God has an amazing plan. He blesses us so that we can be a blessing in the world. The question is – how? How do we take what God’s given us and share it around.

 

Let’s Get it Straight

It is great to be with you today. This is the third message in a series that I’ve called "Blessed to be a Blessing". I think it’s important for us to take a really deep look at God’s way of blessing us because when we understand that; when we know how God’s working and operating in our lives, it’s such a wonderful thing to see His blessing flow.

Over the last couple of weeks we have seen that we often get things the wrong way around when it comes to God’s blessing. I mean, sure, God is a God of blessing; we want to be blessed but what we often don’t come to grips with in our hearts, is how God wants to multiply His blessing through us. To have a flood tide of blessing go out to a parched and dry and hurting world. For His blessing to flow into our lives from God and out through us to other people.

Last week we particularly looked at two verses that made that abundantly clear. The first is John chapter 7, verse 37:

On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty let them come to me and drink, and whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow out from within them.” By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive.

You see, it’s in and out. If anyone is thirsty, come to Jesus and drink. If you’re looking for something and you’re parched and needy, come to Jesus to drink. Put your faith in Him and rivers of living water will flow out. It’s in and out. It’s one of the greatest passages in all of the Bible. It’s powerful. It’s the crux of being a disciple. We are blessed to be a blessing – rivers of living water. Remember, we looked at it – Nile, Ganges, Murray and Mississippi and Thames and Rhine and Yangtze and Amazon and again – rivers of living water.

The other thing He said was:

Give and it will be given to you, of good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure that you use, it will be measured to you.

We are going to expand on that theme today and get really practical. If God’s blessing is something that flows through us, if that’s a part of how He works, how should that happen? Because if all those rivers head in and none of them head out, we’re going to end up being like the Dead Sea – dead.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to a man called S.D. Gordon. Sometime in the late eighteen hundreds or nineteen hundreds, he wrote that book called, “The Quiet Talks on Power”. And in that book he uses the simple and powerful example to describe the consequences of expecting all of God’s blessing to flow into our lives but not letting any of them flow out. He uses this picture of the Dead Sea.

Now the Dead Sea is exactly that; a body of water where all the rivers flow in and none flow out and as a result, it is dead. Nothing lives in it. Not a thing. No fish, no plants, no birds and the water is incredibly hard and brackish. He makes this point in his book; that if we expect all of God’s blessing to flow in and none of them to flow out then our lives become like the circumference of the Dead Sea.

Now it’s a big turn-around for us because we are programmed to think that blessing is all about me. It should all flow into me, right? But that’s not it in God’s economy. Blessing is really only a blessing when it flows out through us again. Think about it, a material blessing like a home … isn’t the joy, the real joy of a home, sharing it with your family? It’s a natural thing! In Acts chapter 20 and verse 38, it says this:

The Lord Jesus Himself said, “It is more blessed to give that receive.

That is so profound – “It is more blessed to give that to receive.” See Jesus is throwing our whole idea of blessing on its head. And He’s saying when the blessing flows out through you, you’ll be more blessed than when it flows into you. Do you get it? God’s way of blessing is the blessing flows down from Him and out through us and in that process, standing in the middle of His great river of blessing, we to are blessed. That’s it!

The world’s dropped this notion into our heads that it’s all about us – me, me, me – and we end up twisting and perverting God’s plan. We end up thinking God’s blessing is about the next "this thing" for me or "that thing" for me. Now He loves to do those things, but principally, God’s blessing is the thing that flows out of us to the rest of the world. What if Jesus, the Son of God, had come to earth and said to Himself, “You know something, it’s all about me.” No, the Son of Man didn’t come to be served but to serve. See, in and out.

Now, Berni Dymet, the business man: I tried so hard to get everything to flow into me, with a huge house and gold plated taps and a car worth so much, just thinking about it now makes my toes curl. You know, the blessing of ‘me’ became an art form. That’s what my whole life was about and it never, never, never satisfied me. And when God got a hold of me a dozen or so years ago, over several years He changed me to the point where He trusted me to do what I’m doing now. And I walk with Him in the quiet, cool hours of the morning and experience Him and delight in Him and hear Him and spend time in His Word, and then prepare these programmes and sit here and spend time with you and the blessing flows in and out again.

Today, I’m one of the most deeply satisfied people you will ever come across, even though the way God has chosen to bless me is different from what I would have planned. I had to re-learn what it meant to be blessed by God. And it’s in this serving and using our gifts and skills, abilities and resources as channels of God’s blessing, that we discover blessing. A close connection with God – it’s a two sided transaction – intimacy with Jesus and then letting Him use us … us whom He’s made what we are meant to be, to let Him flow out through us into the parched, dry land around us. You and I are blessed to be a blessing. "It is more of a blessing to give than to receive", is what Jesus said.

Now, maybe you’re listening to this and you are thinking, "Ok, I get the theory; I believe that; I understand it, but what about the practice? How can I be a blessing?" Well, that’s what we are going to look at through the rest of this programme.

 

What Gifts do I have?

It’s so easy for us to think, "Well, I don’t have anything to bless other people with. How can I be a blessing?" The "how" is so important. It’s about making the rubber hit the road and about getting our lives aligned to God’s way, so that we are working with Him and not against Him. We talked before about the fact that God’s blessing is a two-sided transaction – in and out. You can’t do the "out" without the "in". Jesus said in John, chapter 15, verses 4 and 5:

Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me - I am the vine and you are the branches. If anyone remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.

See, this talks about the "in" and the "out" again. We need to be close to Jesus, we need to be grafted into Him; He is our life blood. And when we set our hearts on Him; when we spend that time with Him, His Spirit flows into our lives and we can’t help it, we just end up bearing fruit – He bears fruit. And who’s the fruit for? It’s not for the vine, no, it’s for other people … in and out. Isn’t it amazing how this theme recurs over and over again through the Scripture? How easy it is for us, though, to miss it, to pervert it to the "me, me, me" thing.

We’ll look at that a bit more next week; how we are prone to twist and pervert God’s plan for blessing. If we think for one minute that we can peddle and peddle and peddle hard on the outside to make things happen, whilst our relationship with Jesus on the inside is in tatters, we are kidding ourselves. The only way I know of having that relationship with Him is to lay down my life and to spend time with Him.

I was speaking a while ago at a Christian leaders conference about our priorities, about God being first and a lot of the people there were very well known leaders of Christian ministries. And one by one they came up to me afterwards and said. “You know, this is an area I struggle in. I’m busy doing ministry and somehow I don’t have time to spend with God.” So a lot of people struggle with the "in" side of the equation but others struggle with the other end.

They have a relationship with Jesus; they have time with Him but they become what I call a Spiritual couch-potato – they don’t do anything with that. And the Bible says that faith without works is dead. Now you might say, “Berni, that’s unfair; I just can’t do any of that ‘out’ stuff.” Have a listen to what Paul wrote. Romans chapter 12:

Therefore, I urge you, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is you Spiritual act of worship. Don’t conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, His good and pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, don’t think of yourselves more highly that you should. But rather think of yourselves with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith that God’s given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members and these members don’t all have the same functions, so in Christ, we who are many from one body and each member belongs to all the others – we have different gifts according to the grace given to us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy according to your faith; if it’s serving then serve; if it’s teaching, well, teach; if it’s encouraging, encourage people; if it’s contributing to the needs of others, give generously to them; if it’s leadership, govern diligently and if it’s showing mercy, do it with cheerfulness.

See, God calls us to be living sacrifices.

Last week on the programme we saw how Abraham was blessed to be a blessing and he spent twenty five years on a painful, uncomfortable journey. He was a living sacrifice. If we are going to be blessed to be a blessing, if the blessing of God is going to flow into our lives and out again, there is a cost. It is not always convenient; it’s not always fun; it doesn’t always look like a blessing. We are called to be living sacrifices.

And then we shouldn’t let the world squeeze us into its mould.

Don’t conform any longer to the pattern of this world.

See "world" says it’s about you and me and Jesus is saying, "No it’s not! Die to yourself! Sacrifice your life!" And it turns everything on its head.

With sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith that God has give you, exercise the gift that is given.

See we make two equal and opposite mistakes here. Firstly, some people embark on things that they were never cut out for by God. You know, that never, ever works. People operating outside their gifting are really ugly, with a capital ‘UG’.

Some people have said to me, “Berni, you should be a pastor”. UG! You know it’s not going to happen – I’m not pastorally gifted. It would be like dragging my wife Jacqui in here, who is pastorally gifted, who in fact, is wonderfully gifted in the area of service. And if you are in Australia and you ring our ministry, chances are, you’ll talk to her. And if someone rings and they order a CD or they do this, she wants to get it out today. She’s just gifted to do that but if you dragged her here in front of the microphone, all you would get is this … dead silence, because she’d be petrified. Or if you put me into her job, you probably wouldn’t get your CD because that’s not what I’m motivated to do.

Let’s start doing what God has made and gifted us to do. We’re all different so let’s not compare; that’s so dumb. There is something that God made in you that is uniquely you, it’s special; and when we compare that with others, we’re missing the point. The gifts we have are given according to the grace of God. Prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others, giving, leadership, mercy – they’re motivational gifts. They’re things that God has birthed in us and there are all sorts of different manifestations of this.

We all have something, we all love doing it, and it’s unreal when we’re flowing in that; when the blessing of God is manifest through us doing the thing that He made us to do. And it’s terrible when people aren’t working in that gifting. You see it in business. You get served by a waiter in a restaurant, and they just don’t have the gift of service and it’s terrible – it doesn’t work. "Aw, you don’t understand Berni. I’m a mum with a screaming baby, I can’t do anything; I’m stuck at home". And there’s probably a mother’s group somewhere with other mum’s in it who are just dying for your gift of encouragement. If only you would see it as an opportunity for God’s blessing to flow through you.

Blessing and service go hand in hand. You can’t separate them. God’s blessing comes in and it flows out. The problem is can I tell you this? – the problem is that so many Christians allow themselves to be stuffed into the world’s mould and they still think, "It’s all about me." "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." God has given you a gift.

"Aw, Berni, that is so spiritual. I work sixty hours a week in business and I have a lot of money but it don’t have time to do this stuff; this giving," and all along God is giving you a heart of generosity and there’s some young evangelist in your church, who if someone funded them for just a day and a half a week, they would be able to touch so many people with the love of Christ.

Do you get it? We all have something that God has put in us, through which His blessing will flow to a lost and hurting world.

 

Putting First Things First

I guess this message of being blessed in order to be a blessing is a bit "in your face", but I think God is doing an exciting thing. I think sometimes He wants to challenge us through His Word. I don’t know about you but I want to be transformed by the renewing of your mind and I grew up with a very selfish "me, me, me" attitude – straight out of the world’s mould.

Maybe you are like that too and today is a day where we decide to put first things first. To get our priorities in life straightened out. To stop thinking about God’s blessing as material blessing only. He does bless us with material things and people who don’t have enough food, have to rely on God for His blessing. But listen to what Jesus said:

Therefore I tell you, don’t worry about your life; what you’ll eat or what you drink or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air – they don’t sow or reap or store things in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you much more valuable than them?

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about your clothes – look at the lilies of the field – see how they grow – they don’t labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even King Solomon, in all of his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and gone tomorrow in the fire, won’t He clothe you much more - you of little faith.

So don’t worry saying, “What will I eat or what will I drink or what will I wear – the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them, but first seek His Kingdom and His righteousness and all of these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, don’t worry about tomorrow – tomorrow will worry about itself – each day has trouble enough of its own.”

See, the context here is a bunch of people who are worrying about their own needs and whether you are poor and you have genuinely a cause to worry about your own needs or whether you’re wealthy and you are racing after God’s blessings for a bigger car and a bigger house, the same truth applies. Jesus is saying here, "Get your priorities right."

Get a deep abiding, enduring, intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Spend time in prayer and in God’s Word and then let Him use us as His fountain of blessing, a flood tide of life and all the other things will get added to us. God knows what we need and you know something, God knows the things we want too. God is a wonderful God to come along and bless us with just little things along the way that we didn’t even think for; didn’t even ask for, but God thought of them. You know, He’s worried about the little things in our lives as well.

It is so crazy for us to reduce the blessing of God down to just material blessing. "First seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." Now this is counter-intuitive. It’s a deep ask. God is asking us today – you and me – to trust Him and to do it His way.

Why does He do it this way? Why does He say, "Look, bow your life down to Me first and then get the blessing?" Why do we have to die before we can live? Why does He ask us to step out and start serving in order to be blessed? Why did Jesus say, “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 you use in your giving, it will be measured to you.” Why did He do that?

Because that requires faith and God wants us to be a people of faith, completely dependent on Him. And when we do that; when we step out with our gifts – meagre as they might seem in our eyes – when we live the struggle and the rejection and the disappointments for Him, He honours that. We are blessed to be a blessing.

You have incredible abilities and gifts and talents and motivations that God has planted in you, worked into your very DNA, that God prepared and nurtured through the experiences of your life, even through the hurts of the past – especially through those. When we put those in His hands; when we let Him use them to be a blessing to others; when we draw so close to Him that no one else could ever understand what’s going on in our relationship between us and our Master – then we see what happens.

I am never as blessed as I am than when I’m right here with you now, doing what God crafted me to do. That’s His plan. And it’s a phenomenal plan and He has the same plan for you, with your gifts and your talents and abilities and your motivations. You are blessed to be a blessing.

Go on! Let the blessing flow through you to other people, no matter what the cost – let God use who you are for His glory and you will be blessed beyond anything that any words can describe.

You and I are blessed to be a blessing.