Let the Nations Be Glad!

“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! It’s a cry for God to bless us. But unlike so many who cry today for God’s blessing, 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 so that through us the nations might hear and know and worship God as He deserves to be known and worshiped!

As I think about that, I realize that this has always the motive behind God’s blessing. God does not bless his people so we can hoard that blessing to ourselves. He blesses us so that we might be a link in the chain of events He intends to use to bring a blessing to others – and especially to bless them with the Gospel of Christ.

What was it He said to Abraham when he called him to leave all and follow Him 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 about that. God doesn’t bless us so that we can look in the mirror and say, “Gee, isn’t it great to be blessed?” God blesses us so that other nations and people we’ve never met may be blessed through us! And how will they be blessed? By hearing and responding to the Gospel of Christ that we preach and bring to them as we send and go as missionaries into the world!

That’s why I like to say that Psalm 67, in addition to being one of my own personal favorite Psalms, is at heart a missionary Psalm! It is a call for us as Christians to realize that everything God is doing in our lives today and every day, all His rich blessings of grace, all the advantages he has let us enjoy as “wealthy” Americans is for this one great purpose: to make His glory known and to enable us to carry the news of His glory (the Gospel!) to the ends of the earth so that,....”all the peoples” and “all the nations” everywhere may hear and be glad in Him!

So let the nations be glad!

God blesses us, so that all the ends of the earth might fear (and worship) Him! (Psa 67:7)

Pastor S Scott Lee