ACross the Square

Give a thought, for a moment, to the person or people who have made the most profound impact on you throughout your life.

Most likely you’ve quickly begun to form a list.

We all have that list.

Nobody goes it alone.

Your list, the people who have mattered most throughout your life, are the warp and woof of your life’s narrative.

There are the parents, spouses, children, educators, neighbors, friends, co-workers, teammates, pastors, social workers, doctors, soldiers, tax advisors, lawyers, repair techs…

They are your list, and without them you couldn’t tell your story.

Some of us have a tendency to think of longer lists, some shorter. 

There’s also a likely correlation between your tendency to express gratitude and the length of your list.

But unless you’re badly overtaken by some desperate evil, you know that there have been people in your life who have made it better.

Those are the people you thank God for.



You could use that little break in this article to say a prayer of thanksgiving for the people God has put into your life.

They are part of God’s way of reminding you of His love.

They were a blessing to you; some still are.

Just like how God promises Abram that He will bless, and Abram was blessed; so too are your blessings linked to the promises of God.

“I will never leave you nor forsake you,” promises God, and the most important people you’ve encountered are a core part of how He has kept that promise.

But have you paused to consider that God has made you into the very kind of person that someone else has on his or her list?

We may quickly forget that when God promised Abram that He would bless him, He also promised that through Abram God would bless the world.

That promise hasn’t changed in four thousand years; God blesses the world through you.

I believe that this is what Solomon was getting at in Proverbs 11:11.

“Through the blessing of the upright,” he says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “a city is raised up”.

The word for “blessing” makes its first appearance in Genesis 12 when God blesses Abram, so when Solomon invokes the same word in the same context, the theology is going to be the same.

Let’s quickly remember that theology.



In Genesis 12, God calls out Abram. It’s really the beginning of Abram’s story, following the tragic events at the tower of Babel in Chapter 11.

Abram does not worship God, he was brought up by a family and culture that worshipped the gods of mesopotamia, particularly the gods of the Arameans.

Remember Moses saying, “My father was a wandering Aramean…”?

That word “wandering” does not mean “traveling”, it means “lost to the point of death”.

Moses wants us to remember that before God calls us by His Grace, every one of us is a lost cause in the grand, eternal scheme of things.

But in particular we know that Abram’s family worshiped false gods because we are told so in Joshua 24:2.

It says, “And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.”

God, blessing Abram, is the same thing as being “saved by grace”.

Genesis 12, to paraphrase, says this: “I, God, have chosen to bless you, Abram, because I want to. And now, because I have blessed you, I will also bless others through you because my plan is to be the savior of the whole world.”

OK, that’s the theology of Genesis 12.



Now back to Proverbs 11.

Solomon, in verses 10 and 11, is talking about the “righteous” and the “upright” as being the instruments of God’s blessing for the “city”.

When we apply what we’ve learned about the God-man relationship from Genesis 12, we can see that Solomon is affirming God’s grand design.

You are “righteous” and “upright” because God has called you out of the darkness and into His marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9, if you’re looking it up…)

The “city” of Solomon’s proverb is the “world” into which God works His blessing.

And so Solomon can say, “When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices”, and “Through the blessing of the upright, a city is raised up.”

Consider this: Solomon has just defined your purpose as a Christian.

God wants any and all righteous work that He has “prepared in advance for you to do” to be the vehicle through which your neighbor, friend, co-worker, family member, plumber, civic community, and everyone else is blessed.

Through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. - Genesis 12

Through the blessing of the upright, a city is raised up. - Proverbs 11

Go into all nations, making disciples by baptizing and teaching. - Matthew 28

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. - Galatians 6

Different words, same theology.

Yesterday evening the Church Council at Good Shepherd passed a resolution which we hope will empower us to put this theology into practice.

It’s the very beginning of a plan to address the economic struggles of over 70,000 residents of Hall County.

In the coming weeks and months, God will be raising up a small team of men and women for the purpose of moving this plan forward. This is now our prayer.

Perhaps God, this very moment, is calling you into involvement in this plan.

If so, contact me and I will share the broad scope of the plan. 

The work is ambitious, so the workers will be many.

Our theology compels us forward. We who have been blessed will become a blessing.

We who have been made righteous by Christ will raise up a city.

Our “city” - Hall County - is home to over 70,000 working families whose income places them solidly above the “poverty line”, but below the income level required to thrive in the economic realities of 2025.

These are the people whose lives we want to bless.

These are the very people who, five years from now when someone asks them to list the people who have made a profound impact on their life, will quickly add your names to their list.

You(all) will become a blessing in the lives of people who will look to God and say, “thank you for sending them into my life.”

Are you ready to get involved? 

Do you know someone who might want to get involved? 

Are you a little curious to know more about this plan?

Great! I want to speak with you.

Here’s the email address to use: acts.pastor.sparling@gmail.com

And by the way, I’ll be moving my weekly posts to Saturday morning instead of Friday because it better fits my schedule.



Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for your Son, our Savior. Thank you also for every person through whom you’ve blessed my life. I yield to your Holy will for me. Make me an instrument of your blessing in the world, and raise up this city. Amen.