Possessing the Gates: God's Heart for the Nations
Based on Part 4 of the "Blessed to Be a Blessing" Series
A Promise Bigger Than We Realized
In Genesis 12, God makes Abraham a promise that would echo through all of history: "I will bless you... and you will be a blessing... and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12:2-3).
But the story doesn't end there. In Genesis 22, after Abraham's ultimate act of surrender—his willingness to sacrifice Isaac—God thunders from heaven with an expanded promise:
"By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. Your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice." (Genesis 22:16-18 ESV)
That phrase caught my attention as I was praying: "Your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies."
This isn't just ancient history. If you've come to faith in Jesus, you are one of Abraham's descendants by faith. Paul makes this clear: "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise"(Galatians 3:29 ESV).
Abraham put faith in the shadow, the foreshadowing of what was to come. We've put faith in the substance—Jesus Christ Himself. And now we have inherited that same promise: God's intention was, through the descendants of Abraham, to be a blessing to the nations.
This isn't optional. It's part of your biblical calling.
From Promise to Commission
I see a direct connection between God's promise to Abraham and Jesus's declaration to Peter in Matthew 16. When Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus responds:
"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:18-19 ESV)
Do you see it? The promise given to Abraham of possessing the gates becomes the promise given to his spiritual descendants—the church—that we would occupy spiritual strongholds. The gates of hell shall not prevail.
Jesus takes this promise even further in His final commission. In Matthew 28 and Acts 1, He commands us:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20 ESV)
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8 ESV)
To the Uttermost: Geography AND History
Here's where something profound emerges. The phrase "end of the earth" in Acts 1:8 comes from the Greek eschatou tēs gēs (ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς). The word eschatos (ἔσχατος) carries a rich double meaning that reveals the full scope of God's mission.
On one level, eschatos means "last" or "uttermost" in a geographical sense—the remotest boundaries, the furthest reaches of the earth. Jesus is commissioning His disciples to go to the ends of the inhabited world, to places far from Jerusalem, to peoples and lands that seemed impossibly distant.
But eschatos is also the root of our word "eschatology"—the study of the end times. The same Greek word appears throughout Scripture to refer to the last days, the end of the age, the consummation of history. Consider these uses:
"In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh" (Acts 2:17 ESV) - eschatais hēmerais (ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις)
"Little children, it is the last hour" (1 John 2:18 ESV) - eschatē hōra (ἐσχάτη ὥρα)
"He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin" (Hebrews 9:26 ESV) - epi sunteleia tōn aiōnōn (ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων)
So when Jesus says we will be His witnesses "to the end of the earth" (eschatos), He's declaring a mission that spans both geography and history. We're not just going to the remotest places on the map—we're advancing God's kingdom throughout human history until Christ returns.
This means the Great Commission isn't complete until:
Every geographical place has been reached with the gospel
Every generation throughout history has been discipled until the very end
Jesus confirms this dual emphasis in Matthew 28:20: "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."The phrase "end of the age" is sunteleias tou aiōnos (συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος)—the completion or consummation of the age. Jesus promises His presence with us not just until we reach distant lands, but until the final moment of history as we know it.
We're Filling All the Earth, Across All Time
Think about the magnitude of this calling. We're not just missionaries to places—we're missionaries through time itself. Every generation of Christians has a part to play in this unfolding drama. Abraham's blessing didn't stop with his immediate children. It flowed through Isaac, through Jacob, through the twelve tribes, through David, through Christ, through the apostles, through the early church, through centuries of faithful witnesses, and now to us.
And it will continue through our children and our children's children until the day when "this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come"(Matthew 24:14 ESV).
We are one grain of seed promised to Abraham, but we are the inheritors of a promise that stretches to the uttermost (eschatos) parts of geography and history. Every spiritual stronghold will fall. All the nations and all the earth will know who their God is through us—not just in our generation, but through the generations to come, until Christ returns.
The Larger Story
Here's what I want you to hear today: You have promises you perhaps didn't even know you had, to take part in a story far bigger than the one you've been told.
The story of the American dream and consumerism is a far smaller story than the story you're called to.
Abraham had a small part to play. He didn't see with his own eyes the fulfillment of all God promised him. That story continues through you. That blessing continues through you, and you will see it.
When we join ourselves to this larger story, we gain access to the authority, resources, commissioning, and spiritual power to fulfill our part. This is a spiritual principle: When we live disconnected from the larger story and commissioning, our life has less meaning. The reward in the age to come comes through us fulfilling the part that is uniquely ours in this larger story.
Your witness matters not just for the people in front of you today, but for the generations who will come after you. You're not just reaching your neighbor—you're participating in a mission that spans from Abraham to the return of Christ. You're part of a relay race that crosses continents and centuries.
A Hillside That Changed Everything
This truth became deeply personal for me when I was visiting the border of Ethiopia and Kenya. I was reading Romans 12—the passage about the different parts of the body: "For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another" (Romans 12:4-5 ESV).
But instead of thinking about this in terms of spiritual giftedness, I was thinking about it in terms of the global church and the role of the worldwide church of the earth.
Below us lived the Garre people, a Somali tribal group. My heart was breaking. No Bible in their heart language. No missionaries. No pastors. No known believers among their tribe. Though there were Christians in geographic proximity, the cultural barriers stood tall even there among different tribes and nations in the horn of Africa.
I was with a Kenyan missionary—an indigenous African believer who had given his life to reach unreached Ethiopian tribes. His heart's cry was for God to provide him with people of peace—"Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house!' And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him" (Luke 10:5-6 ESV)—and for God to send partners to help in the work of Bible translation so the Garre could read Scripture in their own language.
With so few open doors for the gospel among these people, this missionary and his team would come weekly to this hillside to overlook where the Garre people lived and to pray. They prayed for God to send laborers—"The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Matthew 9:37-38 ESV). They prayed for God to open doors for the gospel—"At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word" (Colossians 4:3 ESV).
In that moment, I prayed in the spirit of Isaiah 6: "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' Then I said, 'Here I am! Send me'" (Isaiah 6:8 ESV).
And I remember God speaking to me very distinctly as I read that passage of Scripture. I heard the impression of His voice: "There are those that I have better prepared than you to go. But I'm sending you to start a church in Buckhead that will not forget the unreached."
I knew this meant prayer. Finances. Deeply supporting the sending of others—especially Africans from one nation who want to reach unreached tribes in another but lack the resources and, in some cases, the biblical and missionary training.
When we stand as a community before God—when I stand as a steward before the Lord of the callings and assignments He's given me—part of hearing "well done, good and faithful servant" will be this question: Did you remember the unreached peoples of the earth?
The Remaining Strongholds
We must reach our neighborhoods, absolutely. But we also must reach, as part of our calling, the nations. This promise to possess the gates of our enemies requires us to consider the remaining spiritual strongholds in the nations of the earth.
The statistics from Joshua Project paint a sobering picture: Approximately 3.2 billion people live in unreached people groups. These are people who have no Bible in their language, no churches, no missionaries, no known Christians to bear witness.
They're not rejecting Jesus—they've never heard of Him.
"How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:14-15 ESV)
Less than 1% of all missionary funding goes to reaching these unreached people groups. Think about that. We have 3.2 billion people who have never heard the gospel, and they receive only 1% of the resources.
Why do the unreached stay unreached?
Because it's difficult. Hostile governments. Dangerous conditions. Cultural and language barriers. Spiritual darkness that has reigned for millennia.
Because fewer people want to go. It's easier to go on a mission trip to a country that already has churches, where you can see immediate results, and where conditions are relatively comfortable.
Because the results are often small and not impressive for newsletters, gospel penetration among tribes resistant for thousands of years can take decades—even generations—of faithful labor to establish a sustainable indigenous church. Revival in an unreached people group might look like 12 converts in a nation of 100,000.
But we shouldn't despise small beginnings. The Twelve Disciples and the Upper Room encounter were the origins of our faith. Jesus poured His life into twelve men for three years, and from that small beginning, the gospel spread to the ends of the earth.
What if the 12 converts in that unreached nation become the apostles who reach their entire people group? What if the decades of faithful seed-sowing produce a harvest that lasts for generations?
The harvest in hard soil is still harvest. And every soul matters to God.
How to Open Your Heart
So, what can we start doing? It's actually not complicated. It's pretty simple.
You open your heart.
As you open your heart, God expands your heart to be able to include more than what you ever thought you could. The only thing I can compare this to is my own journey of becoming a natural father. I had my first child and thought I could never love a person more. Then I had my second child, and a new love came into my life. Then my third, and then my son. Each time, my capacity for love grew as I opened my heart to what God had entrusted to me.
So the first step is that we must truly open our hearts and trust God to add to us the capacity to play our part in the larger story.
When we open our hearts, what does an open heart to the nations look like? It looks like living out our values—from our neighborhoods to the nations.
Pray
Adopt an unreached people group. Pray for them regularly. Pray for missionaries by name. Pray that God raises up more laborers. Pray for your neighbors and coworkers. Prayer is the foundation of everything.
"Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession" (Psalm 2:8 ESV).
Serve
Care for missionaries when they come home on furlough. Send a Samaritan's Purse box. Serve in your community. Volunteer at a shelter. Tutor kids. Show up where there's a need—whether across the street or across the world.
"Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant" (Matthew 20:26 ESV).
Give
Give to missions. Support Bible translation. Give to training national pastors—people from that culture who can reach their own people. Be generous locally and globally. Remember: every dollar invested in missions is treasure stored in heaven.
"Therefore, we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth" (3 John 1:8 ESV).
Form
Make disciples. Invest in people. Whether you're discipling your neighbor, mentoring a younger believer, or supporting those who are training pastors in unreached areas—be part of forming Christ-followers who will multiply the blessing to others.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19 ESV).
Reach
Go on a short-term missions trip. Feel called to go seasonally or potentially long-term. Or be open to how God brings the nations to you. We're in an increasingly globalized world. International students, refugees, immigrants—people from unreached people groups are coming here. We can reach the unreached without ever getting on a plane.
"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2 ESV).
A Billion Reasons to Celebrate God's Word
This past month, something remarkable was celebrated: the YouVersion Bible App reached one billion downloads across its family of apps. What began in 2007 as a simple website and launched as one of the first 200 apps in the Apple App Store in July 2008 has become a global movement of Bible engagement.
Life.Church, the Oklahoma-based church that created YouVersion, embraced early on a vision to make the Bible accessible through digital technology. When the app launched that first weekend in 2008, 83,000 people downloaded it—a number that astounded the team. Seventeen years later, the app has been installed in every country on earth and offers over 3,500 Bible versions in more than 2,300 languages.
What's remarkable is that YouVersion has remained completely free—no ads, no monetization, no selling of user data. The ministry is funded entirely by donations from people who believe in the mission of getting God's Word into the hands and hearts around the world. As one technology analyst noted, if YouVersion operated as a traditional tech company, it would likely be worth billions of dollars.
But the team chose a different path: maximum kingdom impact rather than maximum financial return.
And the impact is staggering. We've been blessed to partner with YouVersion by creating Bible plans and devotional content. Through that partnership alone, our church's content has reached over 109 nations worldwide, and over 7,000 people have completed our devotionals. Recently, in a given month, from our preaching and worship clips, over one million people viewed our content on Instagram from nations across the globe.
This little family is already touching nations in ways we didn't dream we would at this stage.
The story of YouVersion reminds us that when God's people embrace their calling to the nations and hearts are open to what God would do through them, He opens incredible doors of blessing we could not have anticipated.
God Will Open Doors
Here's my point: As we commit to God's heart for the nations and we resolve to live out these values—pray, serve, give, form, and reach—whether with those God brings to us or those we go to—God will open incredible doors of blessing that we could not have anticipated.
As we do, our values flow from our neighborhoods to the nations, and God will fulfill His promise to us and possess the gates of our enemies.
The story is far bigger than you've been told. Abraham's blessing is continuing through you. And when we join ourselves to this larger story—this mission that spans geography and history, continents and centuries—we step into the authority, resources, and spiritual power to play our unique part.
You're not just living your life. You're carrying forward a promise made thousands of years ago that will continue until Christ returns. You're a link in a chain that connects Abraham to the new creation. You're a witness in both space and time—reaching outward to the nations and forward through the generations.
The question is, will you take the first step? Will you open your heart?
What's one step you can take this week to embrace God's heart for the nations? Will you pray, serve, give, form, or reach? Share in the comments below.
