Diaspora: People on the Move, God at WorkSample

Lesson 4 - People on the Move by God’s Grace

In the previous lessons, you have seen how God is moving people across the face of the earth because of sin while giving grace and protection to those on the move. In today’s lesson, you will see God also moves people to extend grace to many, not as a response to sin, but by His grace alone.

Abram (later called Abraham), from the very beginning, was a man on the move. Before his encounter with the living God, his family was on the move from Ur to Harran. His family settled in Harran, and it would be understandable that they would want to stay there. However, God appears to Abraham and tells him to leave his family and land. God doesn’t tell him where he is going but simply tells him that He will show him.

In the context of his dispersion from his family and land, God promises that all peoples on earth will be blessed through Abraham. God promises that Abraham will be a great nation and have a great name. Abraham sets out as God has told him. He travels to Shechem, and God reveals that He will give this land to Abraham’s offspring. It must have been clear that this land wasn’t for Abraham because he kept moving on. Abraham’s travel, adventures, sins, and family conflicts are recorded throughout Genesis 12-14. The primary illusion for the reader during this time is that Abraham has no children. Both Abraham and his wife Sari are beyond average childbearing age. So, how can Abram's family be a blessing if he doesn't have a son?

In Genesis 15, God appears to Abraham in a vision. God promises Abraham a son, a child of his own flesh and blood. This is, again, a picture of God’s grace. This child is part of God’s plan. We learn that God saw Abraham as righteous, not because of his works, but because he believed the Lord. Abraham’s faith had feet. He believed in the Lord, but his belief led to obedience to the Lord.

If you zoom out from the Genesis account, you see that God dispersed a man from his family and land. This man was the seed of God’s promise for the entire world. A sojourner, a diaspora person, was the recipient of God’s grace but was also the vehicle for God’s grace to reach all the peoples of the World. The writer of Hebrews, looking back and interpreting the life of Abraham, said this: “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going… And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.” (Hebrews 11:8,12)

God blessed Abraham to be a blessing to the nations. Even though there were trials, hardships, bad decisions, and death, God was working amid the movement of His people.

Today, many Christians from Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist majority countries are on the move because of persecution. They have a vibrant and tested faith. They believe in the promises of God. The global church, especially the church in the West, can be stretched, strengthened, and revitalized by the diversity and zeal of our brothers and sisters on the move.

The final questions for us to consider today are: Why, When, and How?

• Why does God seem to work through those on the move?
• When someone is on the move in the diaspora, how does it increase their dependence on God?
• How can you pray for and connect with the Global Christian diaspora to learn and receive from them?