Don't Forget Where Your Blessings Come From

Giving honor to God, Jesus Christ my Lord and Savoir, Pastor Graham, Pastor Todd, my adorable wife for 30 years, Mount Pleasant church family, and visitors, etc….

PRAY

Read Deuteronomy 8:10-20

The title of the sermon, “Don’t forget where your blessings come from”.

David said, I will bless the Lord at all times and his praises shall continually be in my mouth. There may be someone who’s experiencing trouble, problems, and even pain. You may not feel like making a joyful noise because it seems like your prayers are unanswered. Well, I have good news for you, your next in line for a miracle but you need to take it by faith, for anybody can praise the Lord while things are going well. But you need to praise God anyhow. What if we had to indoor trails and troubles like the three Hebrew boys, Paul and Silas. For the Israelites in Judah were brought into captivity for worshipping idols and disobeying God. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, made a image of Gold and declared everyone to fall down and worship the image when they hear the music. But the three Hebrew boys refused to blow down and worship the image and where thrown into a blazing furnace. Oh, but in the miss of the flames was Jesus. Paul and Silas where beaten and cased into the deep part of the Phillipian jail. They were held captive? Jesus came to set the captive free. John 8:36 (KJV)If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

I would like to ask the question, what’s holding you captive? But when midnight came, they sung hymns and prayed. Some people join the church and give the pastor the hand and Jesus your heart but at the same time saying, “this is my body and I can do what I want.” Romans 12:1 (KJV)

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and you shall not defile the temple of God. Oh, you don’t hear me. You may be saved, but you need deliverance from lying, stealing, drunkenness, getting high, fornication, abusing your family. At midnight, Paul and Silas where having church, they were worshipping God in spirit and in truth. They prayed prayers of faith and sang songs of praise. If you want Jesus to come down, I dare you to pray the fervent prayer. I dare you to sing a love song until the Lord. For if you pray right, something got to sake. Well, the ground shook; the chains fill off, the doors flow open. And the jailer came crying, “What must I do to be saved?” We need to praise God anyhow.

King Nebuchadnezza asked the question,(Dan.3:24) “weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”..”Look I see four men walking around in the fire..and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” Oh, when Jesus is in the middle, you walk on the Devil, you can put him under your feet. Can you dance before the Lord? DON’T FORGET WHERE YOUE BLESSINGS COME FROM.

God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt. He told the death angel to pass over them and opened the Red Sea to escape Pharaoh’s army. Jesus Christ is our pass over lamb and his blood cause death to pass over all who believe. Some where along the journey, the Hebrews disobeyed God and worshipped an idol.

God was angered and prepared to destroy his people but Moses sought the favor of the Lord. God spared them but put three thousand people to death. God allowed them to wonder in the wilderness for 40 years. They where at the end of their punishment and the generation who sinned against God, he destroyed. The Israelites are encamped along the Jordon River and this new generation stood poised on the riverbank, ready to conquer Canaan. Moses’ words came from his heart as he reminded the people to (Deut.27:9-10) “..be silent, O Israel, and listen! You have now become the people of the Lord your God. Obey the Lord your god and follow his commands and decrees that I give you today.” Jesus the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

There are five points I would like for you to hold on too:

Remember what God has done for you.
Remember the love relationship God has formed with you
Confess the sins that have broken that relationship with God
Hear God’s invitation to you and the life adjustments He calls for.
Obey God and experience Him as He accomplishes His work through you.

It is a fact that we as a people and believers in Christ, are more blessed today than the past. When I say blessings, I speak of being blessed not only with material things but more importantly, spiritually. I don’t want you to feel condemned of being blessed with material things. God blessed Abraham and Solomon with material things. But God do not want us to boost on where you are compared to someone else, and pat your self on the back and look down on others. That is not God’s purpose for blessing you. God told Abraham, not only will I bless you but you shall also be a blessing to someone else. God blessed you and me, that we might be a blessing. This same true that James wrote about in (James 4:2-3) 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. You may be asking to waddle in lust, but do you think you are going to receive anything? You ask with the wrong motive, for God knows your heart.

Deuteronomy is the book that Moses wrote when he was about to die. They came to borders of the Promised Land but Moses could only look over. He had to pass the leadership to Joshua. God wanted Joshua to remind the young generation about worshipping false gods. Because worshipping the gods of the land will bring a curse upon yourself rather than a blessing. (Deut 28) If you hold to my commands, the blessings will over take you.

Moses told the people to go in and posses the land. God do not want you to just look at it, He said to posses it. You have to settle for a low paying job, you need to do all you can to receive a higher education. As people of God, we need to get the idea out of your mind that you have to always be down and out.

(DEUT.8:2) 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

The situation will determine what’s in your heart. If the word of God is in your heart and you believe thou shall not steal, it doesn’t matter what kind of opportunities you have. You can be in a situation where someone has left money on a desk and you see it, but you will not steal it. You might be in a conversation where somebody starts to gossip about someone else. If it’s not in your heart. Psalm(51:10)10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Deut 8:3) He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The Lord did not want them suffer for 40 years but he allowed it to humble them. While they were in the dessert, they did not the convenience of a restaurant or a shopping mall to provide food and clothing, but they had to depend on God to feed them with manner and allow their clothes to last fort years. Sometime the Lord allow you to go through

(Deut 8:4-5) Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. God had to whip his people but he did like a father chasten a son that he loves. We need to remember, when things are not going well, it may be because God is whipping you. When we go against his laws and violate his principals, this could be his way of disciplining us. Sometime the Lord allow you to experience troubles and you don’t know where or why its happening to you, but in the miss, when you need something to eat, its there. When you cannot afford medical insurance, God said,”I WILL KEEP YOU HEALTHY.” Don’t forget where your blessings come from.

Whatever’s going on in your life, God still loves you. God know when you went through tough times and only had manner and quill to eat. Don’t think so much of where God is bringing you from but think about where I am bringing you to. We need to stop complaining about where we are and praise him for where he is bringing you. I can recall about two years ago, I had been out of work for 14 months and God kept us. I didn’t feel like praising God at all times and I didn’t feel like teaching Bible Study, but we begin to talk the grace and mercy of God and how he didn’t give up on his people, I found my strength coming on, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Guess what? I received my strength and shortly after that, God blessed me with a new job. I’ve been working on my new job for almost two years. I went in a possessed my blessing. Don’t forget where your blessings come from. You need to say to yourself, I am a child of God and he has better things in store for me.

(Deut 8:10-14)Then you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock.

If the Lord had left us where we were? But he brought me through. I don’t understand how the Lord can bring some of us through, and you come to church like you are still in it. You come out on the victory side. You ought to “Enter his grates with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise.” What God has brought us through wasn’t a little something. It was a headache or a bill that got paid. But there’s somebody who God has brought them through a great and terrible wilderness. Sometimes a drought my come in your life and you are going though your wilderness and all you want is a drink of water. Oh, the water that Jesus gives, you will never thirst again. I remember when I was a little boy and watched cowboys on TV. I time, the good guys had the bad guys surrounded in a barn. The leader shouted, “Come out with your hands up, we got up surrounded.”

If you remember where your blessings come from, you will come out with your hands up and praising God. For while you where praying, God put an angel on the run, before you get through praying, the work is already done. Can I get a witness

16 He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”

It’s nothing worst than people boosting about what they have. Saying, I got this because I was smarter, wiser, and I prepared for it. God says, what you have, did not come from your power. Whatever you used to get it, ability, physical strength, good looks, God says I gave it to you. Other people have lost their mine, but you have yours. Don’t forget where your blessings come from.

Conclusion

WHY ARE YOU BLESSED?

God’s got a purpose for blessing you. He wants to use what he has given you to establish his covenant. When you refuse to give back, to keep the doors of the church open, be careful that the same God that bless you, will blow your blessings and shatter it to the winds. But if you use it like it was intended to be, God will keep on stacking it up and up and up.

Jesus I cannot forget what you have done for me,

Jesus I cannot forget how you set me free,

Jesus I cannot forget, NO NEVER

For Grace and Mercy, so freely given, I CANNOT FORGET

For Faith that says, my sins are forgiven, I CANNOT FORGET

For your sons precious blood, that covers my faults, I CANNOT FORGET

NO NEVER