Jan. 29, 2023

How God Blesses Us (29 Jan. 2023)

Introduction - Blessings are acts of favor from God which we learn to seek early in our Christian experience.  It is important to understand what we are trying to get when we talk about “blessings.”  Pursuit of what we commonly think are blessings will cause us to miss the larger picture of obedience to God and the mind-blowing richness which comes as a result. First, let’s examine what we think blessings are:

Matthew 13:22  The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it. The Message Bible

Money, things, favor with men, busyness.  This is probably the oldest sermon on the planet, but completely alive and well for today.  Money and all it brings - goods, acceptance with people, and the chance to be intoxicated with busy activity are all commonly seen as blessings from God.  These things all have the look and feel of “blessing” but the Bible teaches us that they produce something negative.  They actually choke out the Word of God, which is all that is needed for an abundant earthly life.  What God considers “blessing” may surprise you:  

Genesis 1:22. So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird—each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply. Let the fish fill the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.”  NLT

Genesis 1:27-28 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”  NLT

Genesis 9:1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. NLT

Genesis 13:16 And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted! NLT

Genesis 15:5  Then the LORD took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” NLT

Blessing, as God reveals it in the early pages of the Bible, is seen in 1) fruitfulness, 2) multiplication, and 3) earth-filling impact.  Fruitfulness implies that we are given the ability to reproduce fruit that will remain.  It has to do with fertility.  Multiplication means that we will reproduce offspring exponentially, not just by addition.  Earth-filling impact means that we have the ability to fill the earth with God’s offspring and all the good produce of their hands.  This is so unlike Satan, who only can steal, kill, and destroy.  There are only a finite number of demons and only one Satan.  Their paltry efforts will never outstrip the practically infinite reproductive capacity of the Body of Christ! Another thing we need to know about blessing is that It comes at a certain time:

Genesis 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.  NLT

Blessing actually happens not when we are busy hunting, mining, harvesting, welding, building, etc., but when we are resting. Our children multiply without any help from us.  Abraham and Sarah didn’t need to help their kids begin multiplying.  Sarah certainly didn’t give birth to multitudes as the dust of the earth.  We get things started by reproducing what we have and multiplication takes over after that.  

Ecclesiastes 4:6 One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind. NLT

Is God teaching us here to be lazy?  No, certainly not.  God rewards well-directed labor which He inspires.  It is another thing altogether to chase our own dreams 7 days a week and drive others to do so with us.  The temptation is to make our lives prosperous through our own efforts rather than cooperating with the plan He has for our individual lives as well as for the church, which He is building.  This is the deception of riches mentioned in Matthew 13 above.  To develop this thought a bit further, we need to think about Grace and Blessing and how they relate.  Grace is how we all got saved.  It is the free gift of God, applied the instant we had faith in God.  It is not dependent on our merit, or efforts, or any human value.  Blessings, however, are dependent on our efforts, or deeds.  They are directly tied to obedience.  

Let’s imagine the “perfect” church for a minute, even though it doesn’t exist: Many Western churches which have large supplies of money have built immense buildings for themselves and are able to hire large staffs of highly skilled people to make the church as nearly perfect as possible.  The large congregation is enamored with the efficiency, cool worship, modern buildings, infinite number of classes and accoutrements available to them at no cost.  They walk in, enjoy the preaching and music, drop the kids off and eventually go home.  This church may make a clone of itself and broadcast the head pastor’s sermon by internet to the new site or sites.  For all its frenzied activity this church is only growing by addition, not by multiplication.  At the end of the age, it will have had a very small impact on the earth despite the massive outlay of money.  The church has experienced grace, in that its members were probably all saved, but didn’t experience blessing, because it never multiplied.  

By contrast, a small group of Christians had a church in a home and diligently taught their members the skills they each had.  They learned from the Holy Spirit to lead, baptize, pray for, and instruct the new believers they were meeting, making use of the His abilities to meet the needs of the members.  The group had a vision to multiply itself, and like obedient soldiers, divided the group regularly, having this as a permanent part of their vision.  They had only the guidance of gifted Christians in their midst who grew to be elders and deacons.  The groups met individually in their respective homes until 4 or 5 of them wanted to get together occasionally.  The little hutches kept dividing and expanding until there were many of them across the city.  At the end of the age, their exponential multiplication far outstripped the “perfect” church in its impact on the earth because of multiplication, not addition.  The small church experienced grace and blessing because it constantly produced daughter churches.  

Conclusion - All of us, individually and corporately, have been given the ability to be blessed.  This does not come from praying harder and more specifically for things we covet or even need, but by obeying the simple command to be fruitful and multiply.  This is not limited to natural reproduction, which only a limited number of people are capable of, but it includes spiritual reproduction, which each of us is capable of.  We reproduce ourselves by teaching others our gift and inspiring others.  We reproduce our branch group by taking part in its regular division.  In doing so, we start daughter churches which have the same motive to keep dividing.  Eventually, there are so many of these churches that we, worldwide, fill the earth!  We must get back to God’s intended path for the church seen in the Book of Acts.  No top-down managers, no complicated real estate, just the church in the house.  This is what Jeremiah called the ancient path, or the old, godly way:

Jeremiah 6:16 This is what the LORD says: “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls. NLT

This is what you have been called to!