Mini-story: Uprooted

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The story of the world is a story about group identity and roots.

 

God’s strategy to bless the world is to identify himself with one group of people and to bless all the other groups through his group. He created his group through one person who trusted him completely—Abraham.

 

He redefined his group through one person—Jesus. Now people from any ethnic group may be grafted into his group and share in his campaign to bless everyone.

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Expanded version: Uprooted

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God, the Real GOD, creates a beautiful world, perfectly inter-connected and peaceful. He walks and talks in the Garden of Eden with the first humans, Adam and Eve. He puts everything at their fingertips. They just pick and eat.

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But wouldn’t you know it, they sneakily try the fruit of the only tree God said not to eat. They do not trust God enough to know what is good for them. God uproots them from paradise  and banishes them. They discover shame, labor, pain, fear, and death.

 

Centuries go by, and things keep falling apart. Humans cannot re-root themselves in God or recover the kind of life they had. So God steps in. He chooses a man named Abraham to be the new root of a new nation.

 

The first thing God does to Abraham is to uproot him! He tells him to leave his homeland and go to a land that will be the inheritance of the nation that will come from him, and Abraham does it even though he is already old and has no children. He believes God’s promise that he will have descendants as uncountable as “sand on the seashore,” and they will be the key to bringing God’s blessing to the whole world.

 

The first step is that God blesses Abraham with a son. Then, over the centuries,God's promise that Abraham will have many descendants  gradually comes true. Abraham’s grandson Jacob has twelve sons, and each becomes the father of an entire clan. God roots the new nation in the region he had promised Abraham, and he gives them one command above all others:

      “No fake gods. I am the Real GOD, the God of Abraham, and you are mine.”

 

They promise to stay true to their roots in Abraham but their promise doesn’t last. They start worshiping the fake gods along with the Real GOD. He warns them through his messengers, but they don’t listen. Without his protection, they get uprooted again and transplanted into a foreign land, Babylon.

 

But this is not the end. Besides warning the nation, the messengers also predicted that someday a Rescuer would be born, a descendant of Abraham and King David. Like them, he would never worship the fake gods. He would perfectly, permanently re-root the nation and the world in God.

 

Centuries later that prophecy comes true. Jesus is born, a descendant of Abraham. He does not directly declare that he is the long-awaited king or Messiah, but he keeps talking like he is: “This is it! God is reconnecting with earth, setting up his kingdom to deliver his blessings. Follow me and see what I mean.”

 

The authorities of the nation, also descendants of Abraham, decide that Jesus is a fake messiah, and they get the Roman governor to execute him. But the Real GOD proves Jesus is the real Messiah by bringing him back to life.

 

Here is the shocker. Jesus’ death changes the line of descent from Abraham. From then on, people who are blood descendants of Abraham lose their connection with the promises God gave Abraham for as long as they think Jesus is a fake. All those who accept Jesus as the genuine Messiah are grafted into Abraham’s heritage. It does not matter whether they are blood descendants of Abraham or not. All is forgiven. They receive the Spirit of Jesus, like a new DNA, a new “bloodline”.

 

These spiritual descendants of Abraham keep getting attacked by people who are furious about what they say Jesus is doing and how he is doing it. Nevertheless, they show mercy to their attackers, following Jesus’ instructions and example at any price. They know their mission is to bless the world.

 

Why are they so confident? Roots! Through Jesus they are connected all the way back to their spiritual forefather Abraham. Jesus also connects them forward, all the way to the end of the world, when he will come back to earth in person to uproot all evil and throw it away forever.

 

So that’s our story. That’s why we live the way we live and tell this story so gladly. Who are we? We are fruitful branches on the Abraham family tree. We are spiritual descendants of Abraham who are recruiting others to become descendants of Abraham and to participate in God’s 4000-year-old strategy to bless the world.

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Reflections on SYNCing with the story, Uprooted

 

Already SYNCing?

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If you have already said, “I’m in. SYNC me!” you have your roots in Abraham. You have his spiritual DNA. So let’s celebrate with a huge “Yes” to all five of these things:

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1. Yes, God has provided a new spiritual root to unite and bless humanity, and it all goes back to Abraham.

2. Yes, the key to God’s whole strategy is Jesus, the King of blessing, whose wrongful death ironically created a way for people like us to become spiritual descendants of Abraham.

3. Yes, Jesus puts his Spirit, life, and power into us, rooting us in Abraham and giving us a share in the mission of Abraham’s tribe—blessing the whole world.

4. Yes, I am blessing others right now—forgiving everybody for everything like Jesus has forgiven me. My roots give me strength to trust God about that.

5. Yes, I am trusting Jesus and his Spirit to help me rise above any rejection I face for him. I know my roots are in Abraham. I know I am one of the many citizens of Jesus’ kingdom.

 

Still undecided?

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If you have not yet said, “I’m in. SYNC me!” what else would you like to discuss about this story before you would say yes to these things?

 

Jesus won’t force you in, but once you say yes, he brings you in. He roots you in Abraham spiritually, so you trust God like Abraham did. That is what the rest of your life will be about—finding out what Jesus meant when he said, “God is setting up his kingdom to deliver his blessings!”

 

You won’t get to run your own life or build your own kingdom any more, but you will be rooted in God’s kingdom, and you will never have to wonder about your identity or purpose again.

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More about what it means to say, "SYNC me!"

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