Be a Blessing

A couple of weeks ago we finished the sermon series “Sharing God” where we learned how God has created us to share his love with those around us. We begin this week by focusing on one possible method we can use to help us bless those that are around us and eventually be able to share our journey with Jesus with them. This week we see how Jesus has blessed us so that we can be a blessing to those around us. Our scripture comes from Luke 10:25-37.

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Please pray with me…

We area blessed people. Those that are followers of Jesus have been blessed in many ways.

· We are blessed because we have been saved from the power of sin. Jesus came to show us how to live our lives as God desires while also dying on the cross to allow us to be saved from the power of sin so that we can become as close to God as we desire.

· We are blessed because we have eternal life. Our body may die but our soul lives forever.

· We are blessed because we are filled with the Holy Spirit. We have within us the same Spirit that helped Jesus during his time on earth. A Spirit that can give us the words to say to help those around us believe in Jesus.

A Spirit that attempts to guide and direct us into the ways of righteousness. The Spirit wants to lead us down the path that God desires for us to go. Jesus left his disciples and us a helper. Someone that wants to help us choose to live our lives loving God and loving our neighbor.

(Transition)

That brings us to today’s scripture. This scripture shows us that nothing should stop us from helping those that are around us. God want us to be a blessing to others. Jesus is asked a theological question. He responds by having the person who asked it answer with the Jewish faith’s shorthand description of the ten commandments.

We have heard it many times before, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus follows up with what should be a very important point for us to remember.

Knowing what we are to do is not enough. We also need to be willing to live out what God has called for us to do. We can know what scripture tells us and still decide that we are not going to be willing to live this out in our lives.

Knowledge does not lead us towards living out the message. We need to also have the willingness and the faith to believe that we can live it out. A willingness to ask God how he desires for us to live out these lessons.

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We spent the “Sharing God” sermon series mainly focusing on knowledge. We were looking at what scripture tells us we should do and why we sometimes refuse to do what scripture tells us we are supposed to do.

This type of series is great to get to help us “know God.”  But we also have to be willing to follow through and have our actions match what our knowledge tells us that God desires for us to do. Jesus is pointing this out to “the expert on the law.”

He is saying to him “I know you know the law, but I am not seeing you, and those in the Jewish religious hierarchy, living out the law.” They were good at loving God, but they seemed to struggle with what it meant for them to love their neighbor.

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One reason this may have been a struggle was that they did not understand who God considered their neighbor. This may be why the question is asked of Jesus “who is my neighbor?” The man may be wondering who this Rabbi believes he should believe is his neighbor.

Jesus answers with a parable which is the main section of our text. This parable points out to us that excuses are not acceptable when we are in a situation that we can bless someone. It could be argued that Jesus wants us to put a focus on “love our neighbor” above “love our God.”

We have a Jewish man robbed, beaten and left for dead. We have a priest walking by. Jesus wants to make sure we know that it wasn’t that he didn’t see the man. He chose to leave him. We aren’t told why but being a priest, it is very possible that he had an appointment to make and didn’t want to be delayed by helping out the man.

We nexthave a Levite. This would have been a man who worked in the Temple and assisted the priests. Again, we know he saw him, but we don’t know why he chose to walk away from him. Just conjecture, but it could be that the Levite was afraid he would become unclean and therefore would not be able to assist with his Temple duties for a period of time if he attempted to help the man.

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The next person that comes by is a Samaritan. The “expert on the law” and the Jewish audience who eventually would hear this parable would have been sure what this man would do. The Jewish people didn’t like the Samaritans and considered them unclean. They would have expected that the Samaritan would return the favor and leave the man to die.

But that is not what happens. The Samaritan made the decision to bless the man by helping the man. One way that blessing someone could be described is to do something for someone who would not be able to return the favor. The Samaritan lived that out in this parable.

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What could this parable be saying to us today as we focus on blessing those around us. First, there is no excuse for not being willing to bless someone. We shouldn’t use the “hurry” or “I’m to busy” excuse.

Blessing someone should be more important than being on time for your next appointment. Our priority should be “to be a blessing.” This means that we might have to live our lives with the expectation that God may place before us someone who needs blessed.

Someone whomay need cared for. Someone who may need someone to listen to them. Someone who may he broken inside and needs to feel the love of God through someone else. Our priority should be to put others before ourselves.

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We also need be willing to get “dirty” to bless someone. We should be willing to do what needs to be done to serve those that God desires for us to serve. This does not mean we be unsafe. We might choose to not touch someone who is bloody if someone is available that would be able to help more than we can.

What it does mean is that we don’t use getting some dirt on our nice clothes as a reason to ignore someone who we would be able to bless. God desires for us to be his hands and feet. Sometimes that may mean that we will have to get dirty.

(Transition)

We also should be willing to help someone even if they don’t like us. The Samaritan had every right to choose to pass up the chance to help this man. We have two of the Jewish religious groups pass the man by.

He also would have believed that if the roles were reversed this man he is about to help would have passed him  The Samaritan chose to offer love and grace. He chose to bless someone instead of holding their sins or the sins of their people against them.

We live in a very polarized society in which people seem to not want to get along. Followers of Jesus are to choose not to follow this paradigm. We are to choose to look at each person as someone loved by God and therefore someone that we should choose to love.

This scripture is telling us to not let an excuse get in the way of helping the person or people that God has called for you to help. We have been blessed with everything we need to carry out God’s mission.

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Our first reading takes place right after the Tower of Babel. In that story the people have joined together and are attempting to build a tower that will reach the Heavens. This sounds good until we are told the reason why. They want to build the tower to “make a name for themselves.”

It wasn’t to bring them closer to God. They wanted to be able to show that they could reach God without calling out to God. They wanted to reflect that they had the power instead of relying on the power of God.

This leads God to have the people not be able to understand each other by creating different languages and leading them to separate themselves from each other. He did this to prevent them from believing they could live their lives without relying on him.

(Transition)

What this meant was he no longer had one people following him. They were a divided people. This led God to call a man named Abram who eventually would be called Abraham to create for him a group of people that would only follow him.

Our scripture has God speaking to Abram and asking him to leave his home, take his wife, and go where God tells him to go. God tells him he wants him to do this in order to allow him to be blessed and to be a blessing.  

The word “blessed” is stated five times in these three verses. God says to Abraham, “I will bless you . . . and you will be a blessing . . . and I will bless those who bless you . . . and not only that . . . all people on earth will be blessed through you.”

Before God called him Abraham, Abram was a man without a future. He and his wife Sarah did not have a son yet to carry on his legacy. God tells him that despite this lack of an heir that he will make him into a great nation.

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But first God says to Abraham, “Go.” -- Our God is constantly on the move, and he wants his people to be on the move as well. And it’s his desire that wherever we go – as we go, we should be about the mission of blessing the people and places that cross our path. We cannot be on mission with God and stay put. We have to go!

There isno better example of going than blessing than Jesus. His entire life was about going and blessing. Jesus blessed every person and every place he ever encountered. In his most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, he begins with what is known as the beatitudes and gives nine ways you can live a “blessed” life.

We have him blessing those that Jewish society preferred to have ignored: The lame, the sick, the leper, and the sinner. Jesus says to them through his words and actions that you matter. I want to bless you as you need blessed because I am blessed.

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The story of Zacchaeus offers us a perfect example. Jesus seesthis tax collector up in a tree. He is surrounded by people who want to follow him. People who are fans of Jesus and would love to have Jesus at their house. Jesus ignores their praise, looks at Zacchaeus and tells him that he chooses to have lunch with him.

He chooses to bless the one person that many would believe was farthest away from having a strong relationship with him. Jesus knew that out of everyone in the crowd Zacchaeus needed blessed the most.

Zacchaeus responds by seeking repentance. He immediately promised to give away almost everything he owned. Zacchaeus found his way back to God that day. Jesus responds by saying that ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’”

Jesus’ blessing over Zacchaeus is immediate.

· He doesn’t say tomorrow salvation has come.

· It’s not, when you get your life straightened out salvation has come - 

· Or when the check clears with all this money you’re giving away salvation has come.

No! The blessing that Jesus brings is for today. Now. Immediately.

Abraham was blessed to be a blessing. Jesus was blessed to be a blessing. Zacchaeus was blessed to be a blessing. And now, in Jesus, we receive that same blessing.

(Transition)

That is the focus of the next five weeks in this series. We are going to offer five simple practices that you can begin right away that will help you help you bless those around you and allow them discover the blessing that God wants to be in their lives.

We will call them B.L.E.S.S. Practices. Begin with prayer, listen, eat, serve, and story. Let’s look at these real quick.

The “B” is for Begin with Prayer. Prayer is both how you discover your mission as well as how you go about it. If you’re not sure who God is calling you to bless or where God is calling you to go to be a blessing, you can begin with prayer. And ifyou know the people or the place you want to bless, begin praying for those people and those places.

The “L” in BLESS is for Listen. Sadly, most Christians are known for talking more than listening. If we truly hope to bless people around us, we must first get to know them. Any relationship starts with listening. We need to hear about their hopes, their dreams, and their challenges.  Truly listening may be the kindest and most loving gift you can give someone.

This third practice is something in which many of us are experts—eating or entertaining. There is something about sharing time together that moves any relationship past acquaintance toward friendship faster than just about anything else we can do. There are few ways we can better bless the people around us than being willing to spend time with them.

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If you will begin with prayer, listen, and eat, there is a good chance that by then you will have discovered how you can best servethe person or place to which God has called you. As a matter of fact, they’ll likely tell you how you can best serve them. The first “S” in BLESS is for “Serve.”

And finally, if you begin with Prayer, Listen, Eat, and Serve, then there is a good chance you will have the chance to share your story. Someone may ask you to explain what makes you different. It is then that you can tell them about your journey with Jesus. The second “S” in BLESS is “Story.”

We are going to have a lot more to say about each of these practices in the week ahead. We have been blessed by God and now have the opportunity to pass on that blessing by blessing those around us. Let us choose to do all that we can to be a blessing today and every day.

Let us pray…