Obedience = Blessing: Understanding God s Principals of Blessing Obedience Blesses Us In Kind (Part 1)

Transcription

1 Obedience = Blessing: Understanding God s Principals of Blessing Obedience Blesses Us In Kind (Part 1) Intro: When I started ministry at 20 yrs. old, I was literally so overwhelmed and scared with the responsibility, that it make me physically sick. I was actually physically nauseous before every night with students. But what it did was drive me to God and His word. I desperately needed something. What I discovered were countless promises in His word that if I followed His word He would provide and bless. I literally devoured these promises. I have been clinging to them for over 28 years. After 28 years, it is now represented in a simply phrase. There is a phrase we have been using for years here at Foothills. It s what I call a foothillsism. Let s say it together; Obedience =Blessing. We love saying this around here BUT, what does it really mean? What does it mean that when I obey God it results in blessing upon my life? This is what we are going to answer during the next 5 weeks. We are going to understand this phrase at a whole new level. We are going to look at what God s word has to say about the connection between obedience and blessing. Let me begin by laying some groundwork this morning. 3 foundational truths. We cannot confuse God s love and God s blessings. Many people do. Having God love you and having God bless you are 2 different issues. His love for you is unconditional. His blessings upon your life are entirely conditional. His love for you has nothing to do with your behavior. His blessings have everything to do with your behavior. His love for you has nothing to do with obedience. His blessings have everything to do with obedience. Some people will say; Why doesn t it seem God is blessing me. I m a good person. Whether you are a good person isn t the issue. Are you an obedient person? James 1:25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. (NLT) We get to decide how much blessing we experience. Since obedience is a behavioral issue, to some extent, God allows us to decide just how much blessing we experience in this life. You and I get to decide. God has already decided to bless you. How much of this blessing is determined by how much we are willing to obey and follow Jesus in this life. The more you and I obey the more blessing we will experience. Mark 4:24 Consider carefully what you hear, he continued. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you and even more. (NIV) We get to decide the size of the measuring cup God uses on our lives! Quit using a teaspoon! Blessing does not mean the removal of hardships. We still live in a broken fallen world where we will experience struggles and pain. Blessing does not mean bad things never happen. God is not going to put you in some protective bubble. That is not the blessing we should expect, nor did He promise this. In fact, He promised just the opposite. In this world you will have struggles Page 1

2 John 16:33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. (NLT) Even when God is blessing our lives He will never remove all the struggles of living in this life. Today we begin by understanding that God blesses us in kind to our obedience. 1. God s Blessing Will Be Connected To The Area Of Our Obedience God s blessing will literally be in kind. What do I mean? To understand God s principals of blessing you must try to think like a farmer. Farmers only harvest what they plant. If they plant wheat, they harvest wheat. If they plant corn, they harvest corn. If they plant broccoli, they don t get back watermelon. They harvest in kind. Gal. 6:7 Don t be misled you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. (NLT) We literally mock the justice of God when we live in a manner that rejects this principal. God is just, therefore, you and I will experience the results of our choices. We harvest what we plant. Therefore, you and I have the lives we have chosen. Our lives are the sum results of our choices. Now I realize we did not choose everything that has happened to us. We did not choose the divorce / the car accident / abuse / wounding from others / dysfunctional family we grew up in. BUT, we have since made countless choices of our free will on how we have dealt with these and other issues. 16 years ago I got voted out of a church. I could have blamed others / walked away from God and church / I could have been angry with God / OR I could choose to keep following Jesus. My life is the sum result of choices. So is yours! We do not get to blame anyone else for our lives. We harvest what we have planted. We all have made 1000s of choices that have led us to this moment. Most of the results in our lives have been determined by what we ve done. The encouraging side of this principal is that you can decide where you want to experience blessing. You harvest what you plant. In other words, we experience blessing IN the area of our obedience. Obedience to God s relational truths result in relational blessings Obedience to God s marriage truths results in marital blessings Obedience to God s financial truths results in God s financial blessings Obedience to God s call to live by faith results in seeing God s power in that specific area. (feeding kids / Adult Center / Obedience to pray results in more answers to prayer Obedience to serve results in fulfillment and purpose Page 2

3 All these principals work corporately as well. If Foothills wants to continue experiencing God s blessing on this church we must be committed to obedience. We will collectively harvest what we plant. Isn t it interesting that the more generous we are as a church the more resources God gives us? It is the result of obedience. The more unity we experience as a church the more God blesses us. WHY? Because this is one of the greatest things God wants in His church. This is why Satan fights the hardest at trying to destroy unity in churches. If he succeeds, the blessing is removed. God s blessing is not supposed to be mysterious. God wants you to know how to experience it. He wants you to know how to experience it in specific areas of your life. This should actually become a fun principal to live. Where do you want to see God bless your life? Then discover what God s word says about that specific area and then obey it. Plant those seeds in your life and blessing in that area will be the result. Ps. 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! (NLT) Obedience is how we taste and see. Obedience is taking refuge in the Lord. The word of God dares us to trust God. 2. God s Lack Of Blessing Will Be Connected To Our Lack of Obedience Since the principal is that we harvest in kind to what we plant, we must realize that we can put bad seed in the ground. We can plant weeds! Our sinful choices we make are like seeds we put into the ground of our lives. There are two sides to this principal. Gal. 6:8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. (NLT) First, let me remind everyone that just because we have difficult circumstances, it doesn t mean there is a major obedience issue. We live in a fallen world. Difficult things happen. What is more important is not the painful event, but our choices to the event. It will be our choices that will result in blessing or not. We can actually harm areas of our lives by putting the wrong seeds into the ground by our poor choices. The last thing I want to do is plant weeds in to my life! BUT, this is what we often do. HOW? When we ignore what God has said in His word in specific areas of our lives we are planting weeds. For example: If we ignore God s relational truths we will experience weeds in our relationships. Your relationships will not work very well. If we ignore God s communication truths (verbally harsh / mean / gossip / critical / then you will get that back upon your life in kind.) If we ignore God s financial truths, we will experience financial weeds financial consequences. Page 3

4 If we ignore God s truths about meaning and purpose in this life, we will struggle feeling like our lives have meaning and purpose. Everything is In Kind. On and on this scenario goes. If some of you are wondering why your life is not working very well this is the reason. One of my favorite phrases is; How s that workin for you? If life is not working very well there are reasons why. Let me give you an example using relationships since this is probably one of the most frequently violated and most ignored area of blessing. It is also probably the area of greatest pain. Do you want God to bless you relationally? Then decide to do relationships God s way! God has many relational principals, but let me point out one that is not very PC today and seems very old-fashioned. God tells us to Reserve sex for marriage only Why would God say such a thing? Is God a prude and He hates sex? No! He knows that if you don t, you are planting weeds in your relationship. You are removing blessing. How does having sex outside a committed marriage relationship hinder future blessing? You are destroying the blessing of trust. Until you have demonstrated to each other you can control this desire you will never have trust. You are destroying the blessing of a clear conscience. Because if you say you are a follower of Jesus you know you feel convicted by this behavior. You are destroying the blessing of true intimacy what is your relationship really based upon? You really don t know. Is intimacy more than just physical? You are destroying the blessing of sexual satisfaction (the more partners one has the less sexual satisfaction you experience.) Surveys- Greatest level of sexual satisfaction comes from those in a committed marital relationship. Why do things that remove the blessing of God from your relationships? This has nothing to do with God loving you. He does! BUT, He is not going to bless you when you choose to live in a manner that is completely opposite of His word. Sharing this is not to make you feel guilty either. This is not the point. Guilt is the worst motivator for changing behavior there is. I m not trying to lay a guilt trip on anyone. I am trying to get your thinking to change so that it aligns with God. Please reject this idea that I can live my life in any manner I choose and then expect God to bless me. That is a fantasy! Some of you are living in a way that is constantly planting weeds in your life. God loves you so much He is begging you to stop wounding yourself. Try life His way! It has been this way from the beginning of creation. This has always been God s system of blessing. There is a story in Genesis that illustrates this. It s the story of 2 brothers, Cain and Abel. Share Gen. 4:6-7 Why are you so angry? the LORD asked Cain. Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you (NLT) Page 4

5 Why do we fight against what God says is right? All this does is wound ourselves. 3. To Experience Blessing We Must Know What God s Word Says and Do It Gal. 6:9 So let s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don t give up. (NLT) Heb. 10:35-37 So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God s will. (obedience) Then you will receive all that he has promised. (Blessing) (NLT) Knowledge of God s word is essential for experiencing blessing. WHY? Because you cannot follow what you do not know! You might be thinking; If I don t know what God wants, why does He still expect me to follow it? My answer is this: Are you expected to know and obey all the traffic laws? Will you experience consequences even if you don t know them? I didn t know it was a 25mph zone? Does ignorance get you off the hook? Let me give you some steps so you can experience God s blessing in kind. Determine where you want to experience God s blessing. Don t launch some huge crusade to change every area of your life at once. (Marriage / parenting / finances / relationships in general / work / Discover from God s word what it says. What does God s word say about this issue behaviors attitudes Utilize some study helps online. Get in the word of God yourself. Get a translation you can understand. Write these principals down. You will remember better and it allows you to review. Begin putting these truths in to practice daily. Look for ways to practically live these truths out. Do not expect immediate blessing. Sometimes this happens but more often, we see results after the seeds have a chance to grow. More about this later in the series. Do not get discouraged when you fail. Change takes time. God will make these new behaviors part of our character over time as you persevere. Find an accountability friend. Find someone who will pray for you / encourage you / believe in you / someone you can talk to and confide in. We grow best together. Pray about them every day. Commit your obedience to God. Ask for His help to walk in obedience. Ask for His power to do what is right. Obedience isn t easy! We need to see God s word as a manual for life. It truly is the instruction manual / owner s manual / The more we know it and follow it the better our life runs and the more blessing we experience. God wants to bless our lives more than we have any idea. In fact, He has already chosen to do so. Now it is up to us to decide if these blessings become a reality in our daily Page 5

6 experience. It all depends upon our choices. What have you been choosing? We need to understand that there has always ONLY been 2 choices. Explain context: Moses right before his death. Deut. 30:19-20 Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. (NLT) Page 6