Receive the Lord's Blessings

We are in the middle of a sermon series that is all about life. We have looked at how God is with us during the worst of times. How God can help us live life to the fullest if we are willing to let him. Last week we turned towards a God that makes all things new, how we become transformed through following him.

You can find all of these and any other of our sermons on our You Tube channel. This week we are talking about receiving blessings from God. Our scripture comes from Joel 2:23-32. The words will be on the screen.

23 Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. 24 The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. 25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm—my great army that I sent among you. 26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. 27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed. 28 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. 29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. 30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 32 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.

Please pray with me…

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Praise be to the God who gives us blessings upon blessings in our lives. These words are another form of the doxology that we sing weekly. These words should be a constant reminder to us of the blessings that God offers us and how we should respond to those blessings.

We spent time just recently looking at how we are blessed and therefore should be a blessing to those around us. We should be willing to pass on the love and presence of God to those that we meet.

(Transition)

Blessings do not mean that life will always be perfect. A part of life is dealing with things and events that we don’t want to have to deal with. This is part of what is being discussed during the book of Joel. A great calamity has occurred. The land has been invaded with locusts, and these locusts have destroyed the crops that the people needed for survival.

We, who live in a fairly stable food environment can struggle to completely understand what these people are going through. They wereliterally living day to day. This crop was to help them survive the next year while last year’s crop was feeding them for the current year. The lossof a crop could literally mean a loss of life.

(Transition)

We may not have the food concerns that they faced, but we do have issues within our society and our world that tend to rise up. They aresocietal issues that lead to division and struggles both individually and within society.

We are not here to discuss how prevalent these issues are or how much they impact those around us economically, emotionally, or spiritually. What we need to discuss and be open too is that even if these issues aren’t prevalent, as followers of God a response is needed by us.

We are not to sit back and see people hurting and not do anything. The church is to be a place of worship for God but also a place that can help turn the hurts and troubles of those around us towards good. We are called to help those that society has chosen to ignore.

(Transition)

Part of the struggle that we can face personally and within the world is the same struggle that can hit us from this text. Verse 25speaks of God sending amongst the people these destroyers of crops. It doesn’t say that God let it happen. It states that God is the one who did it.

We can find other places in scripture where God “did things” that “destroyed things.” Much of what we find within the plagues against Egypt in the book of Exodus involved death or destruction. Culminating with the death of all the first born of Egypt.

But in that case, most of the time God let his chosen people off the hook. He gave them a way to escape. He allowed for them to not have to feel that same pain as those that were operating against God instead of those that were for God.

(Transition)

The opinion often is that even when it says that God sent something or did something, it is usually out of a response to the people walking away from God. It is God giving the people a wake-up call that will hopefully lead them back to him.

It is my hope that this is no longer the case. It is my hope that Jesus has changed the dynamics in which we are living here on earth. Meaning, God doesn’t actually do harm to us or those around us anymore. But if the world has decided to walk away from God, he doesn’t seem to do anything to prevent these events from taking place.

This doesn’t make the struggles we face any easier, but what this way of thinking can do for us is help us to focus on how God will use the negativity happening to us and around us for good. We can ask God and look towards God to turn good out of what looks like a disaster.

(Transition)

We have examples of God doing this in the past with the most noticeable example being God using the death of Jesus on a cross for the good of the world. God taking this horrible event and using it to allow society to be saved from the power of sin.

Another wonderful example would be Paul getting arrested in Jerusalem but saved from being killed by the Pharisees. He ends up speaking to a number of people high up in the Roman government to the point that he ends up in Rome itself.

It is true that when you are going through it, it can be hard to find the blessing that may be in it. In my own life I look at my time as a sibling of a terminally ill sister. It changed me, admittedly, at first not for the better.

But as I became closer to God, I saw some blessings through my hardship. My belief in the importance of the church because during that time the church felt most like home. The way I pray has changed, when I hear of someone having a sibling who is sick or in the hospital I pray as much for that sibling as I do their brother or sister. I know a little bit of what they are going through.

(Transition)

Our scripture is speaking of the coming of the times we are currently in. We read “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” There is no one that needs to be left out from a close, personal, relationship with God. He offers each one of us that walk the earth the opportunity to be saved. God will save us if we ask.

We also read that God will “pour out his Spirit on all people.” God has provided a way through the death of Jesus to allow all people to not only be saved but to remain connected to him. We get to decide the type of relationship we want with God.  We get to decide if we want to grow closer to him. We get to decide how much we want to listen to him and help those around us discover their need for him.

One of the most important blessings that we can receive is if we believe that God will never leave us or forgot about us. It is when we can recognize God going through that hard time with us. God putting people in our lives right when we needed them. We are never alone if we are willing to believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

(Transition)

Our first reading focuses on how God is always with us and the blessings he offers to us. We have a God that desires to be connected with us and through our willingness to stay connected with him we can continue to find blessings in every part of our lives.

We will take a brief look at each one of these and reflect on how they can impact our lives. We begin with “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We should view this as a focus on those who are struggling with life.

They want to give up but yet despite the life circumstances being thrown at them they have been able to keep the faith. They are doing as we spoke of a couple weeks ago “living life to the fullest.” Life may be hard at the moment but that is not stopping them from staying connected to God.

It is this connection to God that Jesus has them promised the kingdom of heaven. This should point out to us that our blessings don’t end when our life on earth ends. God has made those that believe in him a promise that no matter what struggles we may be facing on earth we will receive the blessing of eternal life.

(Transition)

We also discover that “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” We often view the word “mourn” to referring to the loss of a person that we loved and cared for. The truth is that there are many things that we can end up mourning.

We can end up mourning the loss of a job or a close relationship with a friend. We can end up mourning not being able to live and do the things we used to be able to do. We can end up mourning “the good old days” if we believe that the world has changed for the worse.

No matter what we are mourning if we are willing to turn these troubles we are faced with over to God he will comfort us. Comfort does not mean that he will make them better or take them away. It means that he will help us overcome the pain and/or disappointment we are facing from what we have lost.

(Transition)

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. This one can become hard for us to understand or translate. It is a word that can be viewed in many different ways. Christian pastor and author Eugene Peterson wrote his own version of the Bible called The Message.

He offers these words regarding this verse, “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are-no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”

I believe the point he is making is that we receive blessings through our willingness to know who God is and who we are. He is God. We are to be his servants, his disciples. We are to be those that follow the ways of our creator, our Savior.

When we do this, we return to becoming the first human, Adam before sin, in our current environment. We become connected to God, our world around us, and those that are living this life on earth with us. We can help God have the world be what he desires for it to be.

(Transition)

The rest of these blessings may be based off of the way we live out being what the scripture calls meek. When we are attempting to please God, we are going to hunger and thirst for being right with God. It is when we do this that we will be filled.

When we search for how Jesus lived his life, we will attempt to be merciful. Therefore, God will show us mercy. When our actions are performed with a pure heart, we will see God as those around us are seeing God within us.

(Transition)

Living the ways of Jesus also calls for us to be peacemakers. We are to attempt to do what is withing our power to live at peace with those around us. We are called to have God help us create peace amongst us.

We find currently in our society what this can lead to: it leads to insults, persecution and lies being said against you. We are called to not act like the world and take sides and not listen to those around us. We are called to attempt to bring unity out of chaos.

(Transition)

In many ways, the blessings we receive go back to the way we choose to live our lives. Are we living lives that focus more on God or towards self? Are we taking steps to bring us closer to God or have we become happy with keeping our Christian faith the status quo?

These canbe tough questions to ask because we are often are not going to like the answer we receive. It can become difficult for us to not fall into the temptations, or traps, of the world and end up living lives that look more like the world than look like Jesus.

(Transition)

That is why Jesus continues with the focus on us choosing to be “salt and light.” We are to bring to the world preservation and brightness. We are to show the world that Jesus still lives through us and his light shines from us.

One of the main uses of salt during Jesus’ time and for much of the time that people have walked the earth is to allow meat to remain eatable by using salt as a preservative. We are being salt to the world by keeping Christ alive.

We are keeping Christ alive when we are living out our mission statement here at The Church of the Good Shepherd. We should choose to connect with those around us and to show love to all people. Jesus gives us the example for us to follow.

Jesus took the opportunity to connect and show love to those that the rest of society had chosen to ignore. He made sure that the “unclean” and the “sinners” of that time knew that he saw them and cared about them.

We do this as well when we choose to be the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus. When we seek out ways to have conversations with those around us and are willing to speak to them about the one who will never leave them or forget about them.

(Transition)

When we are fulfilling our calling to show the love of Jesus to those around us, we become the “light of the world.” We are bringing light to the darkness. We are able to open the eyes of those around us to the difference between us and others in the world that they interact with.

It is why we are told to live in the world but not of the world. We are called to allow our light to shine without allowing the world to dim the brightness of God. We do this when we are being the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus.

(Transition)

We are blessed to allow for us to be a blessing to those around us. We are called to not just keep the blessing that God has given to us for ourselves. We should desire to ask God for ways that we can share his love with the world.

Let us who are followers of Jesus share his love with the world. And if you are here today in person or are watching as a part of our You Tube worship experience and do not yet have a relationship with God, know that he desires to offer you the same love, hope, peace and joy to that he gives to each one of us that are currently followers of him. He wants to bring blessings to your life today and every day.

Let us pray…