Word of Salvation – Vol.42 No.31 – August 1997
What has to Happen for the Lord to Bless Us?
A Sermon by Rev DK Baird on Ephesians 1:1-3
Scripture Readings: Deut. 28:1-6, 15-19; Eph. 4:1-16
Suggested Hymns:
BoW: 332, 487, 163, 331:1,2,4
Dear Congregation,
Today I want to ask the question: “What has to happen for the Lord to bless us?” You might be thinking, Oh, good! Business has been a bit slow lately; I need the Lord to bless me. But it’s not financial prosperity I want to talk about. Sorry!
I realise some churches these days are emphasising financial prosperity. If the Lord is blessing you, expect to see it in your bank account. If you are not making money, something’s wrong. You don’t have enough faith or whatever. The Lord means us to prosper financially, they say.
Prosperity teaching is not particularly biblical. It seems more like self-centred wishful thinking. But anyway, that’s not what I mean by this question
What has to happen for the Lord to bless us?
Rather, I want to apply this question to us as a church. What has to happen for this church to mature as a congregation, and so be of use to other people, and bring praise to God?
What has to happen for this congregation:
– to grow in maturity,
– to grow in the ability to serve,
– to grow in usefulness, AND
– to be an honour to the Lord who made it?
That’s the question I am asking.
Now I suppose if we were to pass out pieces of paper and ask you to put down your own answer to this question we would get an interesting range of responses. I’m not going to do that – although if you wanted to you could file your own answer into a corner of your mind, and bring it out later to check it.
So, the question I am asking is: “What has to happen for the Lord to bless us?” What I want to do is go to the Scriptures and trace how the Lord normally works to bring his blessing in the church.
Let’s start by going back to the Old Testament – to Deuteronomy 28. The people are about to enter the promised land. After they conquer the land they are to go to a spot in the middle of the country where there are two mountains: Mount Gerazim and Mount Ebal. Six of the tribes are to stand on Mount Gerazim to bless the people. The other six tribes are to stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce curses.
And this is what they are to say: Remember what we read there? The blessings: [read Deut. 28:1-3]. The curses: [read Deut. 28:15-16].
As the years went on, what happened? Were they obedient and were they blessed? Well, at times the nation was really blessed, especially under King David and King Solomon. But in the end they were DIS-obedient and the curses came upon them. They were defeated by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians and were taken away into exile. The city of Jerusalem and the temple were totally destroyed. A pretty miserable story, really. They failed.
But the Lord continued on with his purposes. He brought the people back again. And at the right time the Lord Jesus was born.
The Lord Jesus:
– at his baptism identified with the people,
– he resisted Satan on their behalf in the desert,
– he did not sin; did not speak any deceit,
– he was obedient to death, even death on a cross,
– he took the curse due to his people.
He was the representative of his people.
He was obedient, and so God blessed him.
He has been given a name that is above every name.
He was obedient in our place, and he took the curse, which was due to us. Jesus earns the blessings and takes the curses.
Which brings us to this word in Ephesians 1:3; “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the spiritual realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ”
What was our question again? “What has to happen for the Lord to bless us?” The answer is: Nothing! Nothing! Nothing more than the Lord Jesus has already done. He has already been fully obedient and so has secured all the blessings of God. And therefore he is now at the right hand of God. The Father is to be praised because he HAS blessed us with every spiritual blessing.
By the way, notice we have moved on from promised-land type blessings, which did have a strong material component. In Christ we have every spiritual blessing.
But where are those blessings? They are “in Christ” and they are “in the heavenly realms”. The blessings are there in the heavenly realms, because that’s where the victorious Christ is. For us Christ has become man, resisted the tempter, been obedient, taken the curse, risen from the dead, and ascended to be rewarded with every blessing.
What has to happen for the Lord to bless us? Nothing more than what Christ has already done! It is important that we be clear on that. We should not think that we have to DO this or DO that to induce the Father to bless us. That would imply that what Christ has done is not enough. That would be a terrible thing to imply, wouldn’t it?
So the blessings are there, in Christ, in heaven. But a good question to ask is: how are those blessings going to come from him to us? When we are “in Christ” those blessings ARE already ours but, I mean, how do they become actual in our lives?
Well, let’s move on to chapter 4 of Ephesians. The whole of this chapter is devoted to the church – how Christ blesses it, how the church grows. That blessing of the church comes from Christ, who has ascended and is reigning in heaven. For example: “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says, When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men?.” (Eph. 4:7-8)
There is the victorious Christ, ascended in heaven, giving gifts to his church. And in this case the gifts are that “…he gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, that the body of Christ may be built up.” (Eph. 4:11-12)
He sends his gifts to us via the Spirit. The Spirit brings among us what Christ purchased for us. The Spirit is the channel from Christ to us, so we are together able to build up the body. So the church grows as the blessing comes from Christ and works through the whole community of the church.
Every congregation is in a process of growth – on the road from infancy to adulthood. And the issue really is: is this process of growth continuing, or is it being hindered?
You see we can hinder this growth. Instead of actively cooperating in that growth process, we could stifle it and hinder it. That could happen at various points in the process.
For example:
– Christ has given the gift of ‘evangelist’. But if evangelism is not being done, the process of growth is being hindered right at the very start. If there’s no new Christians, where’s the new growth?
– Christ has given the gift of pastor and teacher to prepare God’s people for works of service. If that pastoring and teaching is not being done, the process of growth will be hindered, won’t it?
But it can also happen that the process is choked off further down the line, if the congregation as a whole fails to build itself up. For example, how do we respond to an exhortation like this: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs.”? (4:29)
There’s a simple alternative isn’t there: Either unwholesome talk which hinders growth; OR helpful talk which furthers that process.
And in all this it is possible to grieve the Spirit: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (4:30). We grieve the Holy Spirit when we cut across what he is trying to do. He is at work welding together the fellowship of God’s people, working towards the day of redemption.
If we persist in unwholesome and unhelpful talk, if we continue with bitterness, rage, slander, malice, we will grieve the Spirit, and hinder that process whereby he brings Christ’s blessings among us. When we fall into that, we need to confess it to the Lord and look in faith to Christ’s blessing again.
* * *
So far we have seen the blessing of Christ coming to the church so it is built up. But there’s one further step for this blessing. That is: out into the community around us. We find the apostle speaks of this in chapter 5 of Ephesians, as well as the parallel, Colossians chapter 4: “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil…” (Eph. 5:15-16). “Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders: make the most of every opportunity…” (Col. 4:5)
“Be very careful how you live.” “Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders.”
We are still talking about the blessing of Christ coming from heaven to us and then on to others. If that is to happen, we need to be wise.
Now it should already be obvious that if outsiders look at us and see we are nasty and rude and abrupt to each other, they are going to be turned off. But if the blessing of Christ is at work among us, then that blessing can overflow to them as well. Being wise involves giving attention to the way we live. Because people notice the way we live. The way we live includes the way we talk to outsiders: This too is part of wisdom: “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Col/ 4:6)
We have received God’s grace and blessing: that grace and blessing is to be evident in the way we speak. With graciousness; gracious speech is delightful; it’s attractive, others warm to it, it’s encouraging. If they like you, people will want to talk again. Anyway, to be like that is a natural flow-through of the blessings of Christ.
Also, being wise includes knowing how to respond to each other. The idea is: think about that particular person. If you are already being gracious in the way you talk to them, you are already thinking about them. You know where they are at, what they can cope with at the moment, what is helpful, etc, etc.
You will be wise in the way you relate to them. And so the blessing of Christ flows through to them. This is Christian graciousness, as well as wisdom.
Conclusion
We have been asking the question, “What has to happen for the Lord to bless us?” And the answer is: nothing! Nothing more than Christ has already done. His finished work is always the basis for all blessing. Let’s never think God expects us to add to it.
But secondly: How do the blessings which are ours in Christ in the heavenly realms come to us here? We have found how that flow-through occurs into the church and out into the community.
The means by which we receive these blessings the Lord has already put in place – the normal means by which Christ gives his blessings. We need to cooperate with those means rather than stifle them or hinder them.
This doesn’t mean we can now control the blessings of God by what we do. Rather we are talking about the Father sending the Holy Spirit to bring blessings from the ascended Christ. Our role: to humbly accept and fit in with what God is doing – as he brings blessings into the church and through it to others.
Amen.