The Bible talks about the land of blessing. Where is that? How do we get there? Is it really for us? Does God want to bless me? Good questions.

 

Blessing In, Blessing Out

It is great to be with you again this week and this is the last programme in a four part series that I’ve called, “Blessed to be a Blessing”. We’ve been talking about God’s blessing over the last few weeks and it’s easy when you talk about the blessing of God to get it out of balance. My generation, the baby boomers, were called the "me" generation. And it’s easy for my generation and I guess, just about every generation, to think about God’s blessing and then we think "Ah, that’s about filling me up so that I’m happy and I’m fulfilled and I’m full and … ".

Over the last few weeks we have been looking throughout the Bible, from the beginning to the end. That’s what we have to do when we look at God’s blessing. We need to look at the whole council of God because if we just take one verse and we create a doctrine of blessing out of that, it’s so easy, in our context, to get that out of whack. Do you know what I mean – to take it to an extreme? Do I think that God is a God of abundant blessing? Absolutely!

Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance."

Now we can take that because we’re brought up in the "me" generation and we’re brought up in materialism and we can immediately reduce that down to a material blessing. After all that’s what the advertising industry tells us we should do. I’ve said it over the last few weeks on the programme, and I’ll say it again today: I spent the greater part of my life trying to feel satisfied with stuff – things and experiences and cars and houses – and it doesn’t work.

When I look at the whole council of God (which is what we have been doing over these last few weeks on Christianity works) what I discover is that we are blessed in order to be a blessing. The pictures throughout the Scripture make it clear over and over again.

Jesus said, “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure that you use in your giving, it will be measured to you.”

In other words blessing comes in from God and goes out again to others – in and out, in and out, in and out – over and over again. It’s like breathing. God’s blessing is in and out, in and out. A blessing isn’t a blessing unless it flows, you know, unless it flows in from God and then out through us to other people. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, this is what happened:

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “You’re a Jew and I’m a Samaritan woman, how can you possibly ask me for a drink?” Because Jews didn’t associate with Samaritans. And Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who asks you for a drink, you would have asked me and I would have given you living water.”

Those words "living water" literally mean "water that is flowing". You see, when water stops flowing, it becomes stagnant. It becomes dead. We talked last week about the Dead Sea. And the Dead Sea is a huge body of water where all the rivers flow in and none of the rivers flow out. And it’s dead because it’s so salty because nothing can live in it.

I have a disease called Glaucoma in my eyes and what happens is the fluid flows in but the outlet is clogged and so the pressure builds and ultimately, if it’s not treated, you end up going blind. The Bible says that "faith without works in dead". In other words, if we expect everything to flow in and for us to be filled and that’s it, it’s not going to work. Romans chapter 12, verse 2, says this:

Don’t let the world squeeze you into it’s mould, but instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good and pleasing and perfect will of God for you.

The world’s mould is what the advertising industry tells us it is. The world’s mould says, "Consume and you will be happy." It’s a mantra that you see over and over again so we just end up taking it for granted. We just end up believing that stuff. And in stark contrast, Jesus says:

Take up you cross and follow me. If any man would save his life he will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake you will find it.

You see Jesus is saying the exact opposite. Get it? Let’s open our hearts and our minds to that. It’s a beautiful paradox but it’s a paradox that we all know to be true. "If any man would save his life, he will lose it." In other words if we think it’s all about us – saving our lives, filling our lives, getting gratification and pleasure – it won’t work. We’ll lose it.

But if we lose our lives for His sake, we’ll find them. And that means giving away God’s blessing. Being prepared to lay it all down. Everything we have. Everything we are. All our hopes. All our dreams. Saying, "God, they’re in your hands, I’m just a steward – even my gifts and abilities – I am just a steward. Now you use them, Lord, for your glory."

And when we give away God’s blessings, then and only then do we discover what blessing is all about – in and out, in and out. We want the ‘in’ bit but we often don’t want the "out" bit. Today, my prayer is that we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds as we look at what the Bible says about God’s blessing. Over and over again the truth is this – a blessing isn’t a blessing unless it flows out to someone else.

God has blessed you and me with His Son Jesus Christ. With His presence in us. With His love and mercy and His forgiveness. So that we can shine that light into a hurting world. So that we can be salt. So that we can be a blessing. So that we can bear fruit. We are blessed to be a blessing. And the paradox is, the more we try to hold onto it, the more we try and keep it to ourselves, the more we say "I’m right Jack", it ends up not being a blessing at all.

In a moment we are going to look at a passage from Hebrews, chapter 6, so if you have a Bible, grab it and open it up there. It talks about the land of God’s blessing. I don’t know about you, but I want to live in that land. Well, if we want to live out God’s blessing, we have to do it His way – in and out. We will look at that next.

 

The Land of Blessing

The writer of the Book of Hebrews paints a beautiful picture of God’s blessing, when he talks about how rain falls on the ground. Let’s have a look. It’s in Hebrews chapter 6, verses 7 and 8:

Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those from whom it is farmed, receives the blessing but land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed – in the end, it will be burned.

I love this: "land that drinks in the rain that often falls on it."

Where I live, we have been going through one of the worst droughts on record – parched, dry, red soil – crops are down by sixty percent. And our lives are like that, until we receive Jesus. And when His Spirit rains down on us and over us, over and over again, with living water, then we have life. "The land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed, receives the blessing of God." Isn’t that wonderful? Rain that often falls on us – we drink in God; His Word and His Spirit and we spend time in His presence – it’s a beautiful thing; it’s a blessing; it’s life itself.

But anything to do with life has a natural flow, a cycle, a consequence. And what does this Scripture say that that consequence is? ‘Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that – here it is – produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed, receives the blessing of God.’ Get it? We are supposed to produce a crop – fruit, a harvest. For whom? For us? No, that’s not what it says, "a crop that is useful to those for whom it is farmed."

See the picture. The rain falls down, the presence of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God falls down into our lives and the natural consequence of that is that we produce a crop, a harvest. Something that is useful for other people, for whom God has farmed it, in us and through us.

You spend time drinking in God’s Word and He fills us with His blessing. You spend time drinking in God’s Spirit and He fills us with His blessing. That’s how it starts – God always blesses us first. We don’t produce fruit and then earn God’s favour. No, no. God blesses us first and then somehow, His presence and His Spirit and His Word enliven the gifts that He has put into us and they grow into a harvest.

I was sitting last year with a man, a wealthy business man who had made a lot of money and sold his business. Now, I guess he is in his late fifties or early sixties. He has a substantial fortune. You know what he does now, full time? He works with ministries to help them and fund them for God’s glory. That’s his gift, what’s yours? Maybe not some great fortune!

Another friend of mine spent a lifetime as a minister in the Anglican Church, he’s now semi-retired. He’s moved to an area where there’s lots of dysfunctional people and families. His gift is to be a counsellor and so he does that. He counsels families and husbands and wives and all sorts of people. Now the things that he goes through, the cases that he deals with, would make your toes curl but it’s his gift. What’s yours?

The natural cycle of blessing is in and out – blessing in, blessing out. "The land that drinks in the rain, often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed, receives the blessing of God." See, when it’s produced the crop, then it receives the blessing of God. The land of God’s blessing – when you and I exercise our gifts; when we allow God to enliven them, to produce a crop useful to those for whom it has been farmed – we receive the blessing of God. Do you get it?

This is awesome! Often when people call us or write to us after a programme, they say, ‘Berni sounds so passionate’. You know why? Because I’m living a transformed life. I’m living a life of God’s blessing. Just about every morning I spend time with God – I did it this morning; in the cool of the morning – resting in His presence, the Word of God open. I have my own devotional reading, apart from what I do in these programmes. I’ve just finished the Book of Judges, just working my way through the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament. Man, that is blessing me. And I have figured out my gift. My gift is doing what I’m doing right now. It’s how God wanted me. And you know something – I’m having a ball!

The six figure salary that I had in my secular consulting life; it was hard to leave behind; it was hard to make a decision to change but since I did that, God’s blessing – His joy and His peace and even His material blessing – hasn’t stopped chasing me down the street. I have a deep satisfaction at producing a crop that’s useful for you and when I see lives of people being transformed by the Word of God, because the Holy Spirit has enlivened my gifts, guess what, I’m blessed.

We are blessed to be a blessing and when that harvest grows and we let it flow through us, that is such an awesome thing. And you know, then when God comes along with the little "other" blessings that only He can figure out for us – some of them material, some of them are emotional, some of them relationships – they all come along behind when we let Him rain down on us and the crop flows out through us.

See what God’s Word says: “Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed, receives the blessing of God”, but sometimes … sometimes people come against us, they want to oppose us. It’s like they want to rob us of God’s blessing, then what?

 

Don’t Let Other People Ruin Your Life

We can’t talk about God’s blessing flowing through us without talking about those people in our lives who seem to … they want to interrupt the flow; to rob us of the blessing. You know, we want to do the right thing, we want to be a blessing and somehow, they just want to spoil it. I wonder do you know anyone like that in your life? I sure do in mine.

Here’s the truth! God’s blessing is from God and He doesn’t want us to let other people ruin the blessing in our lives and the crop that He wants to harvest through our lives in other people. So His Word contains specific guidance about how to do that. About how not to let other people rob us of the blessing of God. Are you ready?

Open your Bible, if you have one, and go right towards the end of the Bible. First Peter, chapter 3, verses 9 to 15. This is what it says. here’s the specific advise of God:

Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult but with blessing because to this you were called, so that you may inherit a blessing, for who ever would love life and see good days, must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good, he must seek peace and pursue it, for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer but the face of the Lord is turned against those who do evil. Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.

This is the hard bit because we want the blessing to flow in and we don’t mind the fear of it flowing out but sometimes we don’t like the "out" bit so much. We want it to come "in" but "out" is hard. And you and I have been blessed to be a blessing – we have been called to a life of blessing, here and now and eternally. And people come along with evil and you know what our natural response is? We want to give up the blessing. We want to curse them. We want to have a go at them. We want our just desserts. We just want them to pay when they hurl evil at us or insult at us.

What does God want us to do?

Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult but with blessing because to this you were called, so that you may inherit a blessing.

That is so incredibly radical. That is so incredibly Jesus. It turns everything up side down. It says, "You know something, when they do evil to you, when they insult you, when they curse you, don’t give it back to them like that. Instead sow blessing into that relationship, sow blessing into that life."

Do you love life; do you want to see good days? Then just do good in the face of evil. When every fibre of your flesh is screaming at you, "Curse them". Listen to the Holy Spirit and bless them. Actively turn away from evil and do good in the face of evil. Seek peace and pursue it. Take up you cross, because blessing involves sacrifice.

This is such a radical departure from the world’s ways. And why should we do it? Well, Peter tells us:

Because the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

And you know, even when we suffer, God’s blessing is upon us.

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good but even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.

We want to believe, some days, that we are victims. We want to believe that when we trying to do good and someone comes along and stabs us in the back and hurts us or disappoints us or rejects us, we think we have a right to pay them back. But here is the message of Jesus Christ for you. If you want to live in the land of God’s blessing, if you want God’s blessing to flow through you, then when they curse you – bless them, when they insult you – bless them, when they do evil to you – bless them.

I’m not saying this is easy. It isn’t. We all want to punish people who do wrong to us but God doesn’t punish us when we do wrong for Him. No, God blesses us by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross, to pay for your sin and for mine. That’s God’s way. And as a result of what Jesus did on the cross for us, His blessing flows into our lives. The Bible says "be imitators of God". Let’s be imitators of God. Don’t let other people rob you of God’s blessing. Don’t let other people ruin your life. This is powerful stuff!

Do you love life? Do you want to see good days? Then don’t be conformed to the world’s mould. Don’t get revenge but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you are able to discern the good and perfect and wonderful will of God for you. Listen to me! You are blessed to be a blessing.

And when we let the rain of the Spirit and the rain of the Word pour down into our lives, God naturally grows a harvest. It’s a harvest of peace and joy and goodness and love and self-control. It’s a fruit that grows for other people. And when we let that fruit grow, uninterrupted – even when the storms come; even when the locusts come; even when the pests and the plagues come – when we let that crop grow in our lives, no matter what it costs us; no matter how much it hurts, God’s Word says, we are blessed.

God’s blessing is a radical blessing. It flows into our lives, it flows out of our lives and I want to encourage you today to seek after God’s blessing. Don’t let anyone stand in the way of that. God has a plan. It’s more powerful than any thing else in the universe and He showed it to us through the cross of Christ.

You and I are blessed to be a blessing! That is an awesome plan and when we live that out – the in and the out, the in and the out, the in and the out – then we are blessed indeed!

God bless you!