Sharing The Blessing Series

Sharing the Blessing

Series: Living in the Blessing

October 31, 2010

Summary – Being restored in relationship to God as our Father involves joining His work in the

world... including that of sharing the Father’s blessing with others. Sharing God’s blessing involves

five very basic qualities: Building Relationships on Common Ground, Looking to see as God sees,

Exploring the needs and longings of others, Serving, and Sharing the Father’s heart. We will bless

others when we allow these qualities to naturally flow together as Jesus did.

Intro –

Throughout this series we have sought to hear afresh how Jesus has come to restore us as sons

and daughters of God... to restore us as those who were created in God’s image. He came as the

eternal Son of God to restore us as God’s created children.

And this is what is vital for us to understand: an essential part of our restoration is joining the

Father in His work of restoration.

God’s children share in His work in the world. At the very beginning of creation he declared that

we were to be co-managers of the created world. When humankind went it’s own way... and He

began to call out a people to make Himself known. It began with His call to a man named

Abraham... who God called out to begin His work of redeeming the world. That promise to

Abraham would ultimately be fulfilled in Christ and all who follow.

Genesis 12:2-3

"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.

...and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you."

God says I will bless you... and you will be a blessing.

What’s our role in this world? To be a blessing.

“God made me to be a BLESSING in this world.”

This is the mission which Jesus came to fulfill... to restore the blessing we had forsaken.

Luke 19:10 (NIV)

Jesus said...”the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

The word save can be interpreted as ‘restore’... he came to seek and restore life in relationship to

the Father.

This is what Jesus now imparts to us... a revolution of restoration.

In John 17:18, Jesus said to the Father in one of his final prayers –

"In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world."

And later Jesus declares to those who follow him,

"As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." - John 20:21

Our lives are infused with a mission... in the midst of all that may seem mundane... there is a

mission...to join Jesus in the process of restoring lives with their true identity and dignity as

God’s children.

It’s a profound truth to discover how much people matter to God, but it’s equally life-changing

to discover that he uses us to bless others to know who they really are.

Now there is something that can get very confused and distorted in the ways this is often taken

up. We can end up thinking we are salesmen for God.

Recently I was approached by a woman out on our street one night.. it was after dark... about

730pm... stating they were a carpet cleaning service whose only advertising was to offer free

cleaning to show how superior their work was. Since we had a stain no one had removed in the

past... and I was headed in the house I said she could have someone come in and give it a try.

Within a short time I began to get the vibe that this was a major manipulative sales process. I got a

chance to slip in my home office and do a quick search online... and immediately I am looking at

entire pages of the most horrendous stories of how this operation works... how they will not leave

your home and after 2 to 3 hours the police always had to be called to get them to leave.

> The simple truth is that he had to make sales and that is how they have designed their process to

go. It is designed to use people to serve their need... and to be manipulative rather than straight

forward.

When we allow the sense of simply being salesmen for God to define our mission...

 We operate out of guilt rather than love.. and use people rather than serve them

 We allow the real purpose to be reduced to a program

 We become more packaged than personal

 We become more disingenuous... we feel we have to say more than we actually know and

therefore more than what is natural.

 God is not a product we have to sell...He is the source of life itself...and we are simply