The Most Blessed on Earth

Have you ever looked around at your neighbors and other people and said, Why, God? Why is it that other people seem to be blessed more than me? Now, I have to admit there's been a few times in my life I've looked at life that way. Why is it that I do your way, I serve you, and the guy I work with who's nothing but a bum, and he gets all the breaks?

Or why is it I keep the Sabbath, and because of that I went six months without a job, and then I got a lower paying job, and my brother over here, who is just one of those guys that's totally dishonest, and this guy's making four times more here than I am? Why is it that everybody's getting blessed but me, and I'm the one that's obeying you? It's interesting how many times I've had someone ask me that. Now, usually it's not that, you know, just open the way they say it, but it's why do I feel like God isn't blessing me?

Why do I feel like I've been cursed? Why do I feel like my trials are worse? You know, and why is it? You know, and then usually the comparison is with someone who seems that everything has been going good for them. It's interesting, if you go through the Bible, by the way, you will find people in the Bible asking questions. You'll find David asking the same questions. As they struggle with, why am I not being blessed like everybody else?

Well, of course, it's amazing how if you go to some people who you think are being blessed, many times you find out that what their life is like, they may be making more money, but you wouldn't trade your trials for theirs, for anything in the world. But that's not how we look at life. Well, today I just want to go through something very simple. When you were struggling with why am I not being blessed? I want you to ask yourself six questions. I mean, you have to take some time to these questions, and you have to look at what the Bible says about these questions, and you can do your own study.

I'm just going to give you the, you know, here's how you could start looking at this. Okay, I'm going to ask myself this question. I'm feeling like God isn't blessing me. God isn't giving me the same attention and the goodies that He's giving other people. Everybody else gets goodies but me.

You know? This person has a new smartphone, and mine is a dumb phone. Okay? I can't, you know, I can't do any of those things. Why is it that I'm not being blessed as much as that person? Why is it that I don't get the goodies? Six questions to ask yourself, and then do a study on each of these questions.

And you will find the answers in the Scripture. The first one, okay, I feel like I am, and let's face it, most of the problems in our life are feelings, they're emotions. And all of us are emotional, we just don't like to admit it, especially us guys. Okay? These don't like to admit it. And we are, and our emotions get us in trouble all the time. Okay. So, I feel this way. First question, are my life's priorities the same as God's priorities for me? Are my life's priorities the same as God's priorities for me?

What are God's priorities for me? Now, when they go to a place that is so common that most of you can recite this, probably, if not verbatim, you can paraphrase this from memory. And that's, you've heard me say this before, sometimes that's the most dangerous Scriptures. The ones we know so well we ignore. So let's go to Matthew 6, the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.

I have thought about for probably, oh, five or six years to give a whole series of sermons on the Sermon on the Mount. Well, everybody knows the Sermon on the Mount. Well, then I start thinking, yeah, but how much of it have we forgotten? Look what Jesus says here in Matthew 6, 19.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust doth destroy, where thieves break in and steal. It's almost like we're picking up where the Sermon at left off. Okay? The Sermon at was almost like an introduction of what we're going to talk about today. Now, he doesn't say here, by the way, that it's wrong for you to have good things. It's not wrong for you to have a nice car or a nice house.

I heard something on the news the other day, I heard something on the news the other day, they were looking at just what the average poor person in the United States has compared to the average poor person, say, in Somalia.

Well, it's amazing. It's like 80% of all the people in the poverty level of the United States have a house or an apartment with some kind of heat and air conditioning. Most of them have a car.

There were very few that were out on the street or very few that didn't have a car. Most of the people on the street are mentally ill, most of them. They even have a car, they even have a television set and a refrigerator and a stove. So, the average poor person in Somalia lives in a dirt hut and doesn't have enough food for today. They were comparing the two. He doesn't say here, it's wrong to have things. He says, don't store it up. Don't think in terms of my values in life, my worth is my bottom line. You know, they talk about what is your net worth.

Well, I said that a while back, you know, financially, and I figured out my net worth.

It was pretty staggering because I'm not worth anything.

I went to my son and said, wow, you get my empire. You get 1,000 books, 45 translations of the Scripture. That's it. Because when I die, there isn't enough to be spread around.

So, he gets the empire.

And that doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for the future. I have money in retirement.

And if I go live with my kids, I'll be fine.

We save money. We're frugal. I was looking at it, in fact, the other day. I said, you know, Kim, we keep putting money in this savings account, and the interest doesn't match the inflation. So, over the last five years, we keep putting money into an account that's actually losing value.

Now, that could be overwhelming and distressful, but then you go back and say, okay, you work hard, you save up. You know, remember the aunt who saves things? And we're told that in Proverbs. You do your part, but in the end, that isn't the value of your life. Verse 20, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. He says, remember, your spiritual priorities come first. This is all about our relation with God and with Christ and with having the mind of Christ developed in us through His Spirit, because that has eternal, eternal consequences.

And when you're in a trial, when you're at a, you know, we're looking at blessings today, so we're looking at finances. When you look and say, why is it this person has something I don't have? We're missing the whole point. The point is, what is God teaching me today? What is God giving me today that has eternal value? What is it? What am I learning? What is happening to me?

And when we have that eternal viewpoint, that we're going to be looking at that, what is it He's leading me to today? So that in that resurrection, I have it for eternity.

He says, verse 21, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And if our whole emphasis is on things and money, that's where our heart will be. And yet we're told to love God with all of our heart and our mind and our soul.

For where? Verse 22, the lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? You say, well, what's it like to let that be? What He's saying is, what you look at, what you think about, what you desire, is what your life will be. Now, I got something recently that I've wanted for a long time.

But I have to admit, there was a point I had to give it up as a desire.

I've always had, for years and years and years, I've had one of these giant, big televisions, the ones that weigh 100 pounds, can't get HD on it, 28-inch screen, which we thought was huge at the time. And three weeks ago, when I was doing Beyond Today programs, I called my wife and she said, Gary, your beloved TV died. Actually, what she said, your beloved TV blew up. And it was like, yes. So I measured the cabinet.

I could get exactly a 39-inch TV in there, HD. That thin. But you know, if I never got one, it would have been just fine. The days of wanting a flat, which most of you probably have, you're going to think, what? I've had that for five years. Well, okay. But my days of saying, I have to have a flat HD television, was gone anyways. I have to admit, it's really nice having one. And one day, guess what? Well, it won't blow up, but it'll go out. Yeah, physical things go away. Or one day, I may not be able to afford the cable. And I won't watch anything anyways.

He's saying here, what you desire is what your life becomes. Now, look at the next verse, because it really describes what he's talking about. Verse 24, you can't, no one can serve two masters. Or either he will hate the one who loves the other, or he'll be loyal to the one who despises the other. You cannot serve God and mammon or maggot. It means riches. He doesn't say, you can't have it. He says, you can't serve it. You can't serve it. Who do we serve? Do we serve things or do we serve God? So he tells them, you know, you read the rest of this. He says, don't worry about what you have or don't have, but trust in God. Trust in God. Don't worry about what you have or don't have, but trust in God. He doesn't say, don't work. We're going to talk about that in a minute, too. So instead of being unhappy with what we don't have, we should be living life with, what am I learning today, God? And what do I learn from the things that I have? What are the priorities you have for my life? And the priority is so simple, we forget it. Verse 33, but seek first, okay, number one priority, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things would be added to you. If you read the, if you, where we stop there in verse 25 through 33, read that at home tonight or this afternoon. Because what he says is, God knows you need these things. God is not unaware. God doesn't want to bless. What God is saying is, before we talk about whether you get a new car or not, before we talk about whether you get a raise or not, let's talk about, are you seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness? Is that what you seek first? Then we'll talk about the others.

And that's where we get sidetracked. We get the priorities flip-flopped.

We're seeking first the physical and then seeking the spiritual.

You and I cannot be measured. Our self-worth isn't measured in what we have or what we own.

Our self-worth is measured in being Christ-like in our relationship with God and Christ. That is how we're measured.

Luke 16 seems to be a very odd parable. I'm going to read this from the NIV because just the story flow. In Luke 16, start in verse 1 here. First question, are my life's priorities the same as God's priorities for me?

So, we have to go ask God, what are your priorities for me? Okay, seek first your kingdom and your righteousness. Okay, explain your kingdom, explain your righteousness. So, I could seek those first. Seeking that you're looking. This is the light of your life. This is the desire of your heart.

The other things are nice. We appreciate them. We enjoy them. But the desire of our heart, the light of our life, is seeking God's kingdom and His righteousness. Verse 1, Jesus told the disciples there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. This is from the NIV once again. So, he called him in and asked him, what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer. Okay, an owner of a business finds out his manager is just taking advantage of him. He's a poor manager. He's not doing what he should do. And he calls in and says, okay, get the books together. Let's give an accounting here because I'm firing you.

The manager said to himself, what shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig and I'm ashamed to beg. And I know what I'll do so that when I lose my job here, people will walk me into their houses. He says, okay, I've got to figure out how to get my resume together here so that I can get another job. And I don't want to go manual labor. I'm not going to go welfare. So, what am I going to do? Now, what we find out is the character of this man. What's strange here is this is the bad guy here. His character is incredibly flawed. His ethics are incredibly flawed. And yet, Christ uses the story to teach a lesson. Verse 5. So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, how much do you owe my master? And he said 800 gallons of olive oil. The manager told him, take your bill, sit down quickly and make it 400. Now, they don't know he's being fired. Can you imagine if your bank called you up and you went in and the guy said, how much you owe in your house? You still owe $50,000. I'll tell you what, let's just sign a paper here because we like you here at our bank. Now, this is a good example. Let's use a used car salesman.

Used car salesman.

You know, well, okay, okay, I get it. I get it. You know, this car is $15,000. You can only, you know, spend 10 or let's just wipe it out here. Let's take your payments and cut them in half. Okay, I'm going to cut your payments in half so that, you know, because you're a good customer. And then you find out he went to a different car dealership and he calls you and says, hey, I'm at a different car dealership. I know you're going to be looking for a new car in a year. Give me a call. Would you say, wow, he's the guy that cut my payments in half?

I'll give him a call. Of course, you know, most people wouldn't think, wait a minute, did he have the right to cut my payments in half? Was that legal? Was that okay? You would just say, ooh, that's a good salesman. I like him. Wherever he goes, I'm going to follow him because he will give me my best deal. That's what this guy's doing. This guy's cutting everybody's what they owe his master in half and everybody says, wow, he's got a good deal. So when he says, hey, I'm with another dealership, guess what they're going to do? They're going to follow him, his business dealings. Totally unethical.

So the manager told him, take your bill, sit down and quickly. Verse 7, to ask the second, how much you owe? A thousand bushels of weed, he replied. He told him, take your bill, make it 800. The master commended the dishonest manager. He said, now what he said, you're pretty smart, aren't you? I can't go back now to these people and say, wait a minute, because I'll ruin my business relationship with them.

So you're pretty shrewd. Now I fire you and you're going to keep your account, so to speak.

Now I worked in radio. This happened all the time.

You know, I worked for a radio station in Austin one time. And you know, who everybody worked for, I couldn't stand it. I lasted six weeks.

Every time the arbitrant came out telling who had the highest ratings, that station would go around and higher, steal away all the best salesmen from the other stations. And they would take their accounts. Guess what happened when the next arbitrant came out every six months and somebody else's number one. They would go hire all those, this is unbelievable. People were changed. So, you know, people actually had to sign papers that if they lost a job at one station, they couldn't work for another station for six months, which is now common. That's just common throughout the industry. The reason why is they would change jobs every six months and take their accounts with them. And you know, it's pretty fickle. Who could be number one or number two or number three in the market? It can be pretty fickle every six months. So I've seen people do this. He says, for the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of light. He said he's not committing his dishonesty. What he's saying is, you know what? Let's compare this now to somehow to the people who God has called and sometimes how we deal with things. And here's the point for us. And here's a dishonest guy. He says, look, here's a dishonest man that thinks through things better than we do. Now, we're honest, but we're supposed to think things through. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves so when it is gone, you will be welcome to do eternal dwellings.

In other words, use it in a proper way. Verse 10 now, he narrows this down. He's like, well, I'm not sure what that means. Okay, let's go to verse 10. Whoever can be trusted with very little, can be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of his own? No servant can serve two masters. Verse 13, either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will love and be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot love both God and money. You see the point he's making. Use your wealth, use whatever you have, take care of it, and manage it as a means of building godly character. God gives us things to teach us. And his argument is, Jesus says, how can he give you the kingdom if you can't even take care of your house? If you live in absolute filth, how can he expect to give you eternal dwellings?

He's not talking about poverty here. Well, I live in a small house. Does that mean God, you know, I remember talking to a man one time who had gone to visit, he was a minister, he went to visit people in the third world, and he said he walked into this person's hut, had a dirt floor, and you could tell the person had taken a broom and swept the dirt floor, and everything was in its place.

And, you know, little couple flowers on the little table. In other words, they were taking care of what they had. Do we take care of what we have? Well, that's not that important. But then why would Jesus say this? Why would He say this? If people, dishonest people, can take care of what they have in a dishonest way, why can't we take care of what we have in an honest way? It's not what you own in terms of money or quality or how big it is or all the things we measure. It's, you know, in our society. It's what you do with what you have, what we take care of it, how we manage it.

If we live in... if our poverty is caused, because we don't know how to manage money, we'll get to that in a minute, then that is a character issue. That's a character issue.

If we're in poverty because of circumstances beyond our control, that's not a character issue. That's a learning experience. God lets you be in this so you can learn something.

And what's interesting here is verse 14.

The Pharisees who loved money heard all this and were steering at Jesus.

Because they loved money, they thought this was ridiculous. This is a silly idea. Interesting, isn't it? If your reaction to Jesus' teaching was, well, that's pretty silly.

That's exactly how the Pharisees saw it, too. The silly idea that we have to... that it's not the wealth you have, it's what you do with what you have. Because we are developing eternal dwellings. Second question.

Second question. Am I thankful for what I have?

We go back to the example between what the poor people have in our country, the poor people in Somalia, or almost any place in Africa, or almost any place in much of Europe, like China, I mean, Europe and Asia, China, North Korea, where people live in abject poverty. You ever see the satellite photos of when they go over the world at night, and all you can see is lights of cities? And when it passes over North Korea, it's darkness?

There's not enough electricity being generated to pick up the light from space.

We forget what many billions of people live like. Am I thankful for what I have?

Okay, let's look at it this way. What if God comes to you?

God appears to you and He says, look, I tell you what, I know you've been telling me that everybody else is getting blessed except you. And I understand that. So I tell you what I'm going to do.

I'm going to give you everything you're thankful for.

So you think about it. You think about what you can be thankful for, I'm going to give you.

So, boy, wouldn't that be an exciting time? Okay, God. So tomorrow, I'm going to show up, and I'm going to give you everything you're thankful for.

Wow, what a night! You would sleep that night, right? You'd be thinking, boy, I sure would be thankful for a job making a million dollars a year. Oh, two million! Let's just, you know, I'd be thankful if I'm Jim Dahl. I can own the Dallas Cowboys.

I'd be thankful if, you know, my husband suddenly really did look like Brad Pitt. Okay?

I'd be thankful if someone, I saw someone shake their head, and I don't know Brad Pitt. Okay, whoever. My wife really did look like the bottles when I walked by Victoria's Secret at the mall, because those are dummies. But anyways.

Oh, wow! Wow, I could finally have, I would really, really, really be thankful for Rolls-Royce.

Ah, no, I don't want to be selfish, God. Just give me a Jack Mark, okay? That's what I'd be thankful for. You'd probably start making a list. Here's all the things where God shows up, I'll be thankful for. You finally fall asleep, you know, at five o'clock in the morning, or maybe when the sun comes up, because you've now thought about all the things you would be thankful for. And then you wake up. And the first thing in your mind is, oh, wow, today is the day that God gives me everything I'm thankful for. But it's sort of cold, and you sit up and you realize that you're sitting out in the field, your house is gone. But, you know, the opposite of, I'll give you everything that you're thankful for is I won't give you something you won't be thankful for.

And you're laying on a wooden bed without a mattress with a little piece of cloth covering you. It's cold. And you jump out of bed, and you think, well, I've got to go get some clothes on. And you realize there's no closet, and you don't have any clothes. So, you know, there's a little shack over here. You run over to the shack and knock on the door, and your wife opens up, and you say, honey, what happened? She says, I don't know, but, you know, I've never felt like you were thankful for me, and I don't want anything to do with you. Goodbye. It shuts the door in your face. Picks up her suitcases, and you see her and her kids driving off in the car. You know, wait a minute, that's my car that I was never thankful for. Well, maybe my friends will help me. Oh, wait a minute, I don't have a cell phone, because I wasn't thankful for this, because I didn't have the newest one. So, you run down to the, you know, convenience store, and they call the police, and now you're arrested. And he says, we're here to call all my friends, and they come back to you, and we call all your friends, and they say, you know what? He's just a jerk. He's never thankful for anything we want anything to do with him. Well, how about my boss? Well, we called your boss. He said he fired you, because you don't like your job. Okay, okay. Well, I got to get some clothes.

So, here, you know, let me get you to my bank account. Sorry, it's all zeros.

Well, there's money there. No, you weren't thankful for that.

So, they're hauling you off to jail in your little red jumpsuit, the word jumpsuit, and God shows up and says, well, what are you thankful for?

And you say, why am I being cursed? Why does everybody else get blessed with me?

And nothing changes. Am I thankful for what I have? Or do I just think about what I don't have? Do I have two different people in my life? Am I thankful for what I have? Or do I just think about what I don't have? Third question you have to ask yourself. This is a whole other subject. I'm just going to touch on this one. There's a little more time on the next couple, but am I living by responsible financial principles? And this comes back to what we just read in Luke. If you're not taking care of what God has given to you, why should God bless you? If you live, if you always have the nicest gadgets, and your house has the nicest furniture because everything is on credit cards, and you can't even pay off the interest every month, you're not living by financial principles that the book of Proverbs says. The whole book of Proverbs has all kinds of financial principles. And then you say, God, why is your blessing made? He says, I did, and you squandered it. Well, bless me some more. So he does, and you squander that. And then you say, bless me some more. He says, why? You'll just squander it. If you're going to learn eternal lessons, you have to learn not to squander what I give you. So sometimes our lack of blessing is actually something we've done to ourselves. A lack of financial principles. I haven't given a sermon on financial principles in quite a while. Maybe I should at some time in the future, because we need to always go back to those. So let's go then to the fourth point, and I want to spend more on these last few points. Am I faithfully following God's tithing laws? Look at what it says in Deuteronomy 8.

The people of ancient Israel were about to be given blessings beyond their wildest imaginations.

They had known slavery and poverty and wandering around in tents in a desert. That's what they had known. And now they're about to receive blessings beyond imagination.

Now, Deuteronomy 8 verse 10 says, When you have eaten that are full, that is, you will bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given to you.

It's interesting. As we go through these questions, they tend to build on each other.

Are you thankful for what I have given to you, God says? Do you have my priorities? Do you understand what my priorities are? Are you thankful?

Are you living the principles, the laws that I gave you?

Verse 11 says, Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today. So He said, what's going to happen is, as you become wealthy, it's going to be easy for you to forget what I've taught you.

It's going to be easy for you to forget the basic core laws and way of life that God had taught to you.

Lest, verse 12, when you have eaten it or full, you have built beautiful houses and dwelled in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and from the house of bondage, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness in which there were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land, where there was the water who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and He might test you to do you good in the end. Now, I have a stop right there. He said, when you're in a good time, and this is a proclivity of human nature, we will forget God.

Sometimes the reason we're not being blessed is every time God blesses us, we forget Him.

He says here, beware when you get to this good time, I'm going to give you this land, and you're going to forget something. Now, let's put this into our context. Sometimes when God blesses us, and we have all these things, we forget what we were before God called us. We forget that without Him we were lost, had no purpose, had no meaning, had nothing. We forget that God is taking us through the wilderness to the Promised Land. We forget the price Jesus Christ paid for our sins. We forget that God has given us His Spirit. We forget the responsibility we have to Him, the responsibility we have to other Christians, which are a lot of responsibilities. We have a lot of responsibilities towards each other. We forget our own families, and we become just mired into the making of the money, the getting of the wealth. And what we do, we forget that He is testing us to do good to us in the end.

God is going to test you and I with our physical things to do good for us in the end. Now, we've already looked at what the end is. It's His Kingdom and His righteousness. It's eternal dwellings as it says in Luke. We know what the end is.

But physical things, which we have to learn to manage and take care of, part of this trading ground we're in, God will use physical things to test us and to try us to do good for us in the end. And if we forget that, we will turn against God when we lose our physical things. When we lose our physical things, we'll turn against God. Verse 17, because here's what happens. Then you say in your heart, My power and the might of My hand have gained me this wealth. And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant, which He swore to your fathers as it is in the day, as it is this day. You and I have to work for what we have. That's the principle of financial management. If you are lazy, do not expect God's blessing. We'll need to talk about that in a little bit. But whatever we have is given to us by God. Whatever we have, the power to have anything is from God.

And God can manage that. Because why? He has a purpose. When you and I submitted to Him, we received His purposes into our lives. And His purpose is the Kingdom. His purpose is eternal dwellings. We already read it. We know what it is. We know what His priorities are. Those priorities became our priorities. And the physical things we have will be used by Him to do good in the end, which is to meet those priorities. And if we do not understand where this comes from, we will forget His laws. Malachi 3. Malachi 3.

I remember many, many years ago, I went to visit a man and I sat down with him.

I had been talking about tithing laws and why human beings will give up the tithing laws. They'll do them, but they'll give them up because they just lack the faith to do them. It was interesting. He had stopped coming to church. I went to visit with him and I said, well, why did you stop coming to church? He said, well, when you got up and talked about me in that sermon, I just couldn't take it. I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, you got up and explained why I don't tithe.

And he said, I just couldn't take it when you used me as an example. I said, well, first of all, I don't know whether you tithe or not. How would I know whether you tithe or not?

And secondly, how would I know that was your reasoning? He says, I figured God just revealed it to you. He must have come, said an angel, revealed to you all this stuff. I said, no.

I just understand human nature. I understand how where we go as human beings.

What I was saying, there were 50 people in that congregation of 400 were probably saying, oh boy, is he down to be there. Right? You weren't the only one, and I sure didn't know you were one. But God's tithing laws, one that's part of the commandment system that carries over into the New Testament, we will forget it. We won't do it. And sometimes God isn't blessing us because of that. I mean, look at what it says in Malachi 3.8. Malachi 3.8 says, well, a man robbed God. Oh, well, that's ridiculous. No, you know, nobody's going to try to steal something from God. You have robbed me. That's what you stole it from me. But you say, well, how in what way have we robbed you? He says, and tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. He then tells them to bring in the tithes of the storehouse, there will be food in my house. Try me now, and this says the Lord. If I was unopened for you, the windows of heaven would pour out a blessing, or pour out on you such a blessing that there would not be a room enough to receive it. So he tells his physical nation, I'm not physically blessing you. Now, sometimes what we'll do is say, okay, God, I'm tithed, but you know what? I didn't get a raise. So this isn't true.

Well, then you've got to remember his priorities.

It's not always the physical blessings, it's the spiritual blessings.

We only look at physical blessings. The physical things in this life are good and wonderful. I like them, you like them. You know what? They're only a means to an end. The end is to be in his family forever. And since it's only a means to an end, okay, it's only a means to an end, then we have to realize that the spiritual blessings always outweigh the physical blessings. But God also gives us physical blessings. I'm not putting that down. I'm just saying we have to realize if we take this far enough, we say, okay, if I tithe, God's going to make me a millionaire. That's not the promise. He doesn't promise to give you His Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, mercy, gentleness, faith. Tell you what, that's a whole lot better than being a millionaire. That's a whole lot better than being a millionaire. So you have to believe that, or you don't have no meaning to.

What I see in the church a lot is we compromise with the festival tithes.

People don't keep the festival tithes. They come to the Feast of Tabernacles, and they can't go. Now, I understand there are people that don't have a job.

That's something that's different. There are people who are out of work for a time, and they need some help. We try to help as many people as we can, especially widows, and someone on fixed incomes. They can't. There's no way they would have enough money to go to the Feast. But how many times have you compromised with that and then had a Feast and say, well, this Feast wasn't blessed? Well, obeying the commandment brings the blessing.

Not obeying the commandment, and you don't get the same blessing. It's just that simple.

And so we suffer through the Feast of Tabernacles, not having kept our second tithes, and then wonder why. Why, God, is you blessing everybody else? They're eating steak, and I mean, cornflakes. Well, did you do what God said? If not, you're not receiving the same blessing.

The fifth question. Have I asked God to bless me? It's funny how we get in these sort of bad attitudes. God, why didn't you bless me? Why didn't you bless me? You're just not fair. And He said, well, did you ask Him? Oh, what's I supposed to?

Matthew 7. Now, I'm going to read Matthew 7, because it shows a priority issue. So we're back to the very first one, the very first question. Are my priorities God's priorities for my life? Matthew 7.

Ask, Jesus says, we're back into the Sermon on the Mount. Ask it, it will be given to you, seek, and you will find, dock it, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks, finds, and they have new docks, it will be opened. Oh, so if I go ask, I'll get it. Verse 9 says, What man is there among you? If his son asks for bread, we'll give him a stone. If he asks for fish, we'll give him a servant. Of course you're not going to do that. You love your son. If your son comes up and asks for bread, you're not going to give him a stone and laugh as he tries to bite into it, you know? If you love your son, you're going to give him bread. You're going to give him food. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him?

How much more will he give to us if we ask him? But it always has to be in his set of priorities. It always has to be in his set of priorities.

But we're supposed to ask. Oh, good. Man, I can't wait till the service is over. I'm going to run home and I'm going to get on my knees and ask God, please get rid of my boss, give me a new car, and make me three inches taller. Okay? Okay, we wouldn't do that, but okay, I'm going to go home and ask for all these physical blessings.

We're going to remember, too, James 4. So this is a promise we can ask and receive because God has our good at heart. And this is something that I find in the church many people really don't believe. This may be the greatest crisis of faith in the church. It doesn't have to do with believing God exists. It doesn't even have to do with believing, you know, okay, this is his book. And people obey the commandments. There's many, many people who obey the command of the tithe, but they still lack a core belief that God is going to do good to them.

There's this sort of, God's always going to make my life visible. God's always going to do something bad to me. It's never going to work out the way I want it to be. And there's just sort of this resentment and this feeling of doom. This feeling of do bad things are going to happen to me, you know, and I can't help it. God is working out not only what is best for us, it is in the context of what? His kingdom and his righteousness and our eternal dwellings.

We do that with our kids all the time. I'm sorry you have to eat your vegetables and you don't get a dessert, so you will grow up and be big and strong. But I don't want to eat my spinach and my carrots. But you have to. Why? Why do we enforce things like that, or should, as parents? And say, no, you can't have this big piece of cake today. You only have desserts on certain days, but you can't have this big piece of cake today. And no, you can't have a soda, and you have to eat your spinach and your carrots. Why? Because we have this big context they can't see. They are alive 20 years from now. And boy, more and more research shows what we eat as children has an awful lot to do with our health as an adult.

So we're looking at them in this bigger context, and what are they saying? You don't care for me. You don't care about my good. Anybody who cared about my good would say, give up the spinach and carrots. Eat the cake and the soda. Because I know what's good for me. Because I like it. Is that no different than what we do with God?

He said, no, you don't want to eat that spiritual junk food. It'll just make you sick. I'm worried about your health a billion years from now. Your spiritual health a billion years from now. You understand? But I like the spiritual soda. In fact, I put a little extra sugar in mine. I like it. That's why James 4 verse 1. Where do wars and fights come from among you? I talk about conflicts, but there's another layer of meaning here. I mean, there's conflicts between brethren, but there's something here deep in our conflict with God.

Do the net come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? In other words, our conflict with other people begins with this internal conflict that we want what we want. That child wants that cake, and they want that soda, and that's all there is to it, and there's those carrots and that spinach as evil stuff that only an evil parent would force upon them because they don't care about their good. That's exactly what we do with God. And they have an internal conflict which they now take out at you as they pick up the spinach and throw it at you.

If you have a rebellious child.

You lust and do not have, you murdered, covenant cannot obtain, you fight in war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. He says, why don't you just come ask me about this? And then ask me, is this good for me? You know, there's the things in my life I've gone and wanted and asked God. I just went and asked, if this is what's best for me, would you please give this to me and never received it? But I tell you what changed, and this is from experience.

I didn't want it anymore.

Because I changed from, I want this, the givings, givings, givings, givings, givings, givings, to, is this good for me or not? Because if it is, would you please give this to me? And when He didn't give it to me, I didn't want anymore. Something happened because when I asked, I put it into His framework and suddenly it didn't matter.

Now, there's other times I haven't done that. I've been downright miserable. Givings, givings, givings, givings, givings. I'm mad at God for not giving it to me. So, I can only tell you from experience the two experiences.

He says, yet you ask, verse 3, and you do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your own pleasures.

He goes on to say, don't you know if you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God.

If you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God.

We have to ask. But in the framework, you know, this is number five of the questions, but there's a reason I made it number five. You have to go through the other four questions before you can get to this one. You have to ask the other four first. Then you go ask. What do you do? It'll be in this framework. The framework of, okay, Father, I'm coming and asking for this. I really would like more money at my job. And here's why. And here's the reasons why. And, you know, yes, I've managed my money as best I can. But here's why it won't stretch. And yes, I've been, you know, I've been trying to obey you and doing your will. And yes, I have been obeying. I've been managing my money right. I've been trying to get my priorities right. And sometimes you've got to say, okay, then you get the reins.

We forget He does bless us. But once again, if we're not thankful, we're only looking at what we don't get, but what we do get.

And then the last point.

Do I use my blessings to help others?

In other words, you have to look at your life and say, what blessings do I do have, instead of what I don't have? And then you have to say, do I use them to help others? First John chapter 3. First John chapter 3.

So when we feel this way, which is very easy for us to look at the world around us, what's interesting is to travel to other parts of the world and have them say, you Americans have so much. And we're looking at each other and saying, boy, I wish I had that. I wish I had that. I wish I had that. And they're looking at us, and they're looking at the poorest among us and saying, you people have so much. Do I use my blessings to help others? First John 3.

Verse 16. Here's the context. John almost always sets up context this way. It's amazing how much he does this. By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we also want to lay down our lives for the brother. He always goes back to you want to understand how to do this. Look at Christ. Here's our example. Here it is. Here's the model. You see the model? That's what we were supposed to disciple. That's what we're supposed to be like. But now, notice how he leads that into another thought. But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? Whatever blessings we have, we are supposed to share. When we see our own family members, when we see in the church, you know, it begins in the house of... it begins in your own family. Then it goes to the house of God. Then it goes out to the world. Now, you can't give everything you have. He doesn't say that.

He says, but when we are blessed, we are to find and help those in need. We have to share whatever blessings we have. You may find that the more you share the blessings that God gives you, gives to you, the more blessings you receive.

The more we share what God gives to us, and some of the most happy people I've met are people... you know, we'll say, well, He'll give you the shirt off his back, right? And a lot of times those people don't have much. But see, we get in this dog-eat-dog competitive world that says you measure each other by the size of your house, or the horsepower under the hood, or the blade you have, right? Or the clothes you have. I gotta tell you, I'm getting a Brooks Brothers suit.

Well, beyond today, they decided our suits are so shabby. You know, they don't like our $99 suits. Now, we have to get them as a nice Brooks Brothers suit. But guess what? I can only wear it on the set. The moment I walk off the set, I have to take it off.

And somebody else takes it from me and hangs it up. And that's it.

He's, oh, wow, they have a Brooks Brothers suit. I get to wear it on the set. The moment I walk off the set, somebody says, give me the suit. I only say that because for some people, they have a Brooks Brothers suit. By the way, it's the really low end of the Brooks Brothers suit. Okay? To have a Brooks Brothers suit would be like the ultimate blessing. And I have to laugh about it because it doesn't mean anything to me. And now I have this Brooks Brothers suit. I'm not allowed to wear it. I can't come wear it and model it to all of you.

Look at my Brooks Brothers suit. And I have to take it off. I mean, there'll be somebody there taking it off of me. You know, the moment I walk off the set. I don't know how I brought that up. You know, it's a funny thing. For a lot of people, that'd be a blessing. I don't even get to wear the thing. Except for a couple hours a day or two days a week. That's it. And I don't get to own it. Okay? Can't own this. This is a prop.

It's like the tables or the cameras. It's just a prop.

Now, on the other hand, I hate to bring up a negative here at the end of the sermon, but there is something to think about in terms of sharing our blessings with others.

You also have to be careful, because sometimes, by sharing physical blessings with others, it can actually be a detriment to them. Now, you have to be very careful about this, very careful while making this judgment. It is better to err on the side of being too generous than not generous enough. Okay? It is better to err on the side of being too generous than not generous enough. But we also have to realize what Paul talks about in 2 Thessalonians. Thessalonikum has had a serious problem with this, because this is the only place where Paul goes into this in such detail.

And in such detail, and he makes such a point out of it, that obviously, this is going to come up occasionally in the church someplace throughout history. Because God made sure that this letter was put in the Scripture. 2 Thessalonians 3 verse 6, he says, But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you would draw from everyone who walks disorderly, and not according to the tradition which he received from us. Now, he makes a very important point here. He says, look, you're going to have to be very careful about certain people who cause disorder. Now, what does he mean by disorder? I mean, we all understand that there are people who will bring in heresies that we have to ask to leave. And that is not very often, but occasionally that happens. And there are Scriptures that say that. Okay? I mean, they just try to spread heresies throughout the church. We know that it says that. But here, what's causing this disorderly conduct? What is causing disorder in the congregation of Thessalonica? Because it's interesting. You know, version 2 Thessalonians talks about some false doctrine that was happening in the church. It talks about some problems they were having concerning the resurrection and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and some prophetic problems that people had brought in. But here he deals with something totally different. These are people who are causing disorder within the group. And he says, you know, if these people keep doing this, you're just going to have to start avoiding them.

Everybody's just going to have to start saying, okay, we're not going to do what you're asking anymore. We're not going to be involved in your disorder. So what is it? For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you. And when Paul and his people were with him were there, he said, we set you an example of how not to cause this disorder. Nor did we eat any wood's bread free of charge, but work with labor and soil night and day, that we may not be a burden to any of you. Not because we do not have authority. We have the authority to take your tithes, but we didn't. We didn't because we wanted to teach you this lesson. But to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us. He said, because of this problem in your congregation, they did not receive the tithes. Instead, they paid people for their food and they worked. For even when we were with you, we commanded you this, if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. Now, so there were people who refused to work. Remember, these aren't people who were in poverty, it wasn't their own fault, or they just have to be in a low paying job, or something happened and they got fired. These are people, and you can be looking for work for a long time. The average is nine months, and you can be working hard and still trying to find a good job. That's not what he's talking about. These are people who refused to work, so they expected everybody else to take care of them, and all they did was cause disorder in the congregation. Verse 11, for we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busy bodies. Now, those are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ, that they work in quietness and eat their own bread. In other words, what these people were doing is they just became leeches on the church of their congregation. They just leached onto them, and everybody gave and gave and gave, and all they did was go around and gossip and cause problems and cause discord, and they had plenty of time to do it because they weren't working. They had plenty of time to create messes all the time because they weren't working, but they sure got taken care of by everybody. He says here, you know what? If they're going to do that, don't give them anything.

So, we have to realize, share my blessings.

And I almost didn't even read the Scripture. I thought, no, we have to at least bring this up because this doesn't happen very often. Okay? This isn't a problem. It only crops up every once in a great, great while. Doesn't it? Very often. Every once in a while, you want someone to leech onto a congregation. And it's very interesting because I don't know how many times I've been having a conversation with some minister, and he'll say, yeah, I got a new person showed up here last week. His name is such and such.

But, you know, first thing I had to do was give him some money so he could get his apartment, and he says he's got a job. Did you say such and such? Yeah.

He did the same thing here. He lived here for six months and took five, eight thousand dollars from everybody in the church. And when I finally said, you can't do this anymore because you really never were going to get a job, he left. So I called the minister from the church where he went to before, and guess what he did there? And then he'll tell me about how he did it in the church before. And sometimes we'll find somebody who for five years has been to ten different churches and made a good living off of the church.

That happens once in a while. And Paul says, when you find a person like that, you finally sit down and say, get a job? Well, we're not giving you any more help. Now, if it's a person who can't physically get a job, that's different. You know what I mean? He's not talking about someone who's handicapped. This isn't what he's talking about. He's talking about somebody who just refuses to work. And you know what's amazing about these people? If they use and go around and create nothing but arguing and bickering within the church. They gossip. And they'll talk about all their personal biblical discoveries. And they'll just cause problems under congregation. So, share your blessings with others, but just one little caveat. Sometimes sharing can be a detriment to somebody. And you need to understand and have the wisdom to know that.

The greatest blessing anybody can be given is to be a son of God, a daughter of God. And right now, have that spiritual way of life given to us.

So that we have a happiness and a joy and a purpose that people who don't know this, who don't have God's Spirit, do not have. We have that now, in the midst of all these troubles. And we have the promise of eternity. So, the next time you ask yourself, why isn't God blessing me?

Stop and ask yourself these six questions we went through. Stop and ask yourself these six questions that we went through. Because what do you do? You know what you're going to find out? You're the most blessed person on the face of the earth.