Introduction
Hebrews 3:7-19; Ephesians 1:3
Illustration: Jackpot!
A young intern came into our hospital ward one evening, shaking his head. "There’s an old man out there by the vending machines," he said, "and he’s putting dollar bills into the money changer. Every time he gets his quarters, he yells, ’Jackpot!’ and dances around." The other nurses and I chuckled and soon forgot about it.
In a few hours, on our way for a coffee break, we saw a repairman in front of one of the vending machines. We asked him why he was working so late.
"I have to get this money changer fixed," he said. "It’s been giving $1.50 in quarters every time someone puts in a dollar bill."
The same is true about the blessings of God. The more that we do in Christ’s name the more blessings will be coming our way. (Dolores J. Craig, Reader’s Digest, April 1990, p. 17.)
Note: We need to keep in mind that even though God wants to bless us, that is not the primary motivation for us to serve Him. We should serve Him simply because we love Him. He blesses us, not because we serve Him, but because He loves us.
I. GOD’S BLESSINGS CAN BE HINDERED BY INSENSITIVITY. Hebrews 3:7-11
Illustration: Watch The Dog
A man and his dog were walking on the beach when they came upon another visitor to the beach. The owner of the dog was proud of his dog’s newly mastered feat, so he said to the visitor, "Watch this!" whereupon he tossed a piece of driftwood far out into the sea and the dog immediately ran on top of the ocean, fetched the wood, and ran back.
The visitor just shook his head in disbelief. Happily, the owner repeated the procedure twice.
Finally he asked the visitor, "Did you notice anything unusual?"
The visitor responded, "Yes, your dog can’t swim, can he?" (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) p. 135.)
A. Are You Expecting A Blessing Or Wishing For A Blessing? Hebrews 3:7-8
Note: God wants to bless you today!
Illustration: The Joy Of A Blind Child
Many years ago a little girl was totally blind. She was blinded as an infant as the result of an accident. She lived to be over 90 years old. She became a saint of the American church. She wrote more than 8000 hymns and many popular Christian songs and choruses including ‘Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It,’ ‘I Shall Know Him,’ ‘He Hideth My Soul,’ ‘Tell Me the Story of Jesus,’ and ‘Blessed Assurance.’ Her name was Fanny Crosby. When she was only eight years old, she wrote:
Oh, what a happy child I am, although I cannot see.
I am resolved that in this world, contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t.
To weep and sigh because I’m blind--I cannot and I won’t. (John Yates II, "The Man Born Blind," Preaching Today, Tape No. 46.)
1. Believers often provoke God because they distrust that He will care and provide for them. Lamentations 3:22-23
2. They murmur against God and His leaders and rebel against God. Hebrews 10:23-25
3. They have a sense of regret for the life they left behind, and long for the pleasures of sin. (It’s so hard to be a Christian.) Psalms 30:4-5
B. Does Your Trust Demand From God Or Ask Of God?Hebrews 3:9
Illustration: Real Credibility
If you tell a man that there are 300 billion stars in the universe, he’ll believe you. But if you tell him a bench has just been painted, he has to touch it to be sure. (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) p. 132.)
1. Rather than believing God, we often test Him to see if He is really good and will meet our needs.
2. We put God to the test to see if He meets our approval.
3. We want God to simply provide without any trial or suffering.
4. We are unwilling to prove ourselves, unwilling to show that we really love God, no matter what.
5. We want God to prove Himself worthy of our loyalty and trust.
6. This is total disobedience.
C. Does Your Attitude Please God Or Provoke God? Hebrews 3:10-11
1. God has promised to meet our needs and He always has.
2. We may not have the luxuries of life, but we do have God’s care and provision.
3. We can know the ways of God, and trust Him in all we do.
4. God does not enjoy our grumbling, questioning, distrust, unbelief, or disobedience.
5. God requires faith and trust; that is His way.
6. Once we really believe God, the more we will:
a. Learn to draw near to God.
b. Learn to fellowship with God.
c. Learn to trust God.
d. Learn to depend on God.
e. Learn to walk with God.
7. When we choose not to believe God, we will never enjoy God’s blessings.
8. Like the Hebrews, we will “die in the wilderness” without experiencing the full joy of knowing and believing God.
Illustration: Hymns The Way We Live Them
The way we might sing some well-known hymns if we were being honest:
1. I Surrender Some
2. There Shall Be Sprinkles of Blessings
3. Fill My Spoon, Lord
4. Oh, How I Like Jesus
5. He’s Quite a Bit to Me
6. I Love to Talk About Telling the Story
7. Take My Life and Let Me Be
8. It is My Secret What God Can Do
9. There is Scattered Cloudiness in My Soul Today
10. Where He Leads Me, I Will Consider Following
11. Just As I Pretend to Be
(Bits and Pieces, http://www.bible.org. )
II. GOD’S BLESSINGS CAN BE HINDERED BY UNBELIEF.
Note: If you want to receive a blessing, then be a blessing. Hebrews 3:12-15
Illustration: The Blasphemy of Unbelief
Beware of worshipping Jesus as the Son of God, and professing your faith in Him as the Savior of the world, while you blaspheme Him by the complete evidence in your daily life that He is powerless to do anything in and through you. (Oswald Chambers, Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 11.)
· Note: Some Christians practice a religion of “pragmatic atheism.”
· That is, they say they believe in God and that He will meet their needs, but seldom do you ever find them actually depending on God to do that.
· Intellectually speaking they believe that God exists.
· Practically speaking, however, they do not portray a life that is utterly dependent on Him.
· Such a life, in practice, says that God does not exist; He does not care.
· If that were true, then He might as well not exist, for He will bestow no blessing on that life.
A. Who Are You Encouraging? Mark 9:24
Note: Encourage is from the Greek parakaleo, a form of the word used by Jesus of the Holy Spirit. The root meaning has to do with coming alongside to give help. The writer is saying to the believers among those to whom he is writing, "Get along side each other and help each other." ((from The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, (c) Moody Press and John MacArthur, Jr., 1983-2002).)
Illustration: Count Your Many Blessings
While on a short-term missions trip, Pastor Jack Hinton was leading worship at a leper colony on the island of Tobago. A woman who had been facing away from the pulpit turned around.
"It was the most hideous face I had ever seen," Hinton said. "The woman’s nose and ears were entirely gone. She lifted a fingerless hand in the air and asked, ’Can we sing Count Your Many Blessings?’ "
Overcome with emotion, Hinton left the service. He was followed by a team member who said, "I guess you’ll never be able to sing that song again."
"Yes I will," he replied, "but I’ll never sing it the same way." (The Pastor’s Update (5/96). Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership.)
B. Who Are You Heeding?
Illustration: What Will You Give Up To Follow Jesus?
There was a couple, “Bob and Mary,” who were having problems in their marriage several years ago. The problems were very real, and the solutions would be quite painful. Both were on their second marriage, (“Mary” had two children from her previous marriage) and both needed desperately to seek God’s guidance to resolve their conflict. Both agreed, however, that they would follow Jesus to solve their marriage problems.
Imagine my disappointment when “Bob” revealed to me that he knew the most important thing in his life was following Jesus. Therefore, he had prayed and gotten peace in his heart that Jesus wanted him to divorce his wife. He explained that “Mary” didn’t want to follow him as he sought Jesus, and that he had found a woman who shared his same desire. He knew he could never follow Jesus with “Mary.” “Mary” was holding him back. So there was no other choice but to get a divorce.
In spite of repeated exhortations “Bob” followed through with his plan to get a divorce. He married the other woman, and joined a church of another denomination because they would “accept him as he was.” He never understood that God does not require us to commit one sin in order to cover up another. But then, he never saw what he did as sinful.
That is the deceitfulness of sin. Luke 22:31
1. Deceitfulness means "trickery.”
2. Sin never appears as it really is.
3. It always masks itself in lies and deceit.
4. When a person becomes spiritually hardened, he rarely is aware of it.
5. He can hear the message of Jesus Christ time and time again and not respond.
6. There is a well-known expression, "The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay."
7. If your heart is not melted in faith, it will be hardened in unbelief. Psalm 139:23-24
III. GOD’S BLESSINGS CAN BE HINDERED BY DISOBEDIENCE. Hebrews 3:16-19
Illustration: Right Behind You
Hurrying my 11-year-old daughter to school, I turned right on red where it was prohibited. "Uh, oh," I said, realizing my mistake. "I just made an illegal turn."
"It’s all right," my daughter said. "The police car behind us did the same thing." (Jack Eppolito, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Christian Reader, "Lite Fare.")
· Disobedience, as well as obedience, has the power to transform a person completely.
· Through disobedience in a particular decision, one can falsify the whole sequence of right thinking.
Illustration: Ignoring the Still, Small Voice
My five-year-old daughter, Barbara, had disobeyed me and had been sent to her room. After a few minutes, I went in to talk with her about what she had done. Teary-eyed, she asked, "Why do we do wrong things, Mommy?"
"Well," I replied, "sometimes the devil tells us to do something wrong and we listen to him. We need to listen to God instead."
To which she sobbed, "But God doesn’t talk loud enough!" (Jo M. Guerrero, Joplin, Missouri. Christian Reader, "Kids of the Kingdom.")
A. Disobedience Leads To Rebellion.
Illustration: I Don’t Like Broccoli
After it was disclosed that President Bush (the first) has banned broccoli aboard Air Force One, the nation was embroiled in "broccoli discussion." As broccoli growers dispatched 10 tons of the vegetable free to Washington, the President reiterated his distaste with gusto: "I do not like broccoli and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli. Now look, this is the last statement I’m going to have on broccoli. There are truckloads of broccoli at this very minute descending on Washington. My family is divided. For the broccoli vote out there: Barbara loves broccoli. She has tried to make me eat it. She eats it all the time herself. So she can go out and meet the caravan of broccoli that’s coming in." (Resources, #2, May/June, 1990.)
B. Rebellion Increases Sin.
Illustration: 18 Deacons Who Would Not Stand
I heard about a Baptist church that was going to build a new Sunday school building. In an attempt to help raise the money the preacher wired the seats with electricity. On the following Sunday at the end of the service he said, "Now, who will give $100 for the building?"
He pushed a button and 20 people jumped up. Then he said, "Who will give $500?"
He pushed another button and 16 people jumped up.
He had a special wire going to where the deacons were seated. He said, "Who will give $1,000?"
He pushed that button and the 18 deacons would not stand up and they all 18 were electrocuted to death. (Thomas, A. Pilgrim, The Roads Jesus Traveled, C.S.S. Publishing Company, 1992. Sermon Illustrations.com.)
C. Sin Provokes God’s Wrath.
Illustration: We Have The Majority
There once was a pastor who was having trouble with his congregation; they couldn’t agree on anything. The chairman of the deacons said, "Pastor, this can’t continue. There has to be a conference, and we have to settle all areas of dispute once and for all." The Pastor agreed.
At the appointed time the Pastor and the Deacon board met around a magnificent mahogany table in the conference room of the church. One by one the issues were dealt with and on each issue, it became more and more apparent that the Pastor was a lonely voice in the wilderness. The chairman of the deacons said, "Come on, Pastor, enough of this. Let’s vote and allow the majority to rule."
He passed out slips of paper and each man made his mark. The votes were collected and the chairman said, "You may examine them, Pastor. It is eleven to one against you. We have the majority."
Offended, the Pastor rose to his feet and said, "So, now you think because of the vote that you’re right and I’m wrong. Well, that’s not so. I stand here," and he raised his arms impressively while looking heavenward, "and call upon Almighty God to give us a sign that I’m right and you’re wrong."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when there was a deafening clap of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning that struck the mahogany table and cracked it in two. The room was filled with smoke and fumes, and the chairman and the deacons were hurled to the floor. Surrounded by rubble the Pastor stood erect and untouched, his eyes and smile flashing with triumph. Slowly, the chairman lifted himself out of the rubble. His hair was singed, his glasses were hanging from one ear, and his clothing was in disarray.
Finally he said, "All right, eleven to two. But we still have the majority." (Source unknown)
Note: I have used humor to illustrate the last three points because I want us to see the foolishness of disobedience. The sad truth is what we deal with in the final point.
D. God’s Wrath Denies Blessings. Hebrews 12:28-29
Note: Why should God bless me if I refuse to obey Him?
Conclusion
Why, you may ask, is it so important that I be blessed by God, and that I acknowledge His blessings.
· It’s important because someone is watching you.
· You are an influence to someone, maybe even many people.
· Some are people who have never trusted in Christ and they need to see something in your life that makes them want what you have.
· Others may be immature Christians who have not yet discovered for themselves what the blessings of God are all about. They need to understand how to count their blessings.
· Still others may be faithful believers who are going through a storm and need to be encouraged by the hope that the storm will soon pass.
