Principles of Blessing Others
The Blessedness of Blessings • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
What if you had lived your whole life
Our world seems to think that once you get a certain age, it is time for you to slow down and take it easy. You retire to go play golf or fish lots! Maybe you join a garden club or spend time traveling. Maybe you just use all your time going from doctor appointment to doctor appointment!
In the twelfth chapter of Genesis. We see a 75 year old man called by God to become a great nation, being blessed so that he can become a blessing to others.
The calling described, is that of Abraham! We meet him in this passage as ABRAM. In fact, he doesn’t become Abraham until where we learn that he is 99 years old and God changes his name.
His story is rich with deception, selfishness, destruction and waywardness.....sounds like a Hollywood movie doesn’t it?
Yet right there in the beginning of , we learn that Abram was called by God. Look what God’s word describes in this passage:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
“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.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
This incredible passage has several principles that you and I can learn in order to not only receive the Blessings of God, but in turn to learn how to bless others.
1. Everything Belongs to God
1. Everything Belongs to God
You see, only the owner/creator has the right to give away!
“Dominion and awe belong to God;
he establishes order in the heights of heaven.
Job
Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me.
Psalm
The nobles of the nations assemble
as the people of the God of Abraham,
for the kings of the earth belong to God;
he is greatly exalted.
The One who made the heavens and the earth declares to Abram that He is going to make a great nation out of him, a childless 75 year old man and his almost as old wife.
God was
Isn’t it just like God to make the unexpected and far fetched, that which seems unlikely and impossible, to become very much the reality with all kinds of possibilities!
Everything belongs to God. He is able and capable to exceedingly surpass our expectations and give us a blessing that literally blows our minds!
Don’t we serve an AWESOME GOD?
2. God is the Supreme Giver.
2. God is the Supreme Giver.
Since He owns it all, God gives us a loan.
In fact, this loan He gives us comes in the form of
T
The Son
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
This loan He gives us comes in the form of
The Spirit
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
John 14:
This loan He gives us comes in the form of
Scripture
is a passage containing 176 verses most of which are about the gift of God’s word to us.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
Psalm 119:
Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light for my path.
Psalm 119:
and one of my favorites is
The unfolding of your words gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple.
I need some simple understanding don’t you?
Not only is God the supreme giver in giving us His Son, His Spirit and His Scripture
3. God is the SUSTAINER of all things
3. God is the SUSTAINER of all things
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
Phili
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians
God will make a way. He is an ON-time, right- time, all the time Sustainer!
He cares for you and I so much that He will meet our needs!
4. God is a God of ABUNDANCE
4. God is a God of ABUNDANCE
Think with me for a moment about what you have been given by God through Christ.
I will satisfy the priests with abundance,
and my people will be filled with my bounty,”
declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 31:
The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy
For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Romans
Be glad, O people of Zion,
rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given you
the autumn rains in righteousness.
He sends you abundant showers,
both autumn and spring rains, as before.
Joel
What are you doing with what God has given you?
Another principle that can be found in this passage is
5. God is a God of Grace
5. God is a God of Grace
Abram didn’t deserve what God had stated he would do. Yet He did it anyway!
You and I don’t deserve what we have been in Christ, yet He did it anyway!
Aren’t you glad?
I have had so many conversations this week about the Grace of God!
People do not understand grace until they have have encountered it!
2 Corinthians
All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
One of my all time favorite books is Dr. David Jeremiah’s Captured by Grace. It is the story of John Newton, the great pastor of the 1700’s that is probably most famous for penning the words to hymn Amazing Grace.
Dr. Jeremiah writes:
Grace, its a stained glass impersonal word until it happens to you. Until you have been broken beyond belief and need a miracle for your soul.
Until you have betrayed a loved one and cannot bring him back. Until you have befriended every darkness and are desperate for the light.
That’s when God’s relentless, amazing, very personalized grace finds you! It reached a slave trader on board a ship raiding Africa’s coast in March 1748. He later gave the world its most beloved hymn.
It struck the Christian church’s most treacherous enemy on a Damascus road in AD 45 and he became the gospel’s greatest messenger.
And it can free you too… of any shameful memory, open wound, unthinking mistake, or willful choice.
Aren’t you glad that God is a God of Grace? Aren’t you glad that God in His infinite wisdom He saw fit to make Abram a channel of blessing?
The last principle that I see in this passage is
6. God wants us to be a blessing to others
6. God wants us to be a blessing to others
6. God wants us to teach others how be a blessing
6. God wants us to teach others how be a blessing
I have heard many parents tell their child as they are dropping them off at some type of activity...”Be a Blessing!”
So what does that mean?
Well by now you can see that it is a favor or gift bestowed by God that can bring happiness.
It is the gift that keeps on giving!
It is the gift of God that is so incredible that we cannot keep it for ourselves, but we must allow it to overflow from our lives into others!
Who do you have in your life right now that is a recipient of your overflow of blessings?
Are you a channel of blessing?
If not, let me ask you this:
Have you come to a point in your life where you know without a shadow of doubt, that you have had an encounter with Jesus Christ and asked Him to be your personal Lord and Savior?