God Is Not Finished With Me Yet Series

While it is easy for us to sit here this morning and fault the Israelites for being so self-centered, we can easily fall into the same trap.

It’s pretty easy to spot some of the more blatant abuses. Movements like the prosperity gospel or the “name it and claim it” theology are obviously primarily focused on God’s promises and blessings for me. But one of the dangers of those movements, other than the fact that they tend to twist Scripture, is that when those promises fail to come to fruition the way that people think they should, it becomes very easy to conclude that God is done with them or doesn’t love them anymore.

But for most of us the tendency to be a bucket rather than a channel is much more subtle. This week I went to Amazon and typed in the words “God’s promises” and over 4,000 results popped up just in the book section. Several of those books were a collection of 365 promises – one for each day of the year. And there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with any of those books or with being encouraged by the promises of God every day. But the problem occurs when we begin to appropriate those promises personally without any thought of how we might enable others to experience those same promises.

Another way we can be a bucket rather than a channel is with our material possessions. When God prospers us financially most of us would consider that to be a blessing, right? But when God blesses us like that, He usually doesn’t do that just for our own good. He wants us to take and pass that blessing on to others. Paul wrote about that in his second letter to the church in Corinth:

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

(2 Corinthians 9:10–11 ESV)

Paul is clear here that it is God who supplies our material resources. And when He does that in abundance, it is so that we can be generous with others.

When we get our eyes of just ourselves and we begin to focus on how we can be a blessing to others, it’s pretty hard to start thinking that God might be done with me.

INSPIRATION

Because God has not rejected Israel

I can be confident that God is

not finished with me yet

Back in the 1980’s I had one of these buttons that were made popular by a well-known ministry:

[Show PBPGINFWMY button]

While I am not necessarily a proponent of everything that particular ministry advocated, I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be helpful for all of us to wear a button like that today to remind us of what we’ve learned today.

Please Be Patient God Is Not Finished With Me Yet

ACTION

As we begin this new year, I want to encourage all of us to take some concrete steps each week to help us apply what we’re learning. So I’m going to provide a place in your sermon outline each week for you to write down three things at the end of the message:

What did I learn about God today?

What I learn about myself today?