Missions and the Blessing of God

“God be gracious to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us that Your way may be known on the earth, Your salvation among all nations.”
Psalm 67: 1-2

Psalm 67 is about missions! That's why we've named our missions organization at Rockport Baptist Church the Psalm 67 Missions Network. It is a cry for God’s blessing. But unlike so many who cry for God to bless them, the Psalmist is not thinking only of himself He has a much greater goal in mind. He prays that God would bless us and be with us, not so we can be blessed, but so that through us the nations might hear and know and worship God as He deserves to be known and worshiped!

This has always been the motive behind the saint’s desire for the blessing of God. God does not bless us so we can hoard the blessing to ourselves. He blesses us that we might be a link in the chain of events He ordains to bring the blessing of Christ out to others through the preaching of the Gospel.

What was it He said to Abraham when he called him to follow by faith? He said, “I will bless you and you will be a blessing and all nations on earth will be blessed through you!” (Gen 12:3) Think of it! God doesn’t bless us so we can look in the mirror and say, “Wow, isn’t it great to be blessed?” God blesses us so that other nations and people we’ve never met might be blessed through us! How? By hearing and responding to the Gospel of Christ that we preach and that we send out to the world through missions!

That’s why I like to say that Psalm 67 is a missionary Psalm! It’s a call for us to realize what God is doing in our lives. All His blessing, all of the advantages we have enjoyed as Americans – are for the purpose of making His glory known and enabling us to carry His Good News to the ends of the earth so that “all the peoples” and “all the nations” may hear and be glad in Him!

May God enable us to orient our lives and our church to that holy and joy-filled calling until we find ourselves in that great worshiping throng from every nation, tribe and tongue who bask forever in His glory!

Pastor Scott Lee