Let’s take a close look at who God was speaking to in this passage. It was a man named Abraham. About 4,000 years ago, in the land of what is now Iraq, God appeared to Abraham and made a promise: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. Then, you shall be a blessing!” What did He say he would be? A blessing. “And when you become a blessing, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

In truth, Abraham is incredibly important. We believe in Jesus and we serve God—and in our faith, Abraham holds a vital place in our faith. Most of us have come across the Bible at least once in our lives. The Bible is divided into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. So what is the very first word in the Gospel of Matthew—the first book of the New Testament? It is “Abraham.” Matthew 1:1 says, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” It starts with Abraham. We do not put our faith in Abraham—our faith is in Jesus Christ, and in the God we serve. And yet, the name Abraham appears in a place of tremendous significance.

Why is that? It is because everything we enjoy in Jesus today was already promised by God to Abraham four thousand years ago. We are living out our faith right here, right now, in the places where we live—but the reason we get to enjoy all of this is because God made a promise to one man four thousand years ago. And that promise is being fulfilled in us today. This is why, when we take a close look at the promises God made to Abraham, we can clearly see what it is that we ourselves are enjoying right now.

In the New Testament, a man named Paul appears. Among the letters Paul wrote, there is one written to the people of Galatia—a region in what is now Turkey. After Jesus ascended into heaven, churches began to be established, and there were several in the region of Galatia as well. And in the letter to the Galatians, we find these words: “Christ has become a curse.” We believe that Jesus is the Son of God—equal with God Himself. And yet, the Bible tells us that Christ has become a curse. Think about that for a moment. The One we believe in is One who was cursed.

But why was He cursed? What kind of curse did He bear? Jesus died on the cross. At the time, crucifixion was the most severe form of punishment used by Roman Empire—reserved only for the most hardened criminals. And those condemned to the cross were never also scourged. Scourging alone was the second most severe punishment; the two were never combined. That is because a scourging alone was already enough to bring a person half to death. Afterward, a person’s face would be left unrecognizable. Yet they scourged Jesus to that point—and even then, their rage was not satisfied. So they nailed Him to the cross and left Him to die. We know that He now reigns in glory as the Son of God—but when He came to this earth, He became a curse.

Then why did He become a curse? It was so that we—not only the Jews, the blood descendants of Abraham, but also the Gentiles, people just like us—could receive that blessing. That is why He was cursed. Curse is the opposite of blessing, and blessing is the opposite of curse. The reason Jesus became a curse was to make us blessed. And so, if we believe in Jesus, we are blessed people.

Now, this blessing is not the kind of blessing the world commonly speaks of. People say that having strong teeth is a blessing—but no matter how strong our teeth are, when the day comes that we leave this world, those teeth will be of no use to you. And no matter how well our descendants may do, they too will eventually leave this world. But the blessing God desires to give us is not the kind that fades away—it is a blessing that lasts forever. As it turns out, this blessing was not originally prepared for us human beings at all. It was a blessing that God had prepared in His eternal kingdom for His own Son, Jesus Christ. And that very blessing is what He has given to us as well.

So what do we call this blessing in a single phrase? We call it “the blessing of Abraham.” Let’s say it together: “The blessing of Abraham.”

God gives this blessing, and He gave it to us through Jesus Christ. And yet, it is not called the blessing of God. It is not called the blessing of Jesus Christ. It is called “the blessing of Abraham.” Why? Because God took that blessing as a seed and planted it in the field that was Abraham. That field was good. So, when God planted that seed there, it bore an abundance of fruit. Had it been poor soil—hard as concrete—no fruit would have come forth. But Abraham received the Word of God, that promise, with true obedience, patience, and faith. Through him came many descendants, and ultimately, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was born among those descendants. And because of that, every blessing God had promised to Abraham has now come upon us.

Now, we have covered many things today—but this is what I want you to remember. We believe in Jesus, and we are blessed. That blessing is an eternal blessing, and we call it “the blessing of Abraham.”

Once more: “The blessing of Abraham!”

This is why Abraham is now so deeply connected to each one of us. Let us not simply think, “I am someone living in 21^st century Seoul, and I am blessed.” We must understand that God already promised this blessing to Abraham four thousand years ago, and that promise has been passed down, all the way to us. This is why it is so important to take a close look at what God promised to Abraham—because every one of those promises is being fulfilled in us.

Now, what I want to emphasize to you today is the very word God spoke to Abraham: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house! And go to the land that I will show you!” And what did God say He would make him? A blessing. This is precisely what sets our God apart from all the other gods in this world.

Beloved, there are many gods in this world, and most of us have likely encountered many of them before coming to church. I remember a time when a young man came to my office on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Since it was a weekday, I asked him, “How did you manage to come all the way here on a Tuesday?” He told me that a friend had told him to come. “Is that so? Where is your friend?” I asked. He said his friend had come with him. “Well, tell him to come in!” But the young man replied, “He is already in.” “What do you mean? Where is he?” “He is right beside me.”

As it turned out, this man was in conversation with what we would call a demon. That very morning, he had simply done as his “friend” told him, and that is how he ended up at my office. As we talked, I said to him, “That is a demon. This demon keeps following you around and telling you what to do. There are many gods in this world—but do not keep this worldly god as your friend. Make God your friend instead. Jesus came to this earth and became our friend. He made it possible for us to serve God. And God has sent the Holy Spirit, so that it is no longer a demon that dwells within a person, but the Spirit of God Himself—the Holy Spirit. It is time to change your friend!” At those words, the demon inside him manifested, and he collapsed to the ground. I prayed for him and waited. After a long while, he came to and said, “Why am I here?” He had no memory of anything that had happened since that morning, “Why am I here?”—that was all he could say.

In this way, whether a person wants to or not, everyone is under the influence or control of some god. Some are so completely overtaken that they lose consciousness altogether. That young man had not been walking around under his own awareness that morning—he had been entirely seized and controlled by that spirit. These kinds of gods utterly disregard human beings. They enter without being invited, and once inside, they torment, dominate, and make life miserable.

But the god we serve, our God is perfectly gentle. He never overrides our will. If we do not want Him, He will never force His way in. He enters only when we open our hearts wide and accept Him.

But simply opening our hearts is not enough. Why? Because unlike the gods in this world, He is pure and holy God. And so He enters only where there is purity. If a soul has not been made clean, it cannot receive Him. This is precisely why Jesus became a curse—to pay the price for our sins. And the soul of the one who receives that is made clean. For those who have been baptized, it is even more so—having been fully united with Jesus through baptism, the soul is made clean. And when the Holy Spirit enters that person, they come under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The gods in this world say things like, “Hey, I will give you a blessing!” That is what they promise—a blessing. Take shamans, for example. They perform rituals and tell fortunes, and during those times, a shaman will say, “I shall give you a blessing.” They always talk about giving a blessing. But not a single god has ever said, “You shall be a blessing!” Not one. They all promise to give a blessing—but there is no god that says, “You shall become a blessing and make others blessed.”

But this god—the one who first appeared to Abraham—said something altogether different. What did He say He would make him? A blessing. “You shall be a blessing, and through you, many people shall be blessed!” And those many people were not just the people around him. Not just the people in his village. And though Abraham was a man of the Middle East, it was not limited to the people of the Middle East either. Every family on earth would be blessed through Abraham. And not only the people of his own generation—but people one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand years later would also be blessed through him. This is the blessing God promised to Abraham.

I once witnessed something like this happen to someone I knew. There was a chairman and his wife who had struggled together to build their company, and eventually they found success. Once they did, they brought in relatives to work alongside them. But most of those relatives visited Buddhist temples or practiced shamanism, and so they all went together to have their fortunes told. There, the shaman warned them, “This company will soon fall apart!” Everyone was alarmed. “What must we do to keep the company from failing?” The shaman replied, “Someone in your household is spiritually misaligned. You must drive that person out for the company to survive.” “Who is it?”

Can you guess? It was the chairman’s wife—because she was a devoted woman of faith. And so that god made his demand: “I will give you a blessing, but you must drive that woman out!” This is what the gods in the world do. “I will bless you—so divorce your wife!” That is what it comes down to. She had poured out her youth working side by side with her husband through every hardship—and now that they had finally found success and financial comfort, that god stepped in and said, “Drive your wife out! Then you will be blessed!”

Would any of you want to draw close to such a god? Would you really want to be near a god so ungrateful that it destroys families? If we draw close to a god like that, we eventually become just like it. The chairman actually attended church, though his life of faith was not very deep. Still, he was not an evil man by nature. But the moment he came into contact with that god, evil thoughts began to creep in. And it only got worse, until he finally went through with the divorce. He pushed and pressured his wife for a divorce until she gave in. How wicked is that?

But the god who appeared to Abraham—the god we believe in—is exactly this kind of God. He said, “I will bless you. And not only will I bless you—you shall be a blessing. Through you, all people shall be blessed. Every family on earth shall be blessed. The people you meet shall be blessed, the taxi driver you ride with shall be blessed, your teacher shall be blessed because of you, your coworkers shall be blessed because of you, and even people in other nations whom you have never met shall be blessed through you.”

This is the blessing we receive. And we, too, become a blessing in that same way. Dear beloved, you came to church today hoping to receive something good—and you truly can. You can receive even more than that. Far more than you could have imagined. But it does not stop there. You can become a blessing that carries that blessing to many others. This is what God promised from the very beginning to all who would possess the blessing of Abraham. Not only to receive a blessing—but to become a blessing.

From the very beginning of our life of faith, if we do not align ourselves with this, we will find ourselves out of sync with God. So from the very start, align yourself with God. We do not come to church merely to receive a blessing for ourselves alone. Through us, our entire families are blessed. Through us, the people around us are blessed. And through us, even people who do not yet know us will be blessed.

Right now, countless churches around the world are being nurtured through the Word of our church. They are learning that very Word. And because we send it out week after week without fail, letters keep coming back saying, “Thank you. We bless you.” They bless our Overseer, they bless the Sungrak people, and they bless me who mediate this work. All of those people—hundreds of thousands of them—have been blessed through me. Through us. And through our Overseer. In this way, we have become a blessing and are blessing all people. And so it is with you. You came here to receive a blessing—but I bless you in the name of Jesus that you would become far more than that: a blessing that makes all the nations of the world blessed.

God our Father, You have blessed every soul gathered here and made them a blessing. Just as You promised Abraham, we pray that You would make them a blessing—so that through them, all the families of the earth may be blessed. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.