BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Gen 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
(KJV)
Zech 8:13-17
13 And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands be strong.
14 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; As I thought to punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, saith the LORD of hosts, and I repented not:
15 So again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah: fear ye not.
16 These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:
17 And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.
(KJV)
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*** Every thing we embrace must have a foundational principle behind it.
*** If it don’t it’s not truth! We can’t just come up with something and call it to work in our life.
*** Giving is such a truth, one that you can live by and grow by.
*** The subject of giving is one that I hesitate to preach on, simply because I feel uncomfortable with it.
*** I feel as though I’m coming off as unappreciative of what you give, and maybe like I’m cracking the whip to get more and more, and I shrink from that.
*** I also don’t want to be identified with the false prophets whose only goal is to bilk honest people out of their hard earned finances and pad their own pockets and fill their own coffers.
*** And, so when it comes to preaching about money, I have a hard time.
*** Yet Jesus Himself understood the importance of giving to the Kingdom of God, and never shirked his responsibility.
I.) JESUS SPOKE MORE ABOUT MONEY IN THE N.T. THAN HEAVEN, HELL, OR ADULTERY!
• 16 of the 38 parables deal with money
• 1 of every 10 verses in the Gospels deal with money and how to handle it
• There are 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 on faith, but over 2000 verses in the Bible that deal with money, possessions and how to handle them
*** Our faith is closely connected to our finances. I’ve often told people that tithing is not a financial issue, but a faith issue, because if you can’t trust God with your money, how can you trust Him with your soul?
• The problem the rich young ruler had with following Jesus was not the rules and regulations, he’d kept the law since he’d been a child.
• What kept him from following Jesus was his inability to trust Jesus with his welfare!
*** And when you see that one of the predominating factors of revival was a spirit of giving.
Acts 2:45
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
(KJV)
*** And, so, if Jesus thought it important enough to spend the majority of his time on, and God impressed holy men of old to write over 2000 scriptures on money, then I can’t shirk my responsibility to preach on money in this pulpit.
*** And, if I’m going to preach it like Jesus did, I also must preach the benefits of giving sacrificially.
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*** Participate in the promise--
Someone wrote: Money will buy---A bed but not sleep. Books but
not brains. Food but not appetite. Finery but not beauty.
A house but not a home, Luxuries but not culture.
Medicine but not health. Amusements but not happiness.
A crucifix but not a Saviour. A church but not a heaven.
*** Giving is not one for one… God will multiply your giving!
Prov 3: 9 Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:
10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
*** How can I have more if I give it away? But how can it work???
ANSWER IS VERSE 10 OF 2 COR.
2 Cor 9:10
10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)
(KJV)
*** AS I SOW OUT… GOD SOWS INTO ME!
( he wants to involve me in his program)
NIV = 10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.
11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
*** EACH TIME YOU GIVE… you reposition yourself to receive!
Prov 10:22 The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.
THE WRONG MOTIVES FOR WEALTH
*** There are a lot of people who have their heart set on getting rich.
*** The mistake made usually lays both in the nature of the thing they desire and in the way by which they hope to get it.
*** The most desirable kind of wealth is not just having abundance, but having it with no sorrow mixed in.
*** Most rich people are very anxious about their wealth.
*** They worry about many things, such as the best way to invest it, how to keep it, how to get more, and they have a fear of losing it or having it stolen.
*** Likewise, the misuse of riches can bring guilt and may ruin ones health through excessive eating and drinking.
Paul warned about what happens to those who desire to be rich.
1 Tim 6:9-10 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
*** If riches come, I want them to be a source of comfort to my soul.
*** I want to do good with them and to serve God with joyfulness and gladness of heart in the use of them. I want to be clean rich, not filthy rich!
*** That kind of wealth is desirable, and it can be expected, not by making ourselves slaves to the world, but by the blessing of God.
*** That kind of blessing, which comes into our lives from the love of God and has the grace of God for its companion, is to be desired.
*** No sorrow or grief is in God’s package deal. He gives us richly all things to enjoy;
*** Other comments about riches are made earlier in this 10th chapter of Proverbs. The wicked and the righteous are contrasted in verses 2 and 3.
Prov 10:2-5 Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.
3 The LORD will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked.
Verses 4-5 lets us know that, even though we should consider riches without sorrow as a blessing from the Lord, we still must be diligent and wise, rather than be slipshod or lazy.
4 He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. 5 He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.
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GOD WANTS TO BLESS US!
*** I want to remind you today that God enjoys bestowing blessing upon his children. He delights in giving good gifts to his people.
Luke 12:32
32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
(KJV)
*** He is ready, willing & anxious to add blessing after blessing to our lives.
*** In fact, the Lord looks upon us as the apple of his eye.
***As deeply concerned and as carefully attentive as man can be for the safety of his eyesight, so is God for the protection and welfare of his people.
***We are his most precious possession.
*** How many of you who are parents and grandparents enjoy doing something special for your family?
*** The greatest joy I have found in life is to do good things for those I love. It’s a pleasure!
*** God is our loving heavenly Father and he longs to bless you. He looks for ways to bestow favor upon you. He enjoys enriching your life, just like he did with his friend, Abraham.
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SOME GET MORE-WHY?
Gen 12:1-3 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
*** He blesses some people more than others simply because he knows they will be a blessing to others.
*** The LORD had blessed Abraham in all things. Listen to what one of Abraham’s servants said to the household of Laban,
(Gen 24:34-36): And he said, I am Abraham’s servant. And the LORD hath blessed my master greatly; and he is become great: and he hath given him flocks, and herds, and silver, and gold, and menservants, and maidservants, and camels, and asses.
*** After Hannah, who had been childless throughout her marriage, prayed to the Lord for a child and he heard her cry and gave her a son, she weaned him and then brought the child Samuel to the temple, where she loaned him to the LORD in a selfless act of loving dedication.
*** In her prayer of praise, thanksgiving and rejoicing, Hannah said:
1 Sam 2:7-8 The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.
8He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory:
SEEK HIS BLESSINGS
*** No matter how much blessing I get, the supply of his treasure house will never be diminished.
*** God wants you and me to want a blessing.
*** That blessing comes when we get a revelation of his loving kindness toward us, when we have a passion for him to bless us, and when we actively pursue and seek his blessing.
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Esau
*** The writer to the Hebrews speaks of Esau as being a profane man, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. Then Paul makes this comment, For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
*** It was the allowing of the sensual to swallow up the spiritual.
*** It was sinking the interest of a great future in the little pressing need of the present.
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BLESSING BECAUSE OF INHERITANCE
*** Let’s fast forward to Joshua 24. I want you to see that the blessing of the Lord is something we simply inherit because of a covenant he made with our forefathers in the faith. There is a truth here that I had overlooked until I read…
Joshua 24:1
*** In the first instance, Joshua declared that God’s people would enjoy the blessings of the land of Canaan, even though they had not sown the crops, built the cities, nor planted the olive trees.
*** Here in the gospel of John, Jesus promised that a spiritual realm of blessings would be given to his people, even though they had done nothing to deserve it.
*** They would reap a bountiful harvest of souls where they had not even sown the gospel seed. An abundant crop and a goodly inheritance would be given to them.
INHERITANCE - something we receive from our deceased parents or other family members: perhaps an heirloom, a coin collection, a household estate, a certain piece of property, or a sum of money. An inheritance is something we did not earn. It is not received as a result of something we did; it is a gift from someone.
*** Long before Joshua’s day, as is seen in Genesis 28:3-4, Isaac said to his son, Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel:
And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.
*** With that fresh in our minds, let’s read the words of Jesus in Matthew 25.
Matthew 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
*** Even as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob eventually inherited the land of Canaan that God gave them, so do we, who are favored by the Lord the King, inherit the kingdom he prepared for us at the creation of the world.
*** God has many precious blessings for us that we did not earn.
*** The Samaritan woman who came to Jacob’s well had her mind set on drawing some cold, clear water out of the well with a bucket let down into its depths on a rope.
*** Jesus, however, had the real thing in mind - the water of eternal life. He told her it was a gift - the gift of God!
*** If you think you are good enough (or can do enough good things) to receive the Holy Ghost, you are wrong.
*** Chronic seekers of the Spirit beg and seek to earn the baptism of the Holy Ghost, forgetting that IT IS A GIFT that is freely given.
*** God’s kingdom is not carnal; it is spiritual. It is not meat & drink; it is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. We inherit it, just as surely as Israel was to inherit the Land of Canaan.
CLAMING AND POSSESSING –FAITH NOT DOUBT
*** But if we doubt, like Israel in the wilderness, we will come short of his promise.
*** In order for an heir to enjoy the benefit of his inheritance, he must do something.
*** He must believe the report and then lay claim to the inheritance.
*** Every year, vast amounts of estates and huge sums of money sit unclaimed in state and federal banks and are held in escrow by courts because those to whom the property or money should go did not show up to collect it.
*** In some cases, they were unable to be notified. In other instances, those who could have been heirs doubted the authenticity of the notification letter they received.
*** Under Moses’ leadership, the Israelites doubted that God would give them the land of Canaan for a possession.
*** Their reasoning was that they could not take the land because many of its inhabitants were giants.
*** They were right; they could not - but God could! So because of their negative attitude, God excluded them.
*** After serving a 40 yr probation, during which most of the unbelievers died, the younger generation presumed to capture the city of Ai in their own power, despite the fact that God said they would be defeated.
SELF INDUCED RICHES
*** They made the same error their fathers had made. THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD DO IT IN THEIR OWN POWER. In both instances, they disregarded the word of God.
*** If you build a kingdom of self it WILL fall.
*** It’s just pride and you have a promise of failure.
*** We can do it, no matter what Joshua tells us about waiting on the Lord.
*** Whether it is fear or self-presumption, either can exclude us from having the blessings of God.
*** Only Faith gains the promises because whatsoever is not of faith is sin. God must receive all the glory!
*** It is commendable for a person to earn his own way through life in this world. The Bible says a man ought not to eat if he does not work.
*** We dare not carry that concept over into the Kingdom of God, however, and feel as though we can earn the blessings we receive!
It doesn’t operate that way.
Luke 12:31-32 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
*** Jesus was not referring to something we would receive when we get to heaven. He was saying that we can RECEIVE THE KINGDOM RIGHT NOW, simply by seeking it first.
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MANAGE THE KINGDOM
Heb 12:28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. (NKJV)
*** You men can be the kind of priest of your homes God wants you to be. Just stand up and serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear.
*** Act like men. Be strong in the Lord. You will INHERIT THE KINGDOM BLESSINGS!
*** Have an expectation of restoration.
Joel 2:23-26
23 Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.
24 And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.
25 And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.
26 And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.
(KJV)
*** You determine the measure of blessing.
NIV = II Cor 9: 3 But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow, but that you may be ready, as I said you would be. 4 For if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we--not to say anything about you--would be ashamed of having been so confident.
LISTEN TO THE RULES OF GIVING…
II Cor 9: 6-10 But this I say,
(#1) He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
(#2) 7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. HERE IS WHY THIS WILL WORK…
8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:
*** GIVERS WILL ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH TO GIVE!
9 (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever.
10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)
THE LAW OF THE HARVEST
NOTICE he called giving… SOWING. (money is our seed)
You PLANT seed.
*** Keep your motive pure… This is not the stock market!
You don’t give to get… you give to reach the lost.
*** But we know when we plant a apple seed… we can get a tree!
God designed this planet to give back more then we gave it!
*** Some folks expect a lot from very small seed. (Jack in bean stalk)
*** YOU GOT TO GIVE… this is how the economy of God works
*** Give… it shall be given… keep the cycle moving!
Luke 6:38
38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
(KJV)
GOD GIVES BACK A HUNDRED FOLD.
Matt 19:29
29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
(KJV)
Mark 10:29-30
And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s,
30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
(KJV
*** It’s just a matter of time!
Gal 6:9
9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
(KJV)
Gal 6:9
9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
(NIV)
