Scripture Gives Spiritual Blessing

BENEFITS OF SCRIPTURE Sermon Series

“Scripture Gives Spiritual Blessing”

KEY PASSAGE: Psalm 1:1–3 (NASB)

Our precious heavenly Father, we come to You with humble hearts, seeking Your presence as we worship You in spirit and truth. Help us at this time to fall before Your throne and to give You all the glory as You provide us with grace through Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.Thank you again Worship Team for a wonderful time of praise and worship.

The Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion Exhortation)

Today is the first Sunday of the month, and we will serve you communion. But before we do that, I want to share with you that the Lord’s Supper is a “Celebration of God’s Gift.” The Lord’s Supper reminds us that we should be thankful for the free gift of eternal life. Paul describes the gift in serious terms as a sacrifice by Jesus. He said, “This is my body, which was broken for you.” Here, Paul identified Christ’s sacrifice, describing Christ’s suffering and the picture of His ultimate service. Jesus paid the price of our salvation, and today, I want us to remember that sacrifice, suffering, and service as we take communion and fellowship with a living Savior as our hearts reach out to Him by faith. This is not a funeral. The funeral has already taken place. The mourning lasted only three days. Then came the victory. Today, at the Lord’s Supper, we celebrate life, a life given and a life granted. So, let’s celebrate the resurrection and the life that comes with it, a life filled with joy and gratitude.

Let us pray. Gracious Father, we have so little to say in comparison to Your great sacrifice. The only thing left is “Thank You.” Remind us how hard it was to give Your Son for us. Remind us of the pain He suffered on the cross, and remind us of Your love. Remind us of our hope in You and refresh our souls with the joy of our salvation. Bless this loaf, Lord, as a reminder of Christ’s sacrifice and the unity of this body, and bless the cup as a sharing in the death of Christ, as we die to ourselves to live for You. Thank You for Your love and forgiveness. In the name of Jesus, we pray, Amen. We will pass around the communion element as we continue the worship service.

Tithe and Offering

Giving is a big part of our Sunday worship experience. Before we collect our tithe and offering, I want to read First Corinthians chapter 16, verses 1 to 2, to remind us to be wise about Christian stewardship. “Now, about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up so that when I come, no collections will have to be made.” The first day of the week is Sunday, and giving is part of a day of worship. Giving is an act of worship, and giving should be an act of worship to the resurrected and ascended Savior, Jesus Christ. Let’s give to God and do it cheerfully and joyfully. God bless you. Ushers, please pass around the offering plates. Worship band, please lead us in worship as we collect our tithe and offering. Please follow the instructions on the screen on how to give to God.

WELCOME

Please stand up, greet some folks around you, and welcome them to worship. We welcome you to our Sunday Worship Service. We also welcome all who join us online. Let's clap for our online viewers.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Our Women’s Breakfast is on Saturday, August 17th, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the church. To all the women, please attend the Women’s Breakfast. Church leaders, please mark your calendar for our church’s monthly leadership meeting on Saturday, August 17th, at noon. Men’s Breakfast at the church for August is on Saturday, August 31st, at 10:00 a.m. And remember that the Men’s Breakfast is the last Saturday of the month. Our first Night of Friday Worship Service is on Friday, August 30th, at 6:00 p.m. here at the church. Please join us for an evening of praise and worship with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Wednesday Night Bible Study Connect is at 7:00 p.m. We started the Book of Romans last week, so please join us on Wednesday night to STUDY THE WORD OF GOD. Our church corporate weekly prayer meeting is every Saturday at 8:00 a.m. We also post all the upcoming announcements and activities on the church App and website.

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Let us pray. Father, would you help us to hear not only with the outer ear but with the inner ear so that it is not for a momentary meeting but for a life-transforming experience that we gather? You are the true provider of everything and have blessed us with so much. We are thankful to give back to You, and may You bless our gifts to glorify and grow Your Kingdom. And we will give You the glory in the name of Jesus. Amen.

DECLARATION of FAITH in GOD

Let us stand and say the Declaration of Faith in God together.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

We have been talking about scripture and its benefits in your life. The Bible is the inerrant, without error, Word of God. It is the Voice of God in print. When you read the Bible, you read a letter from the living God. You are not just reading words by a great writer on pages that are to inspire you. The Bible was written to transform us. So don’t miss that. The Bible is the Voice of God in print.

If you received a letter from the President of America (the United States of America) personally addressed to you, I am sure reading it would be no problem for you. That would be one letter that you would open quickly because of the status of the author and person who wrote it to you. The author of Scripture is the living and true God, and He has said there are benefits to taking the Word of God seriously.

SERMON EXPOSITION

Today, I want us to look at a benefit that everybody wants: the benefit of spiritual blessing. Scripture brings spiritual blessing. Turn your Bible to the first chapter of Psalm. Psalm chapter 1, and all we want to do is look at the first three verses. Psalm 1, the first three verses say, “Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, [Watch this] but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bring forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.”

So, the question on the floor is—who here today wants to be blessed? Anyone? If your hand didn’t go up, something is wrong with you. Everybody wants to be blessed. The psalmist starts by saying how blessed. You can’t see it in English, but in Hebrew, the word blessed is plural, so he says the blessings are multiplied. How blessed—he is talking about an abundance of blessings.

And before we go any further, we need to define this term since everybody wants to be blessed. We must also know what we want since we want to be blessed by God.

What is a blessing? For many folks, a blessing refers to things acquired. Some folks acquire too much stuff. There is stuff in the garage, there is stuff in the walk-in closet, there is stuff in the basement, and there is stuff in the storage. There is stuff everywhere. Stuff may be a blessing, but I am sure you know people who have stuff who don’t look blessed. In fact, the more they have, the more depressed, despondent, and unhappy they become. So, there must be something more to blessing than accumulation, and then on top of that, we are suggesting that people who don’t have a lot are not blessed or that people who have less than I do are less blessed than I am. And we try to compare ourselves to other folks in terms of blessings.

There must be a common denominator that regardless of where you live, what kind of car you drive, the house you live in, the job you work, the money you make, and the clothes you wear. There must be some common denominator where all the differences among all the people who are situated here today, where everybody could still say, I have been blessed, with a plural.

Let’s talk about the person who receives a blessing from God. God’s covenant with Israel made it clear that He would bless their obedience and judge their disobedience. The word blessed is a word that means happy in Hebrew, and it is plural, happiness[es], not, not I am happy, but happiness[es]. In other words, I roll from one happy moment to another happy moment. I am a bouncing happy ball. So, what is the meaning of the term? A blessing or blessing[s] refers to the capacity given by God to enjoy His goodness in your life. It is the God-given capacity to enjoy His goodness in your life. I like how Proverbs 10:22 puts it: when the Lord blesses, He adds no sorrow to it. There is a capacity to enjoy whatever God gives to His people. Paul says in Philippians 4:11-13 that I know how to be abounding, which means to have a surplus. He says I know how to be abased, not to have enough to pay the bills.

Paul says I know how to be up on top. I know how to go through a layoff and be down underneath. He says I have covered the breadth. But then, he says, [Watch this] in every situation, whether up, down, in, out, back and forth, I have learned the secret of being satisfied. I have learned the secret to being happy and pleased. In other words, I have learned to enjoy God’s goodness in whatever state I happen to be in. You can get a raise and be blessed. You can get laid off and still be blessed because it is related to your capacity to enjoy the goodness of God.

How blessed is man, generically (universally), a man and a woman? The psalmist starts with a negative. He begins by giving us some bad news before the good news. How blessed is a man? How fortunate, prosperous, and favored by God is a man? He says three things in verse 1: Who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, who does not stand in the path of sinners, and who does not sit in the seat of the scornful? [ You don’t take your seat among the know-it-alls’ folks].

He says you can tell, first of all, that a person is blessed by what they don’t do. If you remember, we started our discussions of blessings by what we do, what we have, where we go, and who we know. He says, “No,” the blessed man does not. So, if you are here today and you are getting more and enjoying less, that means you are not blessed. This is because there has not been sufficient consideration of the negative before you get to the positive.

He says the first thing a blessed person does not do is walk according to the counsel or the advice of the wicked. He says the blessed person does not go to people who have no regard for God to get advice on how to live. Watch This: The fastest way to miss your blessing or lose your blessing is to talk to the wrong folks about your blessing. The word counsel here in verse 1 means to get advice. It means to get another person’s perspective or point of view on something you are unsure about. Many of us today are not blessed because we are talking to the wrong people. He does not walk, and to walk means to live according to the perspective of people with a worldly viewpoint, not a God-centered perspective.

The second thing a blessed person does not do is stand in the path of sinners. When the psalmist talks about standing, he is talking about where you hang out and the folks you talk to about everything going on in your life. To stand refers to your influencers and who you identify with. He says the blessed person does not find as their central point or reference point, which is the direction of people with little or no regard for God.

Lastly, he says, the blessed person does not sit in the seat of scornful. A scornful person makes light of serious things. In other words, they find serious things funny and not serious things serious. A scornful person spends all their time looking at everybody else and none of their time looking at themselves. They can tell you about everybody else’s business and give you a viewpoint of everything. They have an idea about everything because they love to look for opportunities (prospects) to analyze and question somebody else.

Please notice the progression here. We started off walking according to the advice. Then, we get comfortable, meaning we stand in the path. Then we make ourselves feel at home, sitting in the seat. And you become more and more comfortable with your situation; you become more and more relaxed until you find yourself at home.

And we have all experienced what I am talking about. We start in one area, being uncomfortable, and then being too comfortable. The psalmist says the person who is not blessed has the wrong reference point and [the wrong] starting point, leading to a downward spiral from walking [to] standing and to sitting. That is the not-so-blessed person. What is the blessed person doing? The Bible says, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and [in] His law, he meditates day and night. We move from the negative in verse 1 to the positive in verse 2. Watch this: “Delighting in the Word of God and meditating on the Word of God must go together because whatever we enjoy, we think about and pursue.

The word delight means where a person would rather be. And so, whatever you delight in, you want to be close to it. For example, if you delight in someone, you always want to be around that person. If your delight is in a book, you want to read that book all the time. Delight has to do with where you find your joy and pleasure. Delight refers to the things that make you smile and happy.

When you delight in something, it means it is in your head. It is messing with your mind. It keeps you up at night. You can’t shake it off. You visualize it. He says the blessed man or woman finds their delight in the law of the Lord. How do you know they are delighting in the law of the Lord? Because in His law, they meditate day and night. So, don’t tell me you don’t have the time to read your Bible day and night. I have a job, and I am too busy. I have a family and don’t have time to read my Bible. He didn’t say anything about reading the Bible. He says, in His law, he meditates day and night.

Watch this: You can look at a television (TV) and think about something else. You can be working out at the gym and thinking about something else. You can be here listening to me preach to you right now and thinking about something else. Meditation means to ponder, recall, and interact with the mind.

Meditation is taking what you hear and working it, rolling it over in your mind. He says in His law, he meditates day and night, meaning that the truths of the Bible that he has learned were memorized or heard, preached, or read; he ponders over the Scripture until it becomes a part of his system.

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. It is about David’s meditation on the Word of God. At the beginning of Joshua’s leadership of Israel, God lays out His key to success for Joshua. According to Joshua 1:8, God told Joshua to meditate on the Word of God day and night.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION

Most people spend more time meditating on their financial situation than [they do] on the Word of God. They meditate over their paycheck, [meditate over] their favorite television show, or the last book they read. Meditations show up in your speech. And far too many Christians today are spiritual bulimics. A bulimic is a person who loves the taste of food. They go in and eat the taste of food, but they don’t want to be affected by the taste of food. They want to enjoy the taste of food and chew the taste of food, but out of concern for calorie intake, they don’t want to be affected by the taste of food.

Many of us come to church on Sunday morning and Wednesday night, and we love the taste of food. The Pastor cooked me a good meal. This Sunday, I am coming to church, and if I get up early on Sunday morning and come to church, I want you to cook me a good meal. Lord, have mercy, if I ever come on Wednesday night, too, I want the Bible Study teacher to cook me a good meal. I expect you to cook me a good meal on Sunday morning and Wednesday Night Bible Study Connect.

But the point of cooking you a good meal is not for you to enjoy the taste; leave the sanctuary and do this; throw it back up. The whole point of food is to infiltrate the system and become part of the person, and the way the Word of God infiltrates the system is by meditating on it in your various realities of life. It means rolling it over and says God, how does Your word affect what I am facing right now? How does your Word affect my reaction right now? How does Your Word affect what I am thinking right now? How does Your Word affect how I deal with this problem right now?

Watch this: It connects God’s Word to life’s realities. He says that is the blessed man, so the gap between hearing God’s Word and being blessed by God’s Word is a gap called meditation. And he says the problem is for the non-blessed person; they are meditating on the wrong thing. They are meditating on the human viewpoint, what man thinks, what man sees, not God’s viewpoint, what God says, what God thinks, and what God sees, and that difference brings the difference of the tangible experience of blessing.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION

A little boy didn’t know that he was defining or experiencing a blessing when he had his first ride in an elevator. When the little boy explained his experience, he said, “I went into this little room and upstairs came down.” Blessing is when upstairs comes down. Or, as the song says, heaven came down, and glory filled my soul.

Everybody is not going to get a new car, house, or wardrobe; there is nothing wrong with getting those things. But enjoy everything that God gives you; be blessed regardless. Being blessed regardless raises another question: What does a blessing look like? We described it as your ability to enjoy whatever God provides.

SERMON EXPLANATION

What does He [God] provide? Let’s look at verse 3. Verse 3 says, “When you meditate day and night,” as a way of life, “several things will happen.” You will begin to see it happen. Number one, you will be like a tree. You are not going be grass; you are not going be a bush. You are going to be a tree. The difference between a tree, grass, and a bush is obvious because a tree has height. Trees leave the ground, and they grow tall. A tree is no longer limited to the earth. He said you will be like a substantial, prominent, visible tree.

You won’t just be like a tree; he said you will be like a tree planted. You are going to be planted and stable. The stuff that used to blow you down will no longer blow you down. The stuff that used to knock you over and down will no longer knock you down. Stuff that will make you panic, quit, throw in the towel, or want to jump off the bridge will no longer have control over you, and you will hold your ground because you are a tree planted by the rivers of water. And that is because you have been blessed.

Watch this now. You are not just a tree, and you are not just a planted tree. You are a tree planted in rivers of water. Rivers of water was an Old Testament phrase for irrigation ditches. Irrigation ditches carried the water to the root of the tree so the tree could drink, regardless of the external circumstances. This has to do with what was happening underneath the ground. Irrigation ditches are designed to bring water when there is no water. Blessing doesn’t mean the weather is nice all the time. Blessing means I am drinking, regardless of weather conditions, because I have something underneath, the irrigation ditches. You are positioned irrespective of the isolation or barrenness of the environment; there will be a continuous source of life. And this sense of nonstop nourishment and care will make the believer feel reassured and safe.

Let me tell you how you know you have been blessed. You know you have been blessed when the external is falling apart and the internal is doing fine. That is rivers of water. Somehow, you have a peace that passes all understanding. Somehow, joy has taken over.

In verse 3, he says, you are a tree that brings forth its fruit. In other words, you are a productive tree. You are not staying in bed depressed all day. You are productive; you are maximizing your potential. You are producing fruit. In order to produce fruit, the tree must be living (the tree must be alive). Why are so many of us producing no fruit? Because we are dead inside. Dead things can’t produce life.

Let me share a few things about fruit with you. The first thing you need to know about fruit is that fruit always reflects the character of the tree of which it is a part. In other words, apple trees don’t bear oranges. Orange trees don’t bear pears. An orange tree will bear an orange. An apple tree will bear an apple. Watch this: I can know what kind of tree you are by the type of fruit hanging off you. So, if there is nothing productive coming out of you, that is because there is nothing productive inside of you to produce something productive to come out of you.

A tree always bears the tree's character; the fruit always bears the tree's character. Fruit doesn’t eat itself. You don’t watch apples eating apples. Fruit always exists for the benefit of others. So, you know that you are blessed because you are being a blessing to other people around you. Other folks can take a bite out of you and be blessed. When a fruit starts eating itself, that is because a disease has set in. That is the problem with being blessed. Everybody wants to be blessed for themselves. And it is okay to be blessed as long as others can bite out of your life and be blessed because you are a juicy piece of fruit.

Then, at the end of verse 3, he summarizes for us, and this is an excellent summary: He said, “Whatever he does, he prospers.” So, he is talking about a person and not a tree. He is talking about a person; whatever he does, he prospers. Whatever he touches, he prospers. He says, if you meditate on My Word, and new channels are dug inside your heart, now I am not just talking about reading the Bible; I am talking about fantasizing over God through His Word, making God your imagination (fantasy) by visiting another realm.

FAITH APPEAL, CALL to ACTION and ALTAR CALL

When you meditate, it becomes a matter of the heart. And when it gets to the heart, it is a transforming experience. It is one thing to tell it; it is another to feel it. Meditation removes it from the page, and now it becomes a part of who you are. Submarines can go underwater during a storm, and everybody in it is peaceful even though the waves are thirty feet high. Why? Because they have gone deep. I don’t know if you ever noticed this, but fish never get upset when it rains. Fish never get depressed because fish know something that you don’t know.

No matter how bad it gets up there, it can only get down twenty-five feet. No matter what it does on the water, a hurricane or tornado can only penetrate twenty-five feet, so the fish goes down twenty-six feet when there is a hurricane or a tornado. If there is turbulence and chaos in your world, go deeper. And if there is a struggle in your world, go deeper. In California, they have palm trees. No matter what happens, those palm trees in California will not break. The wind will push it back and forth, but the palm trees will not break because they have this elasticity that allows them to bend and bounce back. That is because they are deeply rooted in the ground. The psalmist says that Scripture brings spiritual blessing and stability during unstable times. May we go deep in the Scripture so that we are no longer affected by the weather? So that we are no longer affected by external forces. God bless you.

Before we say our benediction, I want to invite those who have not accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts. You have heard the sermon “Scripture Gives Spiritual Blessing.” According to Romans 10, verse 9, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” It is simple and straightforward; all you have to do right now is confess with your mouth the name of Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. And the Bible says you will be saved. And once you make that decision today, the Scripture says you have chosen to live for Jesus for the rest of your life. Do we have anyone who would like to accept Jesus today? If you need prayer, please come forward so we can pray for you. If you don’t want to come forward, we will say the benediction and pray for you. Let us stand and pray.

BENEDICTION

Father God, we “Thank You” again for Your Word today and we commit ourselves to Jesus Christ. We pray that You keep our feet on the ground spiritually and help us walk straight so we don’t stumble and fall. Give us the wisdom needed to live life to the glory of God. Man’s glory fades away, but God’s glory will continue forever. And so, Father, we give you all the glory and pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

God bless you. We will see you next week at 10:30 a.m.