Our Missionary Calling
Over the next two weeks we’re gonna be looking at Psalms 67 and 68, and my plan, God willing, is to preach two sermons about our missionary calling as the people of God. Today’s sermon is a Part One; next week is a Part Two — and my prayer for these sermons is pretty simple: I’m asking that God by his Spirit would lead our church to greater faithfulness in his purpose to magnify his glory among all nations.
God has given us — as the people of God, the church of Jesus Christ, this local assembly called Cities Church — God has given us a calling for the sake of his name among all peoples, and I believe that now is a good time — as a church rooted — now is a good time for us to step into that missionary calling with a renewed passion and energy.
And I think Psalm 67 and Psalm 68 will help us. There are two basic things we’re gonna try to do today in Psalm 67:
the first is that we want to understand the meaning of Psalm 67,
and then second we want uncover (from Psalm 67) a central message in the grand storyline of Scripture.
Understand the meaning here; uncover a theme in the whole Bible.
And I’m excited to show you this, but I need to give you a heads up. This is gonna be one of those sermons that feels more like a Bible study. I’m gonna ask you to turn to a couple different places with me and look at the words — there’s a few things I want you to see — but then I promise that at the end there will be some application, and even a little plot twist … so hang in there with me.
Let’s pray:
Father in heaven, thank for your word, and for how you, by your Spirit, work through your word. In this moment, by your grace, we humble ourselves before you and ask you to do in us and through us whatever you want, for your glory. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Understanding Psalm 67
First, let’s try to understand Psalm 67. This psalm can be divided up into two parts, verses 1 and 2 stand alone as the theological heart of the psalm, and then the last part, verses 3–7, is the hope that flows from that heart. So heart and hope. (We’ll start with the hope and come back to the heart.)
The Hope
The hope here is that all nations of the earth will worship God.
Start with verse 3: “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!”
Anytime we see a word like “peoples” (plural) in the Old Testament (and especially in the Psalms), it’s talking about all the nations of the earth outside of Israel. These are Gentile, pagan nations, and sometimes the enemies of Israel. They are peoples outside of, not part of, ethnic Israel. We’re taking about all non-Jewish people — the apostle Paul calls them “strangers to the covenants of promise” (Eph. 2:12).
Sometimes the text calls them “peoples” or sometimes “nations” or “foreigners” or “all mankind” or “the ends of the earth” — or sometimes the Bible will mention the people group by name like Egyptians or Cushites or Hittites or Philistines. The Bible has a lot to say about “all nations” and once you get the idea, it becomes something that’s hard not to see. In fact, in the immediate psalms leading up to Psalm 67, there’s been an “all nations” theme that’s been building. Just note the language:
Go back to Psalm 64:9 and look at that little phrase, “Then all mankind fears.” God’s justice for his people gets the attention of all mankind, and in response to God’s work, all mankind fears him.
Psalm 65:2 — “O you who hears prayer, to you shall all flesh come.” — So the God who hears is not just a hearer of Israel, but of all flesh. All flesh shall come to God.
65:5 — “O God of our salvation [“our” as in David’s and Israel’s — God is our salvation, but more than that: he’s the] the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas”
65:8 — God’s power is displayed “so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs”
Then in 66:1 there’s a command to all nations, “Shout for joy to God, all the earth”
66:4 — “All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name.” Then verse 8 — “Bless our God, O peoples”
See, before we get to Psalm 67 we’ve seen talk about the nations, in the immediate context and really since the very beginning of the Psalms.
Remember back in Psalm 2, which is all about the Messiah, one way that God the Father honors the Son, the Messiah, is he says to him, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession” (Psalm 2:8). The same idea is repeated in Psalm 22, verse 27. As a result of the Messiah’s suffering and exaltation, David writes,
All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For kingship belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations.
So Psalm 67 verse 3 is just joining an already established theme. [And I want you to see this.] There are six jussive verbs in a row here — these are 3rd person commands that express a wish or hope of the speaker. They each start with that little word “let.” Look at verse 3:
Let the people’s praise you, O God;
Let all the peoples praise you [this is repeated again in verse 5]
Verse 4: Let the nations be glad and sing for joy
Verse 7: Let all the ends of the earth fear him!
Does everybody see this? That’s the hope. I want to make sure it’s clear. The hope of Psalm 67 (and leading up to Psalm 67) is that God will be worshiped by all nations on the earth. All nations will worship God.
That’s the hope, and it flows from the heart.
The Heart
The heart is verses 1–2, and at one level, these are simple words. We could just fly past these in our Bible reading, but, if we slow down for a minute and look closer, here’s where we’re gonna find that Psalm 67 verses 1 and 2 lead us to uncover a central message in the entire biblical storyline. And I know that’s a big statement, but track with me here. Look at verse 1:
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. [Selah — which means, Stop for a minute and think about if you’ve ever heard these words before.]
And we have. Psalm 67:1 sounds like one of the most famous blessings in the Bible, going way back to Numbers 6. [Turn back there for a minute.]
Numbers 6 …
In Numbers 6, verse 22, God told Moses to command Aaron and his sons to speak God’s blessing on Israel. God told him the exact words to be spoken. Aaron and his sons, serving as priests, were to say to the people of Israel, verse 24:
24 The Lord bless you and keep you;
25 The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
And three of those same phrases in Numbers 6 are repeated in Psalm 67:1 —
gracious
bless, and
make his face shine.
But notice a difference in Psalm 67: instead of these words being spoken in second person (you), they’re in the third person (us). The psalmist is taking the position here as a representative of all Israel and he’s invoking Aaron’s blessing on the people. He says:
May God be gracious to us
May God bless us
May God make his face to shine upon us —
And that’s amazing by itself, but look at verse 2. This blessing has a purpose. The psalmist is saying:
Apply Aaron’s blessing to us — God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, verse 2: “so that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.”
In other words, bless us for the sake of the nations!
I’m asking you, God, to do good to us in order that all nations may see you and know you. Bless us so that we will be a blessing to all.
That’s the heart of Psalm 67. That’s where the hope of all nations praising God comes from. And here’s where Psalm 67 starts to uncover a central message in the whole storyline of the Bible.
One way to say it is that God has always meant for his people to be a “so that” people.
We exist not only for ourselves to know and enjoy God, but also so that others may know and enjoy God — which means we have a missionary calling. We have a purpose that extends beyond ourselves. That’s what it means to be a “so that” people.
And this has been God’s will since the very beginning. He is worthy of the worship of all nations, and so he will have it — and he has determined that his people be a means to how he will have it.
And what I wanna do now for most of the rest of our time is make this point clear. So we’re gonna step out of the Book of Psalms, go back to Genesis, and I want to show you that God’s plan from the start was to have a “so that” people. The people of God has always had a missionary calling to magnify his glory among all nations.
Uncovering a Central Message
This is the second part. There’s some uncovering to do here. Turn back to Genesis 12.
We will pick up the story with Abraham in Genesis 12 — which is a solution to the problem created in Genesis 1–11.
In Genesis 1, God created Adam and Eve as his image-bearers to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Adam and Eve were to expand the Garden of Eden — life in the presence of God was God’s plan for the entire earth. That’s how the glory of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea — BUT in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve rebelled against God and his word; because of their sin they brought the curse of sin on this world.
And the rest of these chapters, Genesis 4–11, basically lays out the implications of that curse. By Genesis 10 — after God sent the judgment of the flood, after he hit a hard reset with Noah — we see the descendants of Noah have become seventy nations (and when I say “nations” think “peoples”). Genesis 10 lists out these seventy nations/peoples, and the list is meant to be representative of all the nations on the earth. Genesis 10 is meant to give us a universal perspective — this is all of humanity. And then in Genesis 11 what happens?
Well rather than these nations do what God had told Adam and Eve to do, and later Noah to do — rather than be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth — these nations try to consolidate in rebellion against God. That’s what Babel is about.
And so God brings judgment again. He confuses their languages and scatters them over the face of the whole earth — which is a mess, because now instead of the whole earth being an expanded Garden of Eden with image-bearers who worship and enjoy God, the whole earth is filled with different peoples alienated from one another and set against God. There is horizontal and vertical brokenness among all nations. And we have to understand that this is a universal problem. This is a problem for all nations.
And it’s that universal, all nations problem that Genesis 12 is going to address.
Genesis 12 …
In Genesis 12, God looks out, as it were, at all these nations on the earth and he chooses one man, Abram. And God makes a stunning, radical promise to Abram in Genesis 12:1–3. Look at this, Genesis 12:1,
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
You see what God said?
Verse 2: “I will bless you and make your name great” — WHY? — “so that you will be a blessing.” In you, Abram, all the families of the earth shall be blessed! And Abram became Abraham (father of a multitude).
Here’s what’s going on: Against the universal bad news of curse and alienation, God promises the universal good news of blessing and restoration.
There was an “all nations problem,” and God has an “all nations solution.” Through Abram he would have a nation, a people of his own, to be a “so that” people. God would bless them so that they be a blessing to all.
That was the plan from the start. And so now we can see it — Psalm 67 is echoing Genesis 12. This is a central theme in the whole storyline of Scripture.
Through a Centripetal Nation
And later in the Book of Exodus, God’s plan and promise for Abraham is repeated for Israel when they’re established as a nation. Exodus 19:5–6, God tells Israel …
if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
This gives us more details as to how Israel will be a blessing to all nations. It’s through their being a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. Theologian Michael Goheen says Israel’s calling here was centripetal. Things are moving to the center. Israel was a people meant to draw all nations to them, to the center of God’s presence with them. Goheen writes,
Israel is to embody God’s creational intention for all humanity for the sake of the world, living in such a way as to draw the nations into covenant with God. (Light to the Nations, 39).
It was “Come and see!” That was Israel’s missionary calling.
Question: How’d Israel do with that calling?
One thing the Old Testament history makes clear is that Israel failed in this calling. They were not the “so that” people they were meant to be, which is one reason this missionary-all nations-hope is picked up so boldly in the Psalms and the Prophets. The only way that Israel could fulfill their missionary calling is if God intervened and did something.
Hope Continues
In the Book of Psalms, there’s at least 175 references to the nations. In the Prophets, when men like Isaiah spoke on behalf of God about the future God would bring, God said things like this:
Isaiah 45:22 — “Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth!”
Isaiah 56:7 — “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”
Isiah 49:6 — God, speaking to Israel (or His Servant), says: “I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
There’s a hope in the Psalms and the Prophets that one day a true Israel including all nations will be gathered to God in worship. The Book of Isaiah ends with God saying, Isaiah 66 verse 19,
I will send survivors to the nations … to the coastlands afar off, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations.
Verse 23: “All flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.”
It’s been his plan from the beginning, to be accomplished through his people. Israel failed in that calling, so what does God do?
God sends his Son.
The TrueR and Better
Jesus came to this world as the offspring of Abraham through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Jesus himself became the true and better Israel. He embodied the missionary calling of Israel, and he, by calling all people to himself, he began to create a new Israel, reconstituted under a new covenant.
That’s why he called 12 disciples, like the 12 tribes of Israel, and at the beginning of the Book of Acts, when Jesus commissions his apostles, he says:
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8)
Hear that? Jesus is the truer and better “all nations solution” to the all nations problem.
And we actually see this happening in the Book of Acts through the church. The church of Jesus receives the missionary calling of Jesus himself, the calling God has always meant for his people. And we see unfolding in Acts as the gospel advances to the nations, to the Gentiles.
In Acts 13, when the apostle Paul says he’s gonna preach to the nations, he quotes Isaiah 49:6, “I have made you a light for the nations, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”
This is amazing because it means that what God first spoke to Israel, and then was fulfilled in Jesus, is now applied to the followers of Jesus. We are blessed to be a blessing. God’s saving power to us is so that his saving power would be known through us.
All nations will hear God’s fame and see God’s glory because Jesus by his Spirit is at work through his people — his people … the church … us — we have a missionary calling to spread his gospel to all nations … so that all the nations alienated from God and one another in Genesis 11 become in Revelation 7 a great multitude from all tribes and peoples and languages who, standing together before the throne and before the Lamb, cry out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God!”
Psalm 67 is the future. It’s where everything is headed: “Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you!”
Where Are We?
And here is where there might need to be a little twist in our thinking. Before we jump in and say, Yes, we have a missionary calling to take the gospel to all nations, we need to realize that we, in this room, are all nations.
When the Old Testament talks about the ends of the earth — and even in Acts 1:8 when Jesus says his apostles will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth — that’s us. If we’re thinking biblically, we are the ends of the earth! We are a long ways from Jerusalem, y’all.
And I think this is important for us to understand. (I’ll talk more about this next week too, because I think it’s so important), but I’ll just say for now, we should never think that our role in global missions is us doing a favor for the peoples way out there, instead, we owe our very existence to global missions.
We have heard the gospel because global missionaries were sent. It’s because Jesus did have witnesses to the ends of the earth.
Which means this: our work in global missions is not us trying to start anything new — we’re not trying to be on the front edge of anything — we just want to join in on the grace that is behind our existence. We’ve inherited a missionary calling. We’ve been welcomed into this. God has blessed us to be a blessing, to be a so that people.
And I think this is the first thing we should embrace as the Spirit leads us to greater faithfulness in God’s purpose to magnify his glory among all nations.
We should be humbled by the plan of God, that we’re here, and then we want to surrender to his calling.
And that’s how we come to this Table.
The Table
The Table both looks backwards and forward. We remember here the death of Jesus for us in the past, and we look forward with hope to the day, because of his death, when all nations will worship him together.
This is not our table, this is the Lord’s Table — and as we share in it here, there are local, visible churches all around the world who share in it too. We each share in now as we’re spread out everywhere, but one day this will be a feast for all nations together.
And so in that hope, if you trust in Jesus this morning, if you worship Jesus, we invite you to eat and drink with us in praise.
