The High Cost of Owning God’s Blessings
A couple of years ago, a little book became a best-seller. Bruce Wilkinson was truly blessed by the success of The Prayer of Jabez. (click to buy at CBD.com) I hope you have taken the 20 minutes required to read it! The message in the book was sound... and that message? Let me use Dr. Wilkinson’s own words from the opening pages:
"The little book you’re holding is about what happens when ordinary Christians decide to reach for an extraordinary life - which, it turns out, is exactly the kind that God promises.... I want to introduce you to the amazing truths in Jabez’s prayer for blessings and prepare you to expect God’s astounding answers to it...."
We all want to be blessed by God, don’t we? Of course! Who in his right mind wakes up and says,
"Good morning, Lord God. Today I want You to really knock me down. Rain curses into my life. Make me sick, poor, and a victim of sin and evil. Cause my kids to be defeated by sin, too. Send clouds and darkness into my life. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen."
Ridiculous, right? Of course it is. We rightly pray for God’s blessings and care. Jesus, in the model prayer, taught us to pray for God’s blessings of provision and protection. It is right and good to seek to be blessed!
Now, let me draw you towards our text in Genesis this morning by asking if you have considered the high cost of blessings. Does that strike you as a strange thought? Blessings are free, right? No, they are not. Blessings come with a price tag. In fact, one premise of this message today is that one of the reasons many Believers do not enjoy more of God’s blessings is that they are UNWILLING to pay the price required to own them! (PAUSE)
Our text is found in the 12th chapter of Genesis. Yes, many of know it. It is the story of the call of Abraham.
We need to define our terms. What does the word, "bless" mean?
It’s a bit obscure in many of our minds because bless is a word we only hear in church and when we sneeze! Preachers say, "The Lord bless and keep you." We hear it and it has a nice feel but WHAT does it really mean? We sneeze and strangers say, "God bless you." And what does that mean?
To ’bless’ means to bestow favor, to prosper, to give a gift.
So when I say, "The Lord bless you," I am speaking a prayer that He will show favor, prosper you, and grant good gifts of peace, grace, and goodness to you!
Do you know that it is God’s nature to be rich towards His children, that He loves to bless us?
Jesus alludes to this part of God’s nature in the Sermon on the Mount where he teaches us to trust the rich provisions of our Father in Heaven. As Jesus teaches us about prayer, he says, "If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him." (Matthew 7:11, NLT) I can identify with statement! One of life’s greatest joys for me is to bless my kids! A little gift, a word of encouragement... seeing the delight in their eyes - well, that’s just the best.
God delights in providing blessings for us. It’s His nature. One of the Devil’s BIG LIES is that God is stingy, mean, and just waiting to curse us with suffering and sadness!
Wilkinson writes that many Christians think once they choose to follow Jesus, believe "God’s blessings just drizzle over life at a pre-determined rate, no matter what they do, no extra effort required. Others," he observes, "slip into a ledger mind set with God. The blessing account has a column for deposits and withdrawals." Mistakenly they fear asking too much lest they should overdraw their blessing account in Heaven!
The truth of Scripture is that God delights in flooding us with blessings which He provides from an abundant store that is not subject to the limitations that we know. BUT, we must live in such a way that we open our lives to experience the blessings of God.
Let’s see what Abraham learned about God’s blessings. READ - GENESIS 12: 1-7
You know, I just love v. 2. In the NLT we read God’s promise, "I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others." (Genesis 12:2, NLT) Wow. Rich, famous, and a person who enriches those who know him - what more could Abraham want?
What more could any of us want more than to personally prosperous as well as able to pour out good things on others?
Now, that you’re captivated by the promise given to Abram, lift your eyes to the previous verse: " Then the Lord told Abram,
"Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you." (Genesis 12:1, NLT)
Before Abram could own God’s blessings, he had to let go of a few little things- the safety of his homeland, the comfort of his extended family, and even the joy of his own father’s house! Ouch!
How does he respond?
As we read in the passage, Abram, at an advanced age, after experiencing significant prosperity in the city of Ur of the Chaldees and later in Haran, set out on a long journey. In obedience, he severs the ties to his present to move into the promised blessings of God’s future! That’s not cheap. God’s blessings came with a price tag.
What is the price Abram pays to live under God’s blessing? FAITH and OBEDIENCE!
God doesn’t tell him a thing about where he’s going, only that he must LEAVE his home. God doesn’t give him any wiggle room, any space for negotiations. The word from Heaven was "Leave and I will bless" in that order!
Later writers tell us that the evidence of Abram’s faith was his obedience. IF he had not believed, he would not have obeyed. If he had not obeyed, he could not have possessed the promised blessings. What makes this account all the more astonishing is that Abram was emerging from a pagan background. He had very little information to go on, yet he took God at His Word.
The chapters that follow outline unfolding events in Abram’s life. It wasn’t all easy stuff.
He took a detour through Egypt where he got kicked out of the country because he lied to Pharaoh.
He had a falling out with his nephew, Lot, over grazing rights for his large herds of livestock.
He got drawn into local wars when he had to go rescue his nephew who had become a prisoner of war.
Through it all, he struggled with faith as he grew older and older and had no son because of Sarah’s inability to conceive.
His faith was tested and tried as he waited for the fullness of the promised blessings to be fulfilled.
So what did Abram cling to? What assurance did he have that the blessings of God would be fully realized in his life?
Turn with me to Genesis 15, where promise becomes COVENANT!
Abram began to wonder and waver in his faith. He’s been living in Canaan for many years. Though he’s grown rich, he still has no heir. How would the world be blessed if he has no offspring? READ 15:1-18
It’s a curious scene, bloody carcasses of a cow, a goat, and a sheep - divided in half and placed in two parallel lines. There are also two birds, a dove and a pigeon. Under the sun, Abram sits in this scene, driving away the vultures that came to steal the carcasses. And he waits until sunset, when he falls asleep. Then, a fire appears that walks between the carcasses. What is this all about?
The act of dividing animals and walking between the halves of the bodies was apparently an ancient form of contractual agreement. We do not know much about the custom except for a passage in Jeremiah that sheds some light on it: "Because you have refused the terms of our covenant, I will cut you apart just as you cut apart the calf when you walked between its halves to solemnize your vows." (Jeremiah 34:18, NLT)
The writer in Genesis hands us the key to understand the strange scene with the words found in v. 18 - "So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day (Genesis 15:18, NLT)
God, by His word, turned a promise into a legal covenant. This solemn ceremony offered Abram assurance that God would keep His promises because He had bound Himself to do so.
Many centuries later, the writer of the book of Hebrews sums up Abraham’s experience by saying: "It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith--for he was like a foreigner, living in a tent. And so did Isaac and Jacob, to whom God gave the same promise. Abraham did this because he was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. It was by faith that Sarah together with Abraham was able to have a child, even though they were too old and Sarah was barren. Abraham believed that God would keep his promise. And so a whole nation came from this one man, Abraham, who was too old to have any children--a nation with so many people that, like the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore, there is no way to count them." (Hebrews 11:8-12, NLT)
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So what’s all this mean to you and me all these centuries later?
The first application is obvious - Living in God’s blessing requires faith and obedience!
"So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him." (Hebrews 11:6, NLT)
Remember, true faith is a response to the word of God spoken into our lives. Presumption, which looks very much like faith from the outside, is rooted in our own will. Presumption says, "What I propose to do is good and right therefore if I just go ahead, God is obligated to bless my efforts." Many is the Believer who has presumptuously set out on a course of action only to find himself wrecked by life! Churches have been built, ministries started, marriages entered into, business partnerships formed with the presumption that God would bless because it was a good, even godly effort. Then, when things turned sour, finances were not there, the relationship was broken by strife- God is blamed. Before we launch out on some great faith walk, we must KNOW we have heard from God.
Abraham didn’t wake up one morning in Ur and decide he would rather live on the balmy shores of the Mediterranean Sea and to demand that God cover his relocation expenses. He heard from God and moved out based on the will of God.
When we have heard from God and confirmed His will, we must then move forward in obedience IF we want to own His blessings. Like the father of the faithful, we must be willing to let go of some things in order to take hold of the promise of God and own His blessings.
We must let go of religious heritage and our trust in our own goodness in order to own the blessing of the assurance of true salvation through Christ alone!
We must let go of the ’good life’ that is found in pursuing our selfish agenda, in order to own the blessing of the ’abundant life’ that is found in Christ Jesus.
We must be willing to place earthly loves secondary to love for God, so that we will whole-heartedly embrace His purposes.
Jesus reminds us of the importance of faithful obedient lives IF we want to know God’s best: "If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?" (Matthew 16:25-26, NLT)
Second application is about covenant....
God’s blessings for us are assured not because of our good works but because of His eternal covenant.
"When people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given us both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to his promise with confidence. This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain of heaven into God’s inner sanctuary." (Hebrews 6:12-19, NLT)
It is God’s oath, His covenant promise, that we grasp. We have a blood covenant with the Father, the blood of Jesus Christ, representing His very life, is our assurance. Abraham was visited by God’s Presence there on the plain between the divided bodies of animals that were mute witnesses of a solemn agreement God was making. Jesus offered himself and we look to the Cross as the testimony of God’s love for us, the assurance that He wants to bless us.
Be careful about being deceived that you can earn the blessings of God! That is an old religious trap that has been used by the devil and by human leaders for millennia. The devil likes nothing more than to have us look at our lives and conclude one of two things: we haven’t done enough to merit God’s blessings OR that we’ve done so much that God owes us! Both are lies that keep us from accepting the blessings that He offers because of His grace. Too many priest and preachers have promised blessings in return for good works because it produces results! "Give a million dollars," they lie, "and I’ll assure you that your life will be full of good things." What a lie!
God blesses because it is His nature to do so! Our faith and obedience, while necessary to own God’s blessings, DO NOT earn them. Faith and obedience make it possible for us to RECEIVE His blessings.
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As I close let me encourage you with some final words taken from Hebrews 6 ...follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and patience. For example, there was God’s promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying: "I will certainly bless you richly, and I will multiply your descendants into countless millions." Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised.
May the Lord find in us the same faith-based obedience so that we may enjoy the blessings of His Presence, of the rich life of knowing Jesus, and ultimately the home in His Heaven that He promises to all those who respond in faith to His call!
Amen.
Jerry D. Scott © 2003
