The Mission: To Bless

When Jesus sent his disciples on mission, it was to bless – to preach the gospel – the good news. They were to give voice to the goodness, the love of God. They were to heal the sick (both broken hearts and more) and exorcise the demonic (that’s deliverance ministry again), as we saw in Isaiah 61, all possible because of the Holy Spirit’s partnership with us. They were to enter a house and say, “Peace to this house” (Lk. 10:5). The end of all ministry is peace, but its basis, its foundation, its beginning point, its launching pad, is also peace.

Roy Godwin says that when we bless others, the action “provokes an other-directed heart within us and cannot help but ignite our curiosity about mission and the work of the Holy Spirit. It takes you deep into the idea of the kingdom of God that Jesus constantly spoke of.”

The Hebrews knew a God who was consistently gracious and merciful. The gods of their neighbors were inconsistent, warlike, immoral and vengeful, unforgiving. Grace was unknown. They feared these gods, but they did not love them, nor did they sense love from the various deities. The Hebrews had a relational God, who had entered a covenant with them, who wanted to reveal Himself to them and be known by them.

They celebrated His steadfast love and mercy. They enjoyed His creation and gave thanks for the bounty that demonstrated His blessings in their lives. Every day, Jews prayed an eighteen-verse prayer of gratitude. In the New Testament, we see this tradition of thanksgiving continue with prayers of thanksgiving woven into the Biblical texts.

Paul commands a rhythm of gratitude, “Let the peace of Christ rule your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs of the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all I the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:15-17).

You must not miss how this passage is frontloaded with the idea of peace, “Let the peace of Christ rule your hearts” – shalom, wholeness, wellness, and yes, holiness. The end of the blessing, the state of having been blessed, is to know the peace of God, to settle into the rest of God – this is the true purpose of Sabbath. This is the effect of worship, of being in His presence. To this, “to peace… you were called.”

And then notice as well, the theme of gratitude, of thanksgiving. This is an acknowledgement of the goodness of God. That is what Adam missed in the garden in the absence of gratitude. Blind to God’s goodness, his heart was unsettled, and he sinned. All around us are people, Christians among them, who lack gratitude, whose lives are unsettled, without peace, and rather than acting, they react to life. Missing the optimal mark – that’s the definition of sin. It is settling for something less than the will of God for our lives.

The opposite is expressed by Paul. “The message of Christ,” is not to be displaced, or disregarded, as the words of God were to Adam. Rather, “the message of Christ [is to] dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another.” Here is another key. We are not to be alone, but in community. We are to host Christ and his word, and admonish one another, holding one another accountable. Helping one another be sharp, and at our best.

As we love God and experience His love, imitating Him, reflecting His image, worship and serving, we bless our communities. Being a blessing is foundational to the act of blessing, and that is a character issue. That is transformational. Here is the secret. Conveying the blessing is the outflow, which is missional. Transformation, being, and mission, speaking and acting, flow together. Yet, if you wait until you feel transformed enough to be an instrument of blessing to others, you will probably never move off your shelf. But if you allow God to put you in some middle, between Him and someone else who is hurting in some way, you will experience transformation and mission at the same time. God will change you, not only for the mission, but in the midst of being on mission.

The church, and Christians, often have such a such a negative view of the world, that thinking about blessing others who are not yet Christians, or our city or nation, is unsettling to them. The world is our enemy, we seem to think, and so are hardnosed sinners. We’re against the world and worldly things. We condemn sin and sinners. It’s them and us. There is a thick line between us and no thought of drawing a welcoming circle. Exclusion, not inclusion is our style. We are willing to preach to them, or better, at them, keeping a safe distance from them. We accept their act of repentance, offer them baptism and then cautiously receive them into fellowship. Sometimes we limit any ministry activity or rise to an office to one or two years. By words, actions and attitudes, we judge and curse the world around us, all the while keeping our rapture bags packed. We have already checked out.

To bless that world, we propose, is unthinkable. There is, of course, a ‘world’ we cannot bless. It is the ungodly system characterized by sin and energized by Satan. But if we mean Creation, though fallen, that is another matter. Creation is ‘groaning for redemption’ (Rom. 8:22-23). Both we and the earth will be redeemed and made new (Rev. 21:1). Still, we balk at speaking a blessing over the ‘world’ that Christ and his father love so deeply (John 3:16). If blessing the ‘world’ is a stumbling block, then to bless sinners is beyond the pale. And yet, “Christ died for us while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8) and “God commends His love to us, while we are yet sinners.” If God is so gracious, how can we continue to be so resistance to manifesting unconditional love?

I find Christians who are convinced that we must not bless others who are not yet Christians. This is withheld love. It is not only inappropriate, but unbiblical. They believe sinners deserve judgement, condemnation, not blessing. But this makes God’s love conditional, “Shape up, and be loved; straighten your life out, and we will bless you.” On the contrary, Jesus calls us to “bless those who curse us,” and Paul echoes that command (Lk. 6:28; Rom. 12:14). A blessing is not the approval of a lifestyle, but an indication of God’s love, and an offer of grace and amnesty. It is the attempt to awaken in another the goodness of God. And that leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4).

For the past half-century or longer, evangelism was truth centered. We led the evangelism encounter with the truth claims of scripture – God is holy; you are a sinner; you must repent and saved; be regenerated and sanctified; get baptized and join the church; and become like us! That is a harsh way of expressing it; perhaps a caricature of reality, but in some places, this was reality. One memorized a few dozen scriptures, and a script, and presented the facts of the gospel to a ‘sinner,’ and pushed for a decision. It was all truth-based. “Do you believe this? Let’s pray. You’re saved. Get baptized and join a church!” Done. Another scalp, another notch on the gospel gun. So that you will not misunderstand, let’s drive stake deeper, “The truth [and only the truth] can set you free!” (John 8:32). That Biblical idea is unchangeable; it is a non-negotiable point. The gospel is not only left-brained, factual, logical affirmation, it is also love, and power. With which do we lead?
The truth-first, truth-based evangelism model worked well in a culture bound to rationalism. And one that was still deferent and respectful to Christianity. Both conditions have changed. We are now in a post-modern, arguably anti-Christian, non-Biblical culture where truth claims are countered with the contention, “That’s your truth, not mine!” No amount of Biblical reason can move such a me-centered, relativistic thinker. A great number of the Gen Z, Gen Alpha generation have been raised in unstable, broken homes. They crave love, and doubt truth-claims from authority figures or institutions, including the church. The world in which they have lived is fragmented, full of wars, unstable and unpredictable – and that is both the world outside, and the one at home. At the time of their birth, almost 40 percent of their fathers had already vanished. Their growing up years have been characterized by single-parenting, shared parenting, blended families, grand-parent care, foster care, and general instability. Truth? Integrity? Covenant? To them, these are all empty words. Their generation medicates themselves to survive.28 They develop relationships cautiously, preferring the insulation of on-line friending and defriending. Even in a group, they are likely to be surfing on their devices. Love, friendship, at least at the level they crave, is “somewhere out-there.” They are hungry for authentic love, yet cautious and wary.

Only a relational approach to evangelism, an investment of time, can build a bridge of love and trust adequate to carry across it, the heavy building blocks of truth. And only a taste of the power of God, can quicken the deadness on the inside. With them, we must learn not only to lead with love, but to give love a lot of time before we attempt a truth encounter. Love opens the heart to trust and truth, and at the intersection of love and truth, we discover the power of God that delivers and saves. We must learn to bless them into openness to God’s love and presence.

When Judah had been exiled to Babylon due to their sin, the prophet Jeremiah admonished them, “to seek the prosperity of the place where they now lived” – Babylon? How can you pray for the prosperity of Babylon? How do you pray for someone living in Babylon to be blessed? Seek their prosperity? We tend to do the opposite; we seek their discomfort. But God cared about the exiles who were stuck in Babylon. And because He cared about them, Babylon would be blessed because the people of God, though they had sinned, were present in that wicked nation. This is the surprising grace of God, out of His goodness.

The person you are trying to reach may be living in Babylon. They may be in a living arrangement that you view as sinful. But drawing a line, making demands on them, is not likely to attract them – not in the current cultural climate. Blessing them is a declaration of love and grace. We do not bless their pathology, but their potential out of a fresh relationship with God. Blessing is an expression of the goodness of God. And God wants them to know His love even in their compromised situation. As we have noted before, “The goodness of God leads to repentance” (Rom. 2:4). We “overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21).

What can we do with this disenfranchised generation? According to one study, only 16 percent of them are in church, not weekly, but monthly. Do we write them off? Curse them in their sin? No! Using the wisdom of Luke 15, some, like the lamb that strayed, can be reached. They will not find their way back home by themselves. We, as shepherds, must go after them as an expression of God’s love and ours. We, as grandparents, must invest time with them.

Second, some are lost in the house. The Move Study indicated that as many as 10 percent of people who are in church regularly, have never made a serious commitment to Jesus as Lord. We must sweep the house, look for them, engage them, declare their worth before God, as if they were a rare and irreplaceable coin, a treasure to us – and they are. How many of our teens are “lost in the house?” They were pulled away by the undercurrent of the culture, the influence of peers, and they are imperceptibly drifting away from God and the church – and the family. They are “lost in the house” of a blended family, a single-parent home, a joint-custody ping-pong arrangement, a grandparent picking up the shattered pieces of family dissolution. Suddenly, there is an eruption and indications of rebellion. The episodes take us by surprise, but the clues have been under our noses. We simply took our kids for granted. They were “lost in the house” – so close, so far away.

Third, if they are completely rebellious and independent, as was the prodigal son, all we can do is wait for them, pray for them, look for them, and welcome them when they return.

In no way do we want them to be molested, arrested, jailed, attacked, or harmed. We don’t want them to be destitute, sleeping on the street, eating throwaway food, ending up being friendless and in some pig pen, like the prodigal son. We must pray that God would take care of them, while convicting them of sin and convincing them of the love of God. Jeremiah believed that the prayers of the righteous for those still in Babylon, would result in “their prosperity” and that of the “place where they now lived.” For some of us, that approach is unthinkable. We have a “shape up and be loved” gospel approach. Conform to the truth, and then we will love you. This is conditional, not unconditional love. We seem to have no idea of the way God regards humans and of His desire to bless them and others through them, even if they are now living in Babylon.

Roy Godwin says that there are three simple building blocks to blessing.

First, “I bless you…” As noted earlier, God desires to give us a well-instructed tongue to sustain the weary. And to that, He awakens us morning by morning, quickening our ear to listen to His instructions for the day (Isa. 50:4). There is no power in our words, but there is in us a “well-instructed tongue” that God desires to use to “sustain the weary” with something He may have whispered to us in our early morning time with Him. As God’s agents, in the middle, between Him and the hurting, our words have the weight of divine authority – they are not empty, nor are they magic. But they have life, and express God’s love, and occasionally, when they are uttered, they bring tears. At times you can watch the entire countenance of the one being blessed changed. It is as if a load has been lifted – and often, it has.

Second, “I bless you … That He…” That God, the Father. That His Son, Jesus, the Christ, the Lord [the One who heals, comforts, directs, or a dozen other things], that he would … [and God will lead you in terms of what to say].” Ultimately, the power is not in our words, but in his name. It is in invoking his name, calling it out, inviting his presence. We bless as an invitation for God to break in and confirm the blessing, confirm His word with signs following, with evidence of His love and grace. God told Aaron to speak the blessing and to “put My name on the people” and then He promised, “I will come behind you and bless the people.” Aaron said the words of the blessing, but the work of the blessing itself was from God. And it was associated with His name, in His name, and by the authority of His name. Thus, out of the New Testament covenant, we appeal to the authority of the name of Jesus and to its power, and on that basis, we bless people “in the name of Jesus.”

Third, “I bless you…That He… May…” do this or that. Open

this door or close that one. This is the invitation for God to act as a matter of blessing. So, the blessing is not merely words, but an invitation for divine action. In Psalm 20, we see a variety of ways that God might bless. “I bless you, that He…” we might pray. Then borrowing from Psalm 20,

“May…answer you when you are in distress. May the Name of the God of Jacob protect you. May He send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support…May He remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings. May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. May we shout for joy over your victory and lift our banners in the Name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests” (Ps. 20:1-5).

What a powerful prayer of blessing.