So is there more than just the blessing?

Welcome

Thank you all for being here today and what a pleasure it is to be able to be here with all of you. There truly is something special about being able to gather, to open up Scripture and learn and grow together.

So let us pray, Come Holy Spirit, come and enlighten our minds and our hearts. Let us see you more clearly and love you more dearly, we ask this in Jesus name. Amen

RECAP

The last few weeks we have been covering Generosity.

We have explored Generosity starting in the teaching of Jesus.

We discussed that Jesus teaches us to be Generous towards others.

Jesus anchored that generosity inside of love. Love is the will to good to quote Dallas Willard.

We love something or someone when we promote its good for its own sake.

In order to love, we must be Generous, often to will the good of another is not just a feeling but an action, typically requiring us to give of what we have to effect that good in another.

Generosity, then is a disposition, a mindset, a way of looking at the world around us. Generosity is not limited to money, it includes anything that we may have that could effect the good of another.

So you can see that Generosity and Love go hand in hand.

If I was not generous, if I never wanted to give of what I had to effect the good in another, I could never say that I was loving.

I think this is why generosity doesn’t get enough screen time is because it is so closely related to love that it is hard to talk about them separately.

Now in saying all of that, I would not say that is groundbreaking information by any stretch. What we did is we went further.

We explored WHY Jesus taught us that we could be Generous.

Jesus anchored the WHY in the actions of our Father.

Jesus taught that our Father richly provides for us and therefore we can use that abundance to bless others.

However, we saw that we often don’t see that abundance as abundance, we tend to see scarcity, that leads us to hoard that abundance because we are afraid that God will not give us any more good and if we don’t keep all that we have we might run out.

So then we explored the concept of blessing. We discussed a blessing is something we have, it is a thing and it is often passed from generation to generation

We explored that God is the source of all blessing and as such they are promises from Him. We explored that God who blesses and does not change, will not just randomly stop providing for the blessings that He has established.

Meaning that we are not just going to run out of provision. So when God says Be fruitful and multiply, He is going to ensure that we are provided for such that we can be fruitful and multiply.

Furthermore we discussed that God had blessed Abraham and his offspring that they will be blessed and that they are blessed to be a blessing and how that is the very mission and heartbeat of the church today.

So that is where we have been, we have discussed God’s Generosity and Love as the reason why He continues to bless. We have looked at blessing as a thing and how as a thing it bestows fruitfulness, efficacy, and abundance.

What we haven’t looked at is blessing as relationship.

We started to touch on it last week and today as our last part in the sermon series proper, we are going to explore, Be Holy as I am Holy.

Blessing and Generosity as Relationship

So we discussed last week about the promises and blessings made to Abraham by God. We discussed that by faith we are Abraham’s offspring. We are the family of God, the family of the faithful.

It is a good thing that we can trace our lineage by faith back to those promises and blessings but what is more important is that these promises and blessings, did not happen in a vacuum.

These were all packaged as a relationship with the one who gave the promises and blessings.

Genesis 17:1–8 NRSVue

1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2 And I will make my covenant between me and you and will make you exceedingly numerous.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding, and I will be their God.”

Now the story of our ancestor Abraham, is one that follows a bit of a pattern.

God Blesses and Promises

Abraham doubts or tries to engineer his own blessing

God responds to that by giving Abraham further evidence of His commitment to Him.

This is one of those times, but what is important here is that we see in v.7

Genesis 17:7 NRSVue

7 I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

All of these blessings and promises are packaged in a covenant relationship with the source of these Blessings.

What is awesome about all of this is that God is responding to Abrahams doubts with further commitment.

For the record, Jesus did the same thing to Thomas, He responded to doubt with kindness and engagement.

So the next time, we are doubtful, remember that we are in a committed relationship with God. He is big enough to handle our doubts and fears and actually responds positively when we ask in earnest.

So what is better than the blessing itself, to be in a committed relationship with the source of that very blessing.

God doesn’t just offer us His blessing, which is beyond all conceivable value, He offers with it everlasting relationship, but it is a package deal and this is where I think people stumble.

Grace: Unconditioned not Unconditional

So this is where I think for many of us, the rubber hits the road.

We have talked about blessings in the abstract, blessing in real life means relationship.

In today’s western culture we tend to think the best gifts are those with no strings attached, I think this says more of our value of things over people.

For most of history however, gifts were always used to begin or strengthen relationships. In some cultures today gifts are still viewed in this way which is why some cultures are very hesitant to accept gifts because of the relational element because of the expectations that come with the gift.

This is, however, the meaning of God’s gifts. We are blessed to be a blessing…this statement means that there are expectations on us as participants in our relationship with God and that is the context of the gifts that we get.

We don’t get the gifts without the God. We don’t get the God without participating in the relationship.

This is what the title of this section means, we do not get unconditional Grace meaning we get all the gifts and benefits of God without having to do anything.

God gives us unconditioned Grace, meaning we did nothing to earn the grace, favour, faith, salvation, blessing, calling and election, however all of these come packaged in relationship with the gift giver.

There are expectations about how we do things in the relationship.

Now I can appreciate that some people may not like that idea, for some people that could sound a lot like works based salvation. I promise you it is not.

Salvation by works is saying that I can earn relationship with God and thereby salvation.

That is just simply not what I am saying. I am saying that once we are in the relationship and by extension have access to all the gifts of that relationship, there are expectations inside that relationship.

Consider marriage, that is a covenant relationship, in fact it is modelled after our covenant relationship with God. All of the expectations in the relationship begin when the relationship begins.

Before I was married to Emma, I could have been in relationship with any other girl and dated any other girl. When I got married, I got the blessing and gift of a deep, meaningful, fulfilling, life-giving relationship with Emma. We are united in a way that is unique, she is my best-friend, my partner, and so much more but I can’t date any other girl.

I also have to spend time with her, take out the rubbish at home, kill spiders, clean up yucky things.

Expectations in relationships are actually quite normal, every relationship has them, and to be fair, everyone would say when I get to be married to such an amazing woman as Emma, that the benefits of the relationship far outweigh any of the costs.

So in this example, it would be weird to say that I am “working” for the gifts of the relationship, instead it is just part of being “in” the relationship.

This is the exact same when it comes to God and the Law.

The relationship comes before the Law and the Law applies in the relationship.

Remember that God did not give the 10 commandments to the Israelites until after He had heard her, sent Moses to lead her, saved her by going to war for her, washed her clean through baptism in the red sea and married her on Mount Sinai. The 10 commandments are a marriage contract between God and the Faithful (remember Israel’s story is our story). The commandments are part of the relationship, which makes sense:

Don’t cheat on me

2. Don’t have pictures of your Ex girlfriend hanging around that you look at a lot

3. Don’t bring public and open shame to the family name I am giving you

4. Let’s spend one whole day together a week just you and me

5-10. Don’t go and wrong all the people in our community by treating them in a sub human way and wreck the place we live in.

To be fair, I would argue that these rules, looked at from that perspective are completely different than how they are usually thrown around. I would say those are pretty fair rules for a relationship.

With God though the relationship goes further.

Be Holy as I am Holy

We talk a lot about discipleship with Jesus. We are Jesus’s apprentices, we aren’t just in a relationship with Him, we are trying to become just like Him.

I would argue that this is not new.

Just like how Jesus expects our devotion to Him alone

God in the Old Testament expected the Israelites to not just be in relationship (ie don’t cheat on me)

but become like Him.

God is unique. How do you describe someone that is unique…you use a unique adjective.

It just so happens that the adjective is Holy.

There is no other way to describe God other than Holy. It means unique and set apart, but specifically, unique and set apart to Yahweh. It is uniquely Yahweh.

Often times today we hear holy and we thing holier than thou or think people are trying to manufacture righteousness or a ton of other things. In Scripture though, it means unique involved with Yahweh.

So Yahweh Himself is Holy, but also everything involved in His service is Holy. There is of course more to it, but what I want to draw attention to is this command.

6 times in Leviticus is this saying said:

Leviticus 11:44 NRSVue

44 For I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming creature that moves on the earth.

Leviticus 11:45 NRSVue

45 For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy.

Leviticus 19:2 NRSVue

2 “Speak to all the congregation of the Israelites and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

Leviticus 20:7 NRSVue

7 Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 20:26 NRSVue

26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine.

Leviticus 21:8 NRSVue

8 and you shall treat them as holy, since they offer the food of your God; they shall be holy to you, for I the Lord, I who sanctify you, am holy.

Not only does every instance of this phrase talk about us being Holy because God is Holy but more importantly it is that we are to be Holy, because the Holy God is

OUR GOD, the God we are in relationship with.

So it is less about us being perfect and more about an invitation to become like God who we are in committed relationship with.

For so long I used to misunderstand the Law because I saw them as rules, instead of opportunities and invitations to be in deep relationship with God.

See we find the biggest blessing in the deepest relationship.

See in the command to be Holy, is the invitation that says I am inviting you into the deepest most intimate relationship with God, you will be so close and have so much action, that my heart can become known to you and it can become your heart.

My mind, your mind

My thoughts, thoughts

My will, your will

My life, your life.

My Spirit, your spirit

God is not the kind of person who says we are in relationship and then keeps us at a distance. No, He invites us into His very heart.

He says explore me, know me, become like me.

Every commandment in the Law is a window into the very heart of a Generous God.

If God is our generous blesser which is a thing, He is even more generous with relationship which is himself.

What I want us to see is that God our Father, shows us the most bountiful abundance not just in that He gives us His blessing which is incredible, but even more than that, He gives us Himself and does so without measure.

Answering the question we asked earlier.

Is God holding out on us…no, in no way is God holding out on us.

He not only gives us our material needs, but He gives us His Blessing which is of unimaginable worth, and if that were not enough.

He gives us deep access to himself. He doesn’t just adopt us and give us a huge trust fund, no He adopts us and says know me.

He spends the time to teach us how to truly live, how to use what He has given us to truly have life and life abundantly.

He opens His very heart to us and invites us in.

What is even more amazing is that He has given this invitation to everyone who wants it.

Your Father is open to you. This is why Jesus says, ask seek and knock. He promises to be open to you. He does not hold back from us.

Never has and never will.

Communion

This will be a good time to reflect on the God who does not hold anything back from us for our sake and move into communion, because this is exactly what communion is all about.

God not holding anything back from us!

Insert Worship Slides Here

Next Week Special: Tithe?

So today we have talked that commandments are windows into the Fathers heart.

Since I have seen much misunderstanding about the tithe, I want to explore it now that we have a clearer understanding of our generous Father and I want open the Fathers heart to all of you about how wonderfully beautiful the Fathers vision for the tithe of His people.

Blessing

Numbers 6:24–26 NRSVue

24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.