I want to start today by looking at some verses that were very popular in the Pentecostal circles I’ve been around most of my Christian life. They are quoted by pastors and church members alike to boast about how much God is going to bless them. Deuteronomy 28:3-8 “3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. 4 “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 5 “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. 7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8 “The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. Well now, if that is what it means to be a Christian...sign me up! That sounds really good. Almost too good to be true. And you know if something sounds too good to be true, there must be a catch, right? People get excited reading those verses, but if we back up to verse 1, we can see that there is a condition that must be met by us before we can expect the Blessings of God.
Deuteronomy 28:1 “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God:” This blessing chapter begins with condition of obedience. And the blessing section ends with the same condition. Deuteronomy 28:9 “The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. Obedience is required for Blessing, and trust is the only thing that will motivate you into obedience. If you don’t trust that someone has your best interests in mind, then you’re not likely to follow their instruction. When it comes to God, we can fully trust that He has our best interests in mind when He calls for us to obey Him. If we don’t trust God, it will cause us to disobey His word. The problem is that disobedience to God’s kingdom principles makes us vulnerable to major life pain. If you continue reading further in this chapter you’ll see what you open yourself up to by disobedience to God’s Word. I’d encourage you to look at verses 15 through 68. Listed here are severe warnings to those who don’t obey the word of the Lord. It begins like this.
Deuteronomy 28:15 “15 “But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.” So, there are only 6 verses that talk about the blessings, but 53 verses that warn us of the mess our life will be in because of disobedience. But all we want to talk about is the 6 verses concerning blessings, and are completely confused when our life is a mess. It seems that God is very concerned about the problems His children will bring on themselves through their own disobedience. Let’s turn three books further in the Bible to the book of Ruth and see practical examples of disobedience that led to major disaster and obedience that led to major blessings. Ruth 1:1-5 “1 In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5 and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
This story in the book of Ruth is actually more of a story about a woman named Naomi. It begins by saying a man named Elimelech, his wife Naomi along with their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion left their home in Bethlehem of Judah, because of a famine, and went to “sojourn” in Moab. The word sojourn is used in the Bible when it talks about people traveling, but to sojourn doesn’t mean “journey to” it means a temporary stay in one place. But based on verse 4, they stayed there 10 years. That doesn’t sound like a temporary stay. That sounds like a permanent move. They may have “went” as sojourners, but they became residents and the boys took wives from the Moabites. As we dig further into this story let’s look into a little history. The first thing to understand about this story is that Bethlehem means House of Bread, representing the Bread of Life which is the Word of God, Judah literally means Praise and Moab was a place described as a fertile Vally and in this situation represents comfort. So I’ll put it like this, spiritually speaking, This family left the Word and Praise to live in comfort. They had a temporary problem with a famine (drought) and they made a permanent move. How many of us have done the same thing? Have we left the Word and Praise because we would rather be comfortable? You can not make a permanent move based on a temporary problem. You can’t walk away from the place that should be your home because you’re not comfortable any longer. So what happened after Naomi’s family got to Moab? Things go from bad to worse. A famine became the least of their problems. Her husband died, then her two sons died. Naomi was left living
in a foreign country with her two daughters-in law, Ruth and Orpah. Disobedience removes the Blessing of the Lord But here is the good news: It is never too late to return to where God wanted you to be. So they packed up and went back to their home, Bethlehem Judah. When they arrive they were very poor and Ruth had to resort to begging for leftover grain to have enough food to survive. Now the field she was begging in belonged to a relative of her mother in law named Boaz. Boaz was a very wealthy man. Let’s see what happened. Ruth 3 “Then Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, shall I not seek security for you, that it may be well with you? 2 Now Boaz, whose young women you were with, is he not our relative? In fact, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. 3 Therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself, put on your best garment and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. 4 Then it shall be, when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies; and you shall go in, uncover his feet, and lie down; and he will tell you what you should do.” 5 And she said to her, “All that you say to me I will do.” 6 So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law instructed her. 7 And after Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was cheerful, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain; and she came softly, uncovered his feet, and lay down.
8 Now it happened at midnight that the man was startled, and turned himself; and there, a woman was lying at his feet. 9 And he said, “Who are you?” So she answered, “I am Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative.” 10 Then he said, “Blessed are you of the Lord, my daughter! For you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, in that you did not go after young men, whether poor or rich. 11 And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you request, for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman. 12 Now it is true that I am a close relative; however, there is a relative closer than I. 13 Stay this night, and in the morning it shall be that if he will perform the duty of a close relative for you—good; let him do it. But if he does not want to perform the duty for you, then I will perform the duty for you, as the Lord lives! Lie down until morning.” 14 So she lay at his feet until morning, and she arose before one could recognize another. Then he said, “Do not let it be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” 15 Also he said, “Bring the [d]shawl that is on you and hold it.” And when she held it, he measured six ephahs of barley, and laid it on her. Then she went into the city. 16 When she came to her mother-in-law, she said, “Is that you, my daughter?” Then she told her all that the man had done for her. 17 And she said, “These six ephahs of barley he gave me; for he said to me, ‘Do not go empty-handed to your mother-in-law.’ ”
18 Then she said, “Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out; for the man will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day.” After returning to where God wanted them to be, Ruth obeyed everything that Naomi told her to do, because she trusted that Naomi loved her and had her best interests in mind. What happened? By the end of the harvest season Boaz took Ruth as his wife. Watch this: Because of her obedience through a difficult season, one day Ruth was begging in a field...and the very next day God gave her that field and was married to the wealthiest man in town. Obedience will take you from begging to blessing. Let me tell you about my brother in law and sister. They live in Virginia in the town I grew up in, where my parents still live. A couple of years ago they were working on starting a business. They wrestled with questions about where the money for the equipment would come from and if any clients would support the new venture. But before I tell you how all that went down, I want to give you the background context. We talk about understanding the background context when we read scripture, but it’s also important when we hear a testimony about someone’s life. You need to know where they started before you can understand how they ended up where they are now. Pete has been my brother in law for the last 12 years. You see, both he and my sister had gone through divorces before they met.
Now here’s one thing I’ve learned about divorces, it will cause you to have trust issues. When someone betrays your trust at that level, you will have a hard time allowing anyone else in. That includes God. And Pete was no exception to that rule. He was put in a position where at the age of about 35 he had to start over from scratch financially. It was this situation in his life that led him back to church. He was broken and didn’t know where else to go or what else to do. He just knew that this situation he found himself in, was not the life he had envisioned for himself. There was a church that a friend of his had taken him to for your group meetings when he was a kid, so now in this life crisis, he went to the only church he knew. Don’t ever think that it’s a waste of time to go pick up that kid who is willing to come to church. You have no idea how God will use that experience in their future. Pete has told me a couple of times about the Sunday when he decided to surrender his life to Jesus. Every time he does his eyes fill with tears as he remembers how he felt that morning. Pete had come back home where God wanted him. I wish I could tell you that was the end of his hard times, but that’s not what accepting Jesus does. Accepting Jesus puts you in a right relationship with God, not a right relationship with the bank. Positioning yourself for financial blessing is an entirely different journey that Pete would begin to walk as he began to put seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness first in his life. I’ll say this while I’m here, positioning yourself for financial blessing based on kingdom principles isn’t a guarantee or a way to force God to do something...it’s just a position for having your finances in alignment with God’s word...and that starts with trust and leads to obedience.
After 4 or 5 difficult years, Pete and my sister meet, get married and God blessed them with two beautiful children. Both are girls. Actually, my sister already had two daughters and Pete did also, so the totally kid count was now 6...all girls. Just before Laura and I came back from California in February of 2019, Pete would experience another tragedy. His 21 year old daughter suddenly passed away from a heart condition that no one knew she had. This was yet another opportunity for the enemy to chip away at Pete’s trust in God. But Pete’s a pretty determined guy and once he started to understand that a relationship with God was more than just an hour on Sunday morning, he went all in. When Laura and I travel to Virginia to visit my parents one of the highlights for me is to hang out with Pete. We always try to set aside an evening to sit on the porch or around the fire pit after everyone has gone to bed so we can talk. It’s always the same topic. And what is that topic? The Kingdom. We sit for hours talking about God and His kingdom principles. For the last couple of years, Pete has been a sponge. He soaks up the kingdom and then puts it into action in his life. And it’s changed his life, to the point that he’s trying to get other guys to come join us so they can learn and be changed also. When your own life proves out that something is true, you want others to know about it. Ok, back to the business situation. As Pete and Kim were praying about the potential new business venture, God led them to people with money, He led them to people with equipment and He gave them favor with potential clients. As they became obedient to what God wanted, He moved them into what He had for them. Pete stepped out in faith and started the business. It’s a well drilling business. Pete had been in that industry for over 25 years and God was now using all those years of preparation.
Now, I’ve told you all of this, so I can show you the miracle. The first job God gave Pete’s new company was to drill well on a 50 acre piece of property that was only a mile or two from where Pete grew up. This property was special, not only because it had the most beautiful mountain views you’ve ever seen, but because God had something special in mind for it. You see, Pete grew up with his dad working on large pieces of farmland with cattle and horses like this one. Pete loves that environment and is the closest person to being an actually cowboy that I’ve ever met. After that first job, God started blessing Pete’s obedience with lots of work...and what did Pete do with all that money? He started being obedient to the kingdom principal of being very generous to others and to God’s work. Those night sessions around the fire pit learning about the Kingdom were more than just information, they were being applied to his life. Let’s fast forward to a year later. Pete was able to buy that 50 acre piece of property that he did his first job on. And the first thing he did was to build a cabin that is to be used as a ministry retreat for pastors, evangelists or missionaries who need a couple days away in the mountains to recharge. He didn’t build a house for himself first...he built a house for God first. I’m confident of this. God will reward his obedience. Does Pete’s story remind you of another story? Because of his obedience through difficult season, one day he was working in a field, and by the end of that season, God gave him that field. That is what trust and obedience does.
Are you ready to submit and be obedient to what God is calling you to do? I don’t know what God is asking you to do. For Pete it was to trust Him and start a business. For me it was to trust Him and start this church. What is it for you? You probably already know. It’s the thing you’ve been worried that you can’t trust Him with. Maybe it’s just being willing to tell your story of God’s forgiveness. Obedience is the very beginning of a kingdom life open to God’s blessing.
Opmerkingen