the way to the promised land.
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