#Blessings
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Remember The Past Blessings
Good morning, Harmony!
Welcome to the end of 2023. Today is the last day of the year, and so today what we are going to do is look back at what the Lord has done through Harmony Baptist Church this past year and really see how God has blessed us as a church and individually as well.
Our title today is Hashtag Blessings: Remember the Past Blessings, and we are going to be looking at Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verses 10 through 25.
It’s my hope that today as we look back at the blessings that God has given to us that we are able to praise God for the wonderful things that He has done in our church this past year or so, and through that that we will be able to move into next year with those blessings in mind. Our main point for today is that:
Main Point: We must remember that our past blessings are from the Lord, and we must demonstrate that to those that are around us.
We must remember where our blessing comes from, and then in that we must show that He is faithful by how we live our lives.
Now this past year we’ve had a lot of blessing I think. We’ve had some rough times, sure, and we’ve even had some failures. But I think we’ve had far more blessing than we have failures or disappointments.
We’ve had some growth in attendance. We’ve grown spiritually. We’ve done some different outreach events that we haven’t done before or in a while. We’ve had some baptisms. We are a blessed church.
What people often will want to do after they have experienced the sort of momentum or success is many will want to either take a break, saying that’s good enough or that’s wonderful, or, they’ll forget where the blessing came from.
And what many will start to do or say is things like we have an awesome worship team, or we have a great pastor, or we have the best children’s ministry. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s ok to have an awesome worship team - as long as they are focused on worshipping God, and I believe ours does. It’s ok to have a great pastor, as long as he’s preaching the Gospel of Christ and not just there for show or for attention. It’s ok to have a great kid’s ministry, as long as it is pointing kids to Christ and not just a job or just there to have a bunch of kids gathered in one place.
In all of that, we must remember that the blessing of an awesome worship team or a great pastor or the best children’s ministry is because of what He has done and is doing in and through the church.
And in Deuteronomy chapter six, we see God telling the Israelites through Moses to remember God’s faithfulness to them as they prepare to step into the promised land, because God knows that the Israelites are going to forget, just like we often forget.
Beginning in verse ten of chapter six we read:
10 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give you—a land with large and beautiful cities that you did not build,
11 houses full of every good thing that you did not fill them with, cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied,
12 be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
13 Fear the Lord your God, worship him, and take your oaths in his name.
14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you,
15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God. Otherwise, the Lord your God will become angry with you and obliterate you from the face of the earth.
16 Do not test the Lord your God as you tested him at Massah.
17 Carefully observe the commands of the Lord your God, the decrees and statutes he has commanded you.
18 Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that you may prosper and so that you may enter and possess the good land the Lord your God swore to give your ancestors,
19 by driving out all your enemies before you, as the Lord has said.
20 “When your son asks you in the future, ‘What is the meaning of the decrees, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?’
21 tell him, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand.
22 Before our eyes the Lord inflicted great and devastating signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his household,
23 but he brought us from there in order to lead us in and give us the land that he swore to our ancestors.
24 The Lord commanded us to follow all these statutes and to fear the Lord our God for our prosperity always and for our preservation, as it is today.
25 Righteousness will be ours if we are careful to follow every one of these commands before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’
Prayer.
God knew that the Israelites were going to get into the promised land, forget the blessings that He provided for them, the manna and the parting of the Red Sea and the water from the rocks and the victories they have already had, and they were going to forget all of that and become complacent.
And we do that same thing today, many times we will forget all about all of the faithfulness of our God in the past and we will just become accustomed to being blessed. And then when a challenge arrives, we try to work it out on our own and when that doesn’t work very often we will ask God why is He hurting us or why does He hate us.
We can become so accustomed to being blessed that when we suddenly have to face a trial or something in our life that challenges our blessedness we blame God for the challenge.
Now notice that in that trial I said we often will try to work it out on our own. First we have forgotten about all of the past blessing, then we have tried to take the making of our blessing into our own hand, and then we many times will blame God for our lack of blessing when we have chosen not to remember His blessing in the first place.
So today let’s look at how our attitudes should be reflecting our understanding of how we remember God’s blessing. Let’s look at three “attitudes” we must demonstrate as believers in Christ that we see in this passage from Deuteronomy chapter 6.
The first attitude that we must demonstrate is an attitude to:
1. Maintain a perspective of GRACE, vv. 10-12.
In verses 10 through 12 Moses says When God brings you into the land that is blessed in every way, do not forget who gave it to you.
When God brings you to this place filled with homes and wells and gardens and your bellies are full and you have all of the blessing that you could ever imagine, be careful not to forget the Lord that brought you out of slavery, he says.
They didn’t earn it, they couldn’t obtain it on their own, there was absolutely nothing that they could have done to get there on their own. They were slaves in Egypt, and without God providing the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea they would still have been slaves until God through His grace provided them a way to salvation.
It still works the same way today. You cannot earn your place in heaven, you can’t work for it, you can’t fight for it, you are literally a slave to sin today without Christ. Only through Christ and the work that He did by grace can you receive salvation.
We must keep our hearts and minds focused and holding on to a perspective of grace.
If we forget the grace of God, then we forget that He sustains us. When we forget that He sustains us then we begin to try to do things on our own, and when we do that we know that the outcome is most often less than desirable and always less than the blessing He would have for us.
I’ll be the first to tell you, there have been times in my life that I have tried to do it on my own, where I have tried to mimmic the blessing of God in some way, and it has turned out the exact opposite of the intention, most of the time creating a bigger problem than I had in the first place.
And usually when I do that, I go big or go home.
In 2007 a deployment opportunity came up, to go and do detainee duty for the Army in Iraq.
Now, in case you didn’t know it, I was never in the Army. I was a Navy guy.
But this deployment came up, and they were looking for volunteers, and we were struggling a bit financially, because it was 2007 and gas was getting high and I was driving about a hundred miles a day because where we lived and where I was stationed was about 50 miles apart. That was also my fault because I was the one that chose the house, but that’s a different story.
But this deployment came up, and I looked at our finances and I looked at the financial benefits of getting tax free and combat zone pay and family separation pay and all of that, and it was like 800 to 1000 more than I made per month, and so I jumped on that. I didn’t really pray about it, I didn’t really think about how God had blessed me in the past, I just said “this will solve our financial struggles because we can put that towards bills.”
And so I went on that deployment for almost a year.
And what happened was while I was gone, Kristin wound up having to make all of these trips to Dyersburg and to Memphis because of children’s medical stuff, and gas decided to climb to nearly $5 a gallon. We weren’t able to save anything or pay down anything because she was basically having to do all of the driving that I was doing when I was there at a higher price for gas.
And, oh by the way, the hot water heater went out.
And so in my trying to solve my own problem, I did nothing but leave Kristin and the kids for a year making everyone more miserable.
I had failed to remember His faithfulness and His grace, and so I went rogue. I had forgotten His grace that provides for me, I had forgotten to go to Him and to seek His grace and His blessing, and as a result of my own stubbornness, I got nowhere.
When we maintain a perspective of grace we are going to remember that our blessing does not come from ourselves, it literally comes out of His grace. We don’t earn our blessings. If we had to earn our blessings, they wouldn’t be blessings, they would be income or salary for something that we did.
When we see things that way we understand that he blessed you with a job, so that you can earn a living. You have been blessed with friends, so that you don’t have to be alone. You have been blessed with grace so that you can receive all of these things that you did not and can not earn.
As a church we have been blessed with growth, spiritually, numerically, and financially because He gives us that and we remain faithful to Him because we know it is through Him that we receive these blessings, we did nothing to earn them.
We must maintain a perspective of grace, because every blessing comes from His grace.
The second attitude we must demonstrate is to:
2. Follow a God-fearing LIFESTYLE, vv. 13-19.
We must live our lives with a healthy fear of the Lord.
And that word fear at the beginning of verse 13, it’s not be scared of God, it’s not be fearful.
I feel as though we have to really break that one word down a little bit.
The word is “yahreh”, and it certainly can mean to be fearful, but Hebrew doesn’t really work the same way that English does, and in this particular context and in this particular case it actually takes a different form of the Hebrew word.
The use of fear or “yahreh” here is one that ties to verse 12, where Moses is saying do not forget, and then he says fear or have a proper awe when it comes to the Lord your God.
What Moses is saying here is for us to elevate God to the highest place in our lives. Have complete awe and reverence for the Lord, have him elevated above all of the other things in your lives.
That means that when we succeed, we need to give God the glory and praise. When we succeed at work, we need to remember that He is the one who makes that possible. We need to point back every praise to Him.
When we succeed as a church, it’s not because of anything that I have done, it’s not because of anything you have done, it’s because of everything that He has done, and we must remember that all of the good things that happen in our church is because He has chosen to do that here, and we are to remain faithful to Him.
Philippians 4:13
13 I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.
That means that every good work that comes out of Harmony Baptist Church is because He has given that for us to do, and as long as we remain focused on Him and doing what He asks of us then we are going to continue to see His promises fulfilled to us.
And understand that when we speak of His blessing and of His promises, we aren’t talking about these worldly pleasures or wealth or anything like that. We are talking about His blessings and His promises that are more precious than anything this world has to offer.
If God’s blessing was the things of this world, we would be in a world of hurt and many of us would forget where that blessing came from because a lot of us would start worshiping that stuff rather than the one who gave us that stuff. We’d start saying things like look how successful I am, or thank goodness I have money to cover that expense, or thank God I’m not as bad as so-and-so, and we’d forget who God is and what His blessings are.
We had a few baptisms this year…and that is not because of my preaching, or our music, or anything that you or I can do. We are called to be faithful and to minister to others, to share the love and message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us and in others to draw others to Him.
Who here was excited about that baptism a couple of weeks ago? I know I certainly was! These things are the blessings of God. When we start to see the fruit of the gospel working in our church, that’s exciting!
Being a Christ-centered, gospel preaching, God-fearing church is exciting!
This is living a God-fearing lifestyle, not in that you are afraid God is going to smite you, but rather because you have elevated Him above all else in your life and therefore you want what you say to represent him well. You want Him to receive all the glory and honor for the blessings that He provides. You have chosen Him as your God, and therefore you have sworn your life to Him.
Verses 14 through 15 kind of sounds like Moses is contradicting that definition of fear that we just talked about, because Moses says that if you don’t exalt Him above everything else, if you choose to have other Gods before you, then God will become angry and obliterate you, and that sounds like the word should become fearful, but that’s not what Moses is saying.
What Moses is saying is that if you choose to obey and follow other gods, and remember here Moses is talking to the Israelites, if you choose to do that then He will remove you - because you’re no longer drawing people to God. You’re no longer demonstrating His love and His light, instead you are demonstrating what it looks like to follow the ways of sin and destruction.
See, the Israelites were there as the initial beacon of hope that is only found in the one true God.
And so if they chose to follow other gods, they were choosing to point people away from salvation.
We as a church must be remembering the Lord our God, His blessings, and we must be a God-fearing church that exists to point others to Him.
Our God is a jealous God, not in the way we think about it, but in the sense that choosing to follow any other god is choosing destruction for yourself.
That’s why in John 14:6 Jesus says:
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Our God is a jealous God because if you choose to follow other Gods, you are choosing something that is going to destroy you. You are choosing something that is not a blessing, you are choosing to align yourself with something that cannot eternally bless you.
Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came to give of Himself so that you could have eternal life. He came to give you victory over those other gods, and over sin, and over death, so that you could have eternal blessing and eternal victory.
But that is a choice you have to make.
That’s a choice the Israelites had to make. God did not have to give them victory. God gave them something that they did not and could not earn. The rest of verses 16 through 19 point to that - Moses says that if you are going to believe and trust the Lord, then don’t test Him, but live a life that demonstrates His hand in your life.
Do what is right by the Lord’s sight - not by human sight, not by tradition, not by what others are going to try to convince you is right, but observe what God says in His Word and by the Holy Spirit- which, by the way, will not contradict His Word - and do what is right within there so that you may continue to be blessed by God.
As a church, that means that we must stay focused on Him and His Word. We must be doing His work. We cannot stop and say look at what great things Harmony is doing. When we reflect on our past victories and our past blessings, we must remember that all of those past victories and all of those past blessings come from the Lord.
And when we do tha and when we remain faithful to Him and we do the work that He has given to us to do, we are going to continue to be blessed.
God has poured out a lot of blessing on Harmony in the past year and beyond. And I said a few weeks ago that we are healthy or mostly healthy, but that doesn’t mean that we stop where we are and think that we no longer have anywhere to go. Healthy doesn’t mean done.
We have some things coming up that I am excited to share with you that God has laid on my heart for this church to continue to grow in the Lord. I’m not talking about numerical or financial growth, but to really grow in what it is that God has called us to as a church.
That’s for next week though. What we need to understand is that God has blessed us in the past, and we must remember that today. Remembering that He has blessed us propels us into future blessing because we rely on Him for accomlishing the works that He has for us as a church.
We must maintain a perspective of grace and follow that up with a God-fearing lifestyle that demonstrates our trust in the Lord and His faithfulness. When we are doing that we also must share that with our families and our children.
The third attitude we must demonstrate is to:
3. Teach the next generation about FAITH, vv. 20-25.
This is one of those areas we must be passionate about. We must teach the next generation about our faith. When we are remembering His promises and His blessing, we should be so in awe, so impressed, so amazed that we cannot help but share that with the next generation.
That’s what verses 20-25 are talking about.
When your children ask you why you believe the way you do, tell them. When they ask you why you are so hopeful about the future, tell them. When they ask you why you do this thing, be it prayer or reading the Bible or going to church, tell them.
And hopefully, you are doing all of those things becasue you are remembering the blessings that He has given to you and because you have a relationship with Him that causes you to want to do those things. Give the next generation the full reason for why you go to church, why you pray, why you are reading his Word.
Don’t just say that it’s what Christians do, tell them why you do it. Tell them why you believe in Jesus Christ. tell them about His love for them, about His birth, His life, His sacrificial death that was the propitiation or the replacement for us and our sin, and how it is by His resurrection that we have victory over death, hell and the grave and hope for a future with Him.
And some may be wondering why we have to tell our children and teach our children about our faith. Why can we not just let them learn it on their own or through going to church.
Well, besides the fact that God’s Word tells you to - let that one sink in for a moment - besides God’s Word telling you to teach them about your faith, let’s look at some numbers.
70% of people who discontinue going to church in America do so between ages 18 and 22.
Now, why do you think that number is so high?
Because if you aren’t teaching and talking to your kids about who Jesus is and what he has done for you, about your past blessings and about your relationship with Christ, if the only time they hear about Christ and His blessings is in church, there is a severe imbalance of who it is that is influencing your children.
Your children are in church between 1 and 3 hours every week.
They are at school, we’ll go with a lower number, 30 hours per week.
They watch television for probably an hour or so per day, that’s another 7 hours per week.
They sleep hopefully about 8 hours per night, so that’s 56 hours.
There are 168 hours in a week. That still leaves you over 70 hours per week to talk to your kids about Christ.
And for some of us that is 70 hours per week of missed opportunities. if all your kids hear about Christ is 3 hours per week, that means that they hear about Christ 2 percent of their week. If we just consider thei time awake, that comes out to be just 3 percent of their week. All of those other hours they are being influenced by others.
Why do 70% drop out of the church when they become adults? Because there is no Godly influence in the home.
We must be passionate about teaching our kids about our faith in Christ. We are commanded to teach the next generation correctly about the Word of God, about His blessing upon our lives, and about why we live our lives according to His mercy and grace in our lives.
And maybe the reason you’re having a hard time doing that is because you don’t really know why you go to church, or why or how to pray, or maybe you have never reflected upon the blessings you have had or that you do have. Maybe you don’t know Him. Maybe after church today you need to talk to someone about knowing Jesus or about getting started with being the Godly influence in your children’s lives.
God’s Word tells us right here in verses 20 through 25 that we do this because it’s our story to tell to our kids, it’s our faith that comes to life, it’s for our preservation, that we can live holy, righteous lives that bring honor and glory to Him and so that we can see our kids persevere in the faith that brings them salvation. if we can’t teach our kids about the salvation and about the blessings that come from the Lord, then we need to be communicating with God and we need to be reaching out for help and resources.
We as a church need to be coming alongside those parents and those families and those children to teach them about our faith in the Lord and why that is so important for them.
That is how we allow the blessings of our past to influence the blessings of our future, by pouring into the future of His Kingdom and His Church.
God has blessed us immeasurably in the past by His grace. This should lead us to hold Him in awe and wonder, for us to elevate Him to be the God of our lives, and to demonstrate that to others and to teach our children about the wonderful, matchless grace and mercy of our God.