We are blessed to be a blessing, we’re expected to take our blessings and share with others is the short form version of Pastor Judith’s message for today. But let me tell you, you should read on, because the details are worth it. Well, as she doesn’t preach from a manuscript, I hope my rendition is as good as what we got live here at the Village.
She used Pastor Garrick Dawson’s book on blessing to talk about our great scripture for today, 2 Peter 1: 2-11 for those following from afar. Garrick is a writer whose worker focus on blessings and he said “blessing, Biblically speaking, are life giving, life creating, redemption with our triune God”.
For me, the scripture for today is too good not to reprint here. But being me, I love it best in the Message paraphrase, so here it is:
1-2 I, Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God’s straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.
3-4 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
5-9 So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
10-11 So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
With Jesus my old life has been wiped off the books and I have been given incredible gifts or blessings.
In his works, Dawson talks about the Blessing Dynamic, but Pastor Judith has a more simple, and I think better way to refer to it, The “3 R’s of Blessings”, specifically Receive, Return and Reflect.
Receiving is pretty straight forward, receiving the blessings that God give us. The problem is that most of us miss receiving these blessings. We’re so busy, not taking the time to get to know God. Instead, we get tunnel vision to get the job done. Instead we need to accept and acknowledge these blessings.
Pastor Judith told us a great story of receiving a blessing this Summer on the beach. She was going to get a drink, when she noticed a dragonfly Now for most people just another bug, but she loves the way dragonflies move, floating around. She took at moment to notice the one, then there was two, three then it was six or either. On that beach, she was the only one noticing She received that unique blessing herself.
Return is return our blessings to God, in other words say “THANK YOU GOD” for them. We need to enjoy the beauty and gifts given to us. It can be as simple as enjoy the change of seasons and saying a quick thank you to God. It also comes from being here in worship. We’re not here to be entertained. We’re together in group worship to lift each other up and praise God.
To talk about Reflect, Pastor Judith looked at her mirror and asked others to look at it and see ourselves reflected back. With a larger mirror we would see us all, the Village Church. We need to reflect these blessings back to others. Not to hide our blessings. We are called to share them.
I had one of those moments of call to reflect my blessings. In Junior High School, I had a teacher like few others. Mr. O’Shea was not your normal teacher. He was more challenging and creative than most. He had us listen to music, not in music class. He gave us breaks from learning, but did so with challenging games like Chess. He gave us all a passion for what were interested in at the time, no matter how far fetched a dream it might be.
One day, Mr. O’Shea took me aside and told me I had a gift, a blessing from God. He had noticed that there was no group in the class I could not get along with and communicate with all of the various groups in my class. That was a gift he said, that I needed to harness. No matter what I chose to do, I needed to go with that gift. Well, needless to say, that is where a career in law and politics began.
On her yearly drives to Lake Erie, there is a church whose sign sticks with her. “You can say more with your life, than you can say with your lips”. Not just walking the walk, but walking the talk.
She talked about how there are lots of Sunday Morning Christians, those who are only Sunday morning followers of Jesus. She implored us that we need to be 24/7 Christians. WE are the only Bible some people will ever have.
We are Blessed when we live consistently, honestly, diligently with others. Our Blessing Field is our whole world. We can bless people with something as simple as a smile. God knows people’s needs, God wants us to bless others the way we have.
We need to slow down and see and appreciate these blessings. We need to get as many as we can, so we can share them with others. God has loved us so much, we both hope you can see that and share that with all you meet. Amen.
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