Before We Worship-December 12th

He Comes to Bless Us 

The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings For Advent, by John Piper. Crossway, (p.29).

Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.” And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, “And in your ofspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. Acts 3:22–26 

What this passage teaches us is that God brought Jesus onto the scene of history to bless people. “In your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” 

God said to his Son in heaven, “The time is fulfilled; I have promised blessing; now is the time to make good on my promise; you will be my emissary of blessing; I want blessing to come to the world; I have so much to give; go now and bless my people, bless them; indeed bless all the families of the earth through them, bless them, bless them.” 

You can see this in verses 25 and 26 as God’s blessing is mentioned twice. In verse 26, it says explicitly that God sent Jesus to the people of Israel to bless them. And when it says that God sent him to Israel first, it means that he will send the blessing on to others after that. Verse 25 makes plain that this was God’s aim in the covenant he made with Abraham: “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Blessing for the Jews and then, through them—through the Jewish Messiah— blessing for all the peoples, and that includes you. 

So I say to you that God is moving toward you with blessing in this Advent season. You are in verse 25. It doesn’t matter that two millennia have passed. With God, a thousand years is as a day (2 Pet. 3:8). With him, it is as though he made this promise two days ago. That’s how fresh the blessing for you is today. If you will move toward him in faith, you will receive the blessing. That is what Christmas is all about—the greatest blessing.