Vision Sermon B.L.E.S.S. Texts: Gen. 12:2; Zech. 8:13; Rom. 12:14-21 Valley Community Baptist Church Sept. 5/6, 2015 Avon, CT Pastor Jay Abramson You Will Be a Blessing What would you say is the word used most frequently in the Old Testament? Not a name, like God, but a word. What do you think? It is the Hebrew word Baruk. It means to bless. Does that surprise you? Most of you know that one of our eight core values as a church is summed up in the one word Sharing. We ve described it this way: Sharing Every person living in Hartford and Litchfield Counties will be reached relationally with the grace and mercy of God. Most of you also know that, when we adopted this value, we also said that we had no specific strategy of how to accomplish this. Well, starting today, we re announcing a strategy. Our strategy is expressed in the acronym, B.L.E.S.S. Each letter represents a word or phrase that describes a biblical action for each one of us to take. Today, before we celebrate the Lord s Supper, I want to describe these five biblical steps we can take to bless our region. But first, I want to answer the question I. What Does the Biblical Word Bless Really Mean? The Hebrew and Greek words that are translated bless or blessing, have the primary meaning of conveying a gift. It could be a gift of words or actions or a physical substance like food which is given to meet a physical, emotional or spiritual need, but it s a gift from you to someone else. That someone else could be a person or it could be God. In fact, a central part of biblical worship is to bless the Lord. The psalms are filled with this! Ps. 103 literally says: Bless the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name. (Ps. 103:1) The word blessing (in Hebrew Beraka), literally means a state of being that is opposed to the divine curse. What is that referring to? Well, when Adam and Eve sinned, the consequence was that they fell out of fellowship with God. That s what it meant to be cursed. There was a distance between them and God. But because God is gracious and full of mercy, He made a way for cursed people to be brought back into a right relationship with Him, even while they were still living in this world that is operating under the curse. That s what the Temple sacrifices were all about in the Old Testament. The sacrifices offered in worship removed the sin that separated the people from God. Ultimately, of course, those sacrifices culminated in Jesus sacrificing Himself on the cross. His sacrifice makes it possible for anyone s sin to be removed. And this is what God is alluding to when He says through the prophet Zechariah: As you have been an object of cursing among the nations, O Judah and Israel, so will I save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong. (Zech. 8:13) 1
To live in a state of forgiveness is to live out the meaning of the Hebrew word Shalom. Professor Cornelius Plantinga defines that word by saying: In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be. i So, for a person to be truly blessed is to see them move into an experience of shalom the state of flourishing, wholeness and delight with God! That s what it means to be biblically blessed. Now, we need to ask the next question, which is II. How Can This Work in My Life? This summer many of you participated in the Summer Nights series where you viewed the video teaching of John Trent on how to bless your children, grandchildren or even a friend. He gave five practical steps to take. I affirm those steps as being especially important in a family setting. But our focus for accomplishing our Sharing core value is slightly different. Here our focus is on blessing our non-christian neighbors, co-workers, or even people we don t know very well. What would be the key biblical steps for helping non-christians move from where they are to the place where they are experiencing true, biblical shalom? God said that this was His goal in choosing the Jews as His special people. He said to Abraham: I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Gen. 12: 2, 3b) And what was the last thing Jesus did on earth? He blessed His disciples! Look it up for yourself, Luke 24:51. He told them to go and be witnesses of everything they had seen, then He blessed them and While he was blessing them he was taken up into heaven. So, that s also our challenge, to be His witnesses, and here is our biblical strategy to bless them. Are you ready? The first letter is B. This stands for: Begin with Prayer. Specifically this means, Begin with prayer for people. Most of the prayers of Jesus recorded in Scripture included prayer for people. Before He chose His disciples, He prayed for them (Lk. 6:12). Before He sent them out in ministry, He prayed for them (Matt. 9:37). Before He paid their sin debt on the cross, He prayed for them (John 17:9). How much do you pray for your friends who don t yet follow Jesus? Next week, we re going to do something we ve done before. We re going to distribute our Focus on Five cards. It s a small card on which you will write the names of five people you know who aren t yet followers of Christ. Then, as a church, we re going to begin to pray like Jesus for them. We re going to do the B of our B.L.E.S.S. strategy. And in another week we re going to unveil a really cool way of celebrating every person who decides to become a follower of Christ. More about that later. But now, we ve got to move on to the next letter L is for Listen. We think of Jesus as doing a lot of talking, teaching; but He did a lot of listening as well. In fact, much of His teaching was in response to questions. His first miracle was in response to a comment from His mom. The first time He shared the gospel was in response to Nicodemus who came to Him at night. We think that being a witness means doing a lot of talking. But most of the time, we 2
need to listen before we speak. As we said earlier, blessing is giving someone a gift. Wouldn t you rather receive a gift that meets a real need that you have? For us to know what people need, we need to ask questions and listen to their response before we start giving advice. The Wall Street Journal reported on a series of studies done at the University of Iowa with 100 married couples over the first seven years of their marriage. They concluded that both husbands and wives felt lower marital satisfaction when they were given too much advice from their spouse, as opposed to too little. And unsolicited advice was the most damaging of all. Sometimes listening can be even more effective than giving advice. ii To bless someone we need to listen to them. The next letter is probably my favorite. It s E for Eat with them. Again, this is something Jesus did a lot! He was constantly eating with people, some who weren t even His followers yet. He ate with Matthew s friends, He ate with Zacheus. He had a drink (of water!) with the Woman at the Well. He did this so much they called Him a glutton! Why did He do this? Jesus practiced and taught holy hospitality. He told His disciples that, when He returned to establish His kingdom, He would separate the believers from the unbelievers. Then He listed the characteristics of those who were believers. The first characteristic was what? Come take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you For I was hungry and you and gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in... (Matt. 25:34, 35) Paul tells Timothy that hospitality is a needed character trait of an elder. Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford write this in their book Right Here, Right Now: Missional hospitality is a tremendous opportunity to extend the kingdom of God. We can literally eat our way into the kingdom! If every Christian household regularly invited a stranger or a poor person into their home for a meal once a week, we would literally change the world by eating! iii Now, let me stop here for a minute. We ve covered the first three steps in our strategy. Honestly, can t we all do these three? You pray, you listen, you eat with someone. We can ALL do this, right? And if you do these three things with someone who isn t yet a follower of Christ, you can be confident of one thing: Jesus is already blessing that person through you. Now, number four the letter is S for Serve. This might sound like it would be hard but actually, if you ve done the first three, it might be the easiest. First, what do we mean by serve? Am I talking about re-roofing someone s house? No. Am I saying you should offer to do daycare for their three preschool children? No. (Believe me having just done that for five weeks, I m definitely NOT advising that!) So, what does this mean? Well, what did we say a biblical blessing was back at the beginning? It s words or actions or a physical substance that meets a real need in someone s life. If you re praying for this person and then really listening to them as you share a meal with them, eventually they will trust you enough to tell you of some need that they have or you ll just observe their need. 3
This past month, Liz and I have been on the receiving end of that kind of serving from many of you. As we were serving our son Adam s need of extended childcare so that he could serve others in Zimbabwe, we were served in so many small but very meaningful ways. Some stopped over with a bowl of fruit for the kids or someone shared a toy or stroller or car seat. One family invited us over to use their pool on one of those 90-degree days. What an impact that made! It lifted our load and lifted our spirits. If we hadn t been Christians, what do you suppose we would ve been thinking? We d be thinking, Why are you people doing all this? Jesus said, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve (Mk. 10:45) Serving the needs of another person, even in seemingly small ways, is a powerful witness and a strong element of blessing them. The final letter in our acronym is also S for story. This is the step where you share your story of how you became a Christ follower. A lot of people get freaked out by this, but relax. I m not going to call you up and say, This is Pastor Jay. Have you shared your story yet? Why not? No, we all know that wouldn t be helpful. Yes, we will provide tools to advise you on how you might share your story. We even have a video on our website showing what it might look like. But listen, it all boils down to three simple talking points. Here they are: - What was your life like before you came to know Jesus? - How did you actually do that? How do you come to know Jesus? - What happened in your life after you came to know Jesus? I suggest you write out your story answering those three questions. Yeah, actually write it out. You may never print it out and give it to anyone, but it will kind of set it in your brain. I mean, it s like telling about how you fell in love and got married. You may not tell that story exactly the same each time, but the big pieces will all be there, won t they? Now, I want you to notice something in this strategy; telling your story of how you became a Christian is the last step. This is intentional. Why? Because if you do the other four steps first, you will have a much greater likelihood of that person ASKING you to tell them your story. As the study of the married couples shows, very few people are looking for unsolicited advice. But if you do the other four steps of praying, listening, eating and serving, you will have already blessed their life and God will then direct you as to when He wants you to share your story. And remember, God is not expecting you to save their souls. In fact, He clearly states that that is not your job. You are simply a witness to what He s done for you. And one more thing, from what Paul says in Romans, God can even give us the grace to bless people who are unreceptive and nasty to us. Listen again: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God s wrath, for it is written: It is mine to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary: 4
If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom. 12:14-21) Throughout this next year, we re going to keep talking about this strategy and celebrating when God moves among us to bless the people of Hartford and Litchfield Counties. So, who s on your blessing list? Let s pray i Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Not the Way It s Supposed to be, A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), p. 10 ii Elizabeth Bernstein, The Perils of Giving Advice, The Wall Street Journal (6-24- 13) iii Alan Hirsch, Lance Ford, Right Here, Right Now (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011) 5