Unilateral Subdivided Blessings Deuteronomy 33

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You hear each spark in me

You've always waited too much

To give us a message

Cause one of the blessings comes through angels

One of the healing comes through tears

One of the thousand sleepless nights

Of what it takes to down your gear

And what it trials of this life

Are your mercies there this time?

We've heard your voice, you hear

We cry in anger when we cannot feel your ear

We doubt your goodness, you hear

We cry in anger when we cannot feel your ear

We doubt your goodness, you hear

We cry in anger when we cannot feel your ear

We doubt your goodness

We doubt your love

As if every promise from you

But it's not enough

And all the while

We believe, as long as we have faith

To believe

Cause one of the blessings comes through angels

One of the healing comes through tears

One of the thousand sleepless nights

Of what it takes to down your gear

And what it trials of this life

Are your mercies there this time?

Our friends betray us

And darkness seems to win, we know

But it reminds us that

That this is not, this is not our home

It's not our home

Cause one of your blessings comes through angels

One of the healing comes through tears

One of the thousand sleepless nights

Of what it takes to down your gear

What if my greatest disappointment

Or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thus

This world can't satisfy

And what it trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are your mercies there this time?

During my sabbatical I had the great opportunity last week to worship with my brother and sister in Christ,

Jamie and Leanna Velasquez down at Life Point Church in BG and I was very blessed,

I only sung two songs of worship while I was there and he said sing out your hearts cause we only have two songs today

and I tried really hard to sing out my heart and when I was done I wanted to sing some more so then I sang in my car on the way home from church

and I was very blessed and I listened to some of our podcasts this week and some of our praise we are very blessed in that regards.

Speaking of blessings, I want to...

It's one of them like, okay I can put it down there but I don't want the people online not to be able to hear me.

Are we good? Hello?

Everyone sounds okay.

Alright, we'll know then.

So I already kind of spoiled the surprise coming back.

It's not this one.

Try that.

I already spoiled the surprise and give me a little hooter holler and overcome the feedback as we go to Deuteronomy chapter 33.

Deuteronomy 33 · chapter mention

Thank you very much.

Yes, it is all of Deuteronomy chapter 33.

Deuteronomy 33 · chapter mention

The beginning part and the ending part are the most important.

We will read the middle so that when we get done after next week or whenever that works out that...

RG did you break my sound system last week brother?

It is not this mic.

Just turn the monitor off.

It's got to be going toward the mic so it's got to be the monitor.

Very good. Look at that. We fixed it. You can still hear me right?

So here we go. We are going to read Deuteronomy chapter 33 with an eye toward blessings.

Deuteronomy 33 · chapter mention

The title of the sermon today is blessings subdivided.

You see it up there are subdivided blessings.

But there is another word that I did not reveal in the title.

Here it comes. The big reveal.

The word is unilateral.

Probably half of us don't know the definition of that.

I am not picking on anybody when I say that because until yesterday I had the wrong definition of that word.

I will explain that later.

If you think you know it you might not actually know it.

Some of you probably do.

Here we go. Deuteronomy chapter 33. We are going to do the whole chapter.

Deuteronomy 33 · chapter mention

I will not stop and break everything down as we go through.

Much of it will just make sense to you.

You don't necessarily need to break down to understand what the whole is saying.

33.1. Now this is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the sons of Israel before his death.

So now he has been told he is going to die.

Before he actually dies he is going to pronounce a blessing on Israel.

He is basically going to work his way through all the tribes.

So when you hear the names we are pretty much looking at the names of the tribes.

You will notice that Simeon is missing.

If you know enough Bible scholars to know that he was one of the twelve tribes he is kind of missing.

That is because even by this time his blessings are blended in with another tribe.

He remains that way throughout the history of Israel from this point on.

Verse 2 says,

And he said, The Lord came from Sinai and dawned on them from Seir.

He shone forth from Mount Peran and he came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones.

At his right hand there was flashing lightning for them.

Indeed he loves the people, all thy holy ones are in thy land and they followed in thy steps.

Everyone receives of thy words.

Moses charged us with a law, a possession for the assembly of Jacob.

And he was king in Jeshurun.

Now that he is God, God, so you could say and God was king in Jeshurun.

Which means Jeshurun is another word for Israel basically.

And when the heads of the people were gathered, the tribes of Israel together.

That is when he was king.

May Reuben live and not die, nor his men be few.

So he is pronouncing the blessing for Reuben.

And this regarding Judah.

So he said, Hear O Lord the voice of Judah and bring him to his people with his hands he contended for them.

And mayest thou be a help against his adversaries.

I want to stop here for one second.

Notice the difference between those two tribes.

Reuben live and not die, nor his men be few.

Judah, bring him to his people with his hands he contended for them and mayest thou be a help against his adversaries.

Those are two different blessings.

Now you'll notice that they are all a little bit different.

That's what I want you to see there.

Levi he said, Let thy thumim and thy urim belong to thy godly man.

So Levi was the priest.

Whom thou didst prove at Massa.

With whom thou didst contend at the waters of Meribah.

Who said of his father and his mother, I did not consider them and he did not acknowledge his brothers.

Nor did he regard his own sons.

For they observed thy word and kept thy covenant.

Talking about Levi.

They shall teach thine ordinances to Jacob.

That's all of Israel really.

And thy law to Israel.

They shall put incense before thee and whole burnt offerings on thy altar.

O Lord bless his substance and accept the work of his hands.

Shatter the loins of those who rise up against him.

And those who hate him.

So that they may not rise again.

So again that is a completely different blessing than the other two tribes have received.

Twelve.

Of Benjamin he said, May the beloved of the Lord dwell in security by him.

By God.

Who shields him all the day.

And he dwells between his shoulders.

And of Joseph he said.

Now remember Joseph sort of has the two sub-tribes.

Because Joseph was not one of the tribes.

He came out of Israel and his two sons became the two half tribes.

But of Joseph he said.

Blessed of the Lord be his land with the choice things of heaven with the dew and from the deep lying beneath.

And with the choice yield of the sun.

And with the choice produce of the months.

And with the best things of the ancient mountains.

And with the choice things of the everlasting hills.

And with the choice things of the earth and its fullness.

And the favor of him.

That's God who dwelt in the bush.

Let it come to the head of Joseph.

And to the crown of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers.

At the first born of his ox.

Majesty is his.

And his horns are the horns of the wild ox.

With them he shall push the peoples.

All at once to the ends of the earth.

And those are the ten thousands of Ephraim.

And those are the thousands of Manasseh.

And those are the two sons of Joseph.

And those are the ten thousands of Ephraim.

And the thousands of Manasseh.

So different blessings for the two different sons of Joseph.

Eighteen.

And of Zebulun he said.

Rejoice Zebulun.

And you're going forth.

And Issachar in your tents.

They shall call peoples to the mountain.

There they shall offer righteous sacrifices.

For they shall draw out the abundance of the seas.

And the hidden treasures of the sand.

Now those are different blessings than any of the others have thus far received.

They're all uniquely different.

And of Gad he said.

Blessed is the one who enlarges Gad.

He lies down as a lion.

And tears the arm.

Also the crown of the head.

Then he provided the first part for himself.

For theirs the ruler's portions was reserved.

And he came with the leaders of the people.

He executed the justice of the Lord.

And his ordinances with Israel.

And of Dan he said.

Dan is a lion's whelp.

That leaps forth from Bashan.

And of Naphtali he said.

O Naphtali satisfied with favor.

And full of the blessing of the Lord.

Take possession of the sea and the south.

Twenty-four.

And of Asher he said.

More blessed than sons is Asher.

May he be favored by his brothers.

And may he dip his foot in oil.

Your locks shall be iron and bronze.

And according to your days.

So shall your leisurely walk be.

There is none like the God of Jeshurun.

Who rides the heavens to your help.

And through the skies in his majesty.

The eternal God is a dwelling place.

And underneath are the everlasting arms.

And he drove out the enemy from before you.

And said destroy.

So Israel dwells in security.

The fountain of Jacob secluded in the land of grain and new wine.

His heavens are dropped down due.

Blessed are you O Israel.

Who is like you.

A people saved by the Lord.

Who is the shield of your help.

And the sword of your majesty.

So your enemies shall cringe before you.

And you shall tread upon their high places.

The first thing I want you to see in this text.

Ties directly into the title.

God blesses his people.

Seems like a given right.

But we're going to look a little bit more in detail today.

About how God blesses his people.

And I want you to see that he blesses his people.

Unilaterally.

Subdivided blessings.

So I understand we have to get the meaning of the words right.

Subdivided means it's broken down in parts.

So everybody gets the whole.

And then certain parts of the blessings.

Are emphasized with certain people.

Subdivided.

Unilaterally.

I have always used this word.

For 53 years of my life.

Plus I have used this word.

I probably learned about third grade.

So 40 some years of my life.

I use this word to mean across the board.

Does anybody here think that's the definition of unilaterally?

Like it affects everybody the same.

That's how I've always used it.

I say well you did it unilaterally.

It means it affects everybody the same.

So actually the definition of unilaterally means.

A one sided decision.

Made by somebody without taking anyone else's opinion into account.

That's what unilaterally actually means.

Now that will affect everybody.

So if you're talking about God.

If God makes a decision.

For example he made a decision to send his son to pay for sins.

God made that decision.

God did it.

Nobody else could do it.

Nobody could entreat God to do it.

He just did it.

He just asked Christ for sins.

It wasn't up to us.

We didn't get any input.

And so God's blessings are both sub divided and unilateral.

And even the sub divided blessings themselves are unilateral.

In this text we see God blesses his people unilaterally and sub divided.

And these are some of the things we see.

In verse 26 we see that it says God is king.

He is the holy one.

His lordship is supreme.

God is sovereign.

He rules everything.

And ultimately he would have a people who would recognize that sovereignty.

He tried to have it in Israel.

And you could even say he did have it in Israel in many cases.

But the bottom line is the prophet Jeremiah points forward to a people where God said they will be my people and I will be their God.

And I will give them a heart.

Basically God would set it up so that there would come a people who would recognize his kingship.

That's God's unilateral, all affecting everyone and he's the only one who decided, unilateral blessings.

Now individually if we accept that blessing and God is our God and he is our lord and he is our king.

Then it's a sub divided blessing because I can go into the woods and not take any of you with me and there God will still be my king.

He will still be my lord.

So when I'm alone in my prayer closet and the door is shut and the sounds of the world are muffled and me and God are talking.

You're not there.

I mean I might be praying for you.

I might remember you.

I have experienced you.

But at that moment when it's God and I it is a unilateral, sub divided blessing.

Here it also says in verse 27 that God is a dwelling place.

In fact it says his everlasting arms are beneath him.

And so God has a desire to sustain his people.

We get our sustenance from him.

You may think you eat to survive but the truth is if you didn't eat at all ever and God wanted you to live you would live.

If you didn't drink any water at all ever and God wanted you to live you would live.

And the bottom line is hell is a lot like that.

People don't die in the sense that we think of dying.

They go on eternally without what they consider to be sustenance.

No good thing.

That's what it's like.

And they also don't have God there to sustain them.

But they are sustained nonetheless.

God is a dwelling place and his everlasting arms are beneath him.

Jesus said it this way in John 4.

He said, but whoever drinks of the water I will give him will never be thirsty again.

The water I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

God wants to sustain you from the inside completely.

Unilaterally he has made that decision and subdivided he would sustain you with no other sustenance.

He would sustain you if he sustained no one else.

This text says that God has a physical coming in verse 2.

That God would come.

He comes across the skies.

He comes down like lightning.

But he comes physically into the presence.

And we have story after story after story of him fighting on behalf of the Israelites.

We saw the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire and so on.

God comes physically and we know that God came physically in the presence of Jesus Christ.

In fact, Paul wrote to Colossi, for God was pleased to have all of his fullness dwell in him.

And Jesus spoke, my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one can snatch them out of my father's hands.

I and the father are one.

And so God has a physical presence. Unilaterally he chose to have a physical presence amongst his people.

And then individually because there were people in crowds that listened and people in crowds that didn't.

People that wanted to have him hung and people that didn't.

And so it's unilateral but it's also subdivided.

God gave clear direction.

See, they got the law of Moses and then we got it later.

Thousands of years later we also got it, right?

But the bottom line is God gave very clear directions and then Jesus was quoted as saying this.

He said, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me.

And he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

It means make known myself to him.

And so the bottom line is we have clear direction given by God and that was described here in verse 3.

God beckoned people unto him. He's calling them to come and follow him and to live according to his teachings and so on.

Especially through Moses.

And Jesus would say of those Jews who believed in him, come.

He says, if you continue in my word, you are truly disciples of mine and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

And also if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

God beckons people.

Unilaterally we say salvation is available to everyone.

That's unilaterally. God made the decision. You didn't. I didn't. Doesn't matter.

Listen, I've been trying for years, almost going, you know, we started playing this church 20 years ago.

This coming year we start playing this church and I've been preaching the gospel and preaching to myself as well and to all of us that we need to share the gospel.

We tell people about Jesus.

But the fact is if you don't tell people about Jesus, salvation will still come to those who are meant to be saved.

Nonetheless, because it is a unilateral decision of God that he will save souls.

It is also an individual decision.

So I submit to you that if you refuse to share the gospel, it is possible that when God is beckoning you, you are declining.

Moreover, he charged them. It says God charged them.

In verse four, we of course have the great commission, the last words of Jesus on earth.

We also have Acts 1, 8, you should be my witnesses.

It also says here in verse five, he was king. God was their leader.

And later they would call a human king to be some kind of a substitute, a worthless really substitute, warned of what he would do.

They still would call a human king. You don't want a human king.

You don't want a boss or a leader or a god of any of your own making. Trust me.

That's no good.

Romans 10, not verses nine and ten where it says, believe in your heart and speak with your mouth that he is Lord.

But in verse 12, it says, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon him.

Hear it. He is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon him.

Do you get it? Unilaterally, he is Lord of all, subdivided, abounding in riches for all those who call upon him.

This text very clearly says that God blesses his people both unilaterally, which is a one sided decision.

He does it because he's God, because he loves you, because he wants to, because he's pursuing you, because he's caring for you.

You're breathing still today as a blessing from God.

He does it unilaterally, but also he subdivides those blessings.

Even there we can see it clearly in the text, but we're not done.

Very clearly, God's unilateral blessings are subdivided.

And I haven't talked all that much about it, even though I argued for it in what I just shared with you.

But they are clearly shown in this text and throughout the Bible as subdivided.

If you're following along in your Bible, go with me real quick to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Now I could have done a whole bunch of verses, but when I was kind of mentally practicing out this sermon in my head,

if I do all that I might do on this topic, we would be here for a lot longer than we normally are.

So we're going to use this one because it's very clear.

1 Corinthians chapter 12, and we're going to begin in verse 27.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Now Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, and he's already talked about how we suffer when each other suffers,

and we're united together in living together.

And now he says in verse 27, now you are Christ's body and individually members of it.

Here it, unilaterally you are Christ's body, but subdivided you are individually members of it, 28.

And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles.

Now before we say this is not an order of what's better, right?

Doesn't mean first, so he first appointed apostles, meaning the best thing in the church is an apostle, right?

It's not like that. It's a list.

God appointed apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helps administration, various kinds of tongues.

Okay, so in other words, God subdivided his blessings and gave them out individually to groups of individuals

who will enact those blessings.

You follow my train of thought?

So if you be a prophet, you're going to act like a prophet.

You be an apostle, you're going to act like an apostle.

If you be whatever, God does those things to do what he wants to do through that individual person.

By the way, before you go, I want to be an apostle or a prophet,

you should probably know that every single last one of them died for the faith.

Okay, so everybody wants to like, there's people out there right now on the church building that says led by Apostle Bob, right?

Apostle Bob might want to take into account the fact that they all died for their faith.

And if he truly is an apostle, he too will die for his faith because that's part of it.

That's part of the process, right?

So before you yearn to be one of those things, let's be very careful.

I don't want to get ahead of myself.

Then it says in verse 29, it says, but all are not prophets, are they?

All are not teachers, are they?

All are not workers of miracles, are they?

All do not have gifts of healing, do they?

All do not speak with tongues, do they?

All do not interpret, do they?

And I'll stop there, but we'll use 31 eventually.

The bottom line is this is only one of the texts, you can go look in Romans 2, where it talks about spiritual gifts.

And so very clearly to individuals, God has subdivided his blessing into at least and minimal spiritual giftings.

So the spiritual gifts of people, I have a spiritual gift of service and help,

I have a spiritual gift of administration, I have a spiritual gift of preaching and teaching,

or evangelism, or whatever your spiritual gift might be,

God has subdivided his blessings into those spiritual gifts.

Moreover, he has subdivided them into different roles in the church.

So we have pastors and we have deacons, and then we have teachers and we have, and so on, right?

You read about that in Ephesians 4 roles.

Moreover, he has called people, all of us, unilaterally, to be witnesses,

and poured out his Holy Spirit in people so that they can witness,

and then subdivided the areas in which we witness.

He doesn't let you be everywhere.

He has given the unilateral access to the highway of holiness, we all can walk in holiness,

but then subdivided his grace and mercy to deal with our individual temptations, which will lead us off the road.

And you don't need help dealing with my temptations, nor do I need help dealing with your temptations.

I need help dealing with my temptations.

The mind of each individual to tear down strongholds, and again, you don't need help tearing down my strongholds,

you need help tearing down your own strongholds.

He's given us access to the armor of God, as every Christian has,

but again, the shield of faith which quenches the fiery darts of the wicked one,

that shield of faith that you have, you don't need that to quench my fiery darts,

you need it to quench your fiery darts.

God has unilaterally imputed the righteousness of Christ to every Christian.

Every Christian gets the righteousness of Jesus.

But you don't need the righteousness of Jesus to cover my sins,

you need the righteousness of Jesus to cover your sins.

And I don't need the righteousness of Jesus to cover your sins,

because your sins aren't sending me to hell.

If I was going to hell, it would be by my sins, and the righteousness of Jesus imputed covers me perfectly.

The list goes on into an area talking about works in keeping with our faith,

obedience, vision for forward movement.

God gives us clear direction and leads us forward for our lives, for the things that we need to do.

God has given of Christ and of His Holy Spirit to literally be with us every single day.

And the Holy Spirit down payment in me, though He is the same Holy Spirit,

will behave and respond in a different way in me than it will in you, because I need Him to.

Moreover, because I am created for Him to.

The first Corinthians 12, 27 to 30 basically supports fully the premise that God unilaterally,

that means He does it without your input or without anyone's say that it's okay,

provides subdivided blessings to the individual and to the church and even by family.

In our family over the years we've discovered a number of these things,

and probably missed ten times as many as we've discovered.

When I was about to become a Christian, Sherry asked me, she said,

what does it even mean to become a Christian?

Because she wasn't a Christian either.

And I said, well I don't know, but this one thing I know is going to change everything.

And from that moment in time, that's exactly what it has done.

And every time I have ever resisted it, changing everything about me,

being willing to be whatever it was that God wanted me to be,

I have drifted off course, fallen off the highway of holiness and failed in my relationship with God.

But when I have allowed God to change whatever God needs to change about me,

to use me in whatever way He sees fit, it's always worked.

And it's the same way in our family.

And I've told that story to my kids, and I've told it to most of my grandkids,

the ones that are old enough to understand.

And that has become a Stevenson saying.

What does it mean to be saved?

Well one thing it means for sure, it's going to change everything.

That is a blessing from God, a subdivided, intentionally provided blessing to our family.

Now it may be the same for you, but if I try to apply it to you,

then we're going to have a problem.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

God also gave us huge blessings in the area of dual realization.

My wife became a follower of Christ a couple weeks after I did,

and she committed her life totally to Christ, and she was more committed to Christ than me.

Praise God.

And I was more committed to Christ than she is.

So God speaks to me, God speaks to her, and I'll come right over and say,

I've got to tell you something.

She'll be like, I've been already thinking that.

Or she'll say, well I've got to tell you something.

Yeah, God told me that too.

And some of them were so perfectly timed that there's no way the other person could.

She was holding the pamphlet in her hand when she said,

yeah, I was just thinking that same thing when I told her that I thought God was calling me to go to Great Lakes Christian Bible College.

And she said, okay, well that's exactly what I was going to tell you,

and here's the pamphlet that I got for you, so this will get you started.

God provides dual realization, and that's a thing in our family, husbands and wives.

And I've got two married daughters, and their husbands and wives,

they've got to be speaking to both of them.

But again, that is Stevenson.

I don't know if it works for you.

What are your intentional subdivided blessings?

Redemption of things and people is the thing we do.

We get a car that's broke down, we pray about it, we can redeem that car.

We're redeeming our house, we're redeeming relationships, we're redeeming people.

Somebody's in real need of help, and we try to show up because we want to redeem that person.

I found out during writing this sermon that God has given me on many occasions

the opportunity to harvest someone who's already ready to be saved.

And freakishly I discovered that I, which I already knew the first part of this,

but then later I discovered why God had done it.

Freakishly I discovered that God has led me to lead three women working in restaurants,

all named Kendra, to Christ.

Which goes back to 25 plus years ago, my wife plays a character role-playing game,

and her name is Kendra.

And I'm going, how does that even connect?

That doesn't make any sense.

And then I went through all the names that I could remember of all the people

that I personally, individually led to Christ, and there's no two that are the same.

I've never led personally to Christ alone privately to Michaels, or to Bob's, or to Chris's, or to Tom's.

No two, but three Kendras.

And so God was already working their life and said, here's a Kendra for you, Dan.

These are Stevenson's subdivided blessings.

We sat around our dining room table, and I think Amalia was still there at that time,

and we talked about what our family animal would be.

And we were like, we don't need an animal, yeah, I mean, there's cool things about having a family.

And we chose the mongoose.

The mongoose is a symbol of our family because, two reasons.

One, the mongoose fights snakes every day, every opportunity he gets.

And that old serpent who is the devil, we like fighting him.

And we like to kill him off, but that's not really in our doing, right?

That's up to God.

Secondly, because when the serpent bites, the mongoose is mostly immune to his poison.

First to his fangs, and if his fangs do get through, he's immune to the poison.

The serpent can't touch us, right?

Now, ultimately, if we let the serpent stay too long, bite us too long, if we don't deal with him appropriately,

then he can, and our family animal is the mongoose.

And that's a subdivided blessing that God gave us.

God told me at one point in time when Alicia was very young that God would take care of our kids, and he has.

And we've claimed that promise on a number of occasions, sharing like, well, what do we do?

I don't know, but I know God's going to take care of them.

So what I'm asking you is, do you have subdivided blessings for your family?

Because what I'm telling you is, if you don't have subdivided blessings for your family, you're not in the kingdom of God.

Ho! Hold up.

You're telling me I'm not saved?

Listen, I'm reading my Bible, and the Bible says that God unilaterally blesses,

and he subdivides those blessings down by people, by family, and by church.

Gifts of healing. Gifts of prophecy.

God also subdivides the blessings down by church, our church, the church that you're meeting with right now,

but the building is not the church.

Every time I hear somebody say, I saw a church, they mean a church building, I want to say, you meant the building, right?

You didn't see the people standing there.

Caitlin shared earlier, I knew what she meant, you all knew what she meant, and it was okay, but I didn't correct her,

but she said, drove by several churches, and like they went to, probably none of the churches were actually there,

just buildings that represent the church, right?

The church is the people. We are the church.

And our church would be New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church, that's the name, it's about reaching new heights in Jesus, that's the motto.

We realize that everybody's on a journey, and day in, day out, we're helping people to try to get to the next step.

You're helping me get to the next step by letting me preach this sermon.

This is how we work around here.

And if you want to join the church for some other reason other than that, you just don't need to.

You don't.

If God is calling you to be a part of a church where everybody works together,

the best they know how, in their own failings, in their own struggles, and with their own difficulties,

and the best they know how, in the subdivision of their blessings, unilaterally provided by God,

to reach the next step in Jesus, then yep, this baby's for you.

And you're it.

And that's the kind of church that God...

Now, am I saying that other kinds of churches, and there are many other kinds of churches, are bad kinds of churches?

No.

We just identified a subdivision of a blessing that God was providing, and we harnessed ourself to it,

not because we wanted it, not because we liked it, but because God provided it to us.

And we chose a key verse, which was 1 John 1-3,

We proclaim what we have seen and heard, that you may have fellowship with us,

and our fellowship is with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ,

which means we are supposed to be proclaiming what we have seen and heard.

You don't have to tell them everything that the Bible says, like Tony Tate was telling me this morning.

Sometimes you only get 20 seconds.

Tell them what you've seen and heard as best you can during the 20 seconds,

because that might be all you get.

And that's the kind of church that God was creating.

He subdivided that blessing to us.

We, Tony and I talked about very early, Deacon Tony and I talked about very early on,

that we want to be a church seven days a week.

We want to be a church all week.

A church at work, a church in the yard, a church in a restaurant, a church where we want to be that church all week.

When we're divided, we're still the church, come back together as the church,

talk about how we were at the church in the seven days intervening.

That's the kind of church this is.

If that's the kind of church God's calling you to, then He's calling you to that subdivision of His blessing.

But there is another kind.

There's a big kind of church that's got a paid worship band.

Big kind of church's got lots of lights, lots of flash and bang.

They'll step in and pay your bills anytime you need them to, because they're rolling in dough.

There's all other kinds of churches out there.

This is not the kind of church where everybody around here has got a whole bunch of money.

This is the kind of church where everybody around here is following Jesus, hopefully seven days a week.

And that's the goal.

And then when you fail, you get back up and do it again.

We have team leaders and teams, not committees, because we don't want Robert's Rules of Order to govern what we do.

We just use it as a guide.

Jesus governs what we do.

We have core values, basic beliefs that we believe, a budgeting method that's different than any other church on the face of the planet.

And believe me, I've checked.

The bottom line is these are subdivided blessings that God has given to us as a church.

The text clearly shows that God unilaterally blesses and then he subdivides those blessings into a format of his choosing.

And then we have the problem.

Because at the moment of the subdividing of the blessing comes great power.

And then to quote a good Marvel movie, great power comes great responsibility.

If the God of heaven will gift you with something, I guarantee you he did not mean for you to put it on the shelf in your closet.

If the God of heaven will pour his blessing into your life, I guarantee you he did not mean for you to tell no one.

The power of these blessings, I could have made a list that was 30 pages long, but I'm going to give you just a few that the Lord laid on my heart.

First of all, they are faith inspiring.

These blessings that come from God and God says I'm going to do this and you go, hey, I think God said he's going to do this.

And now we're going to follow what God said.

They make it so that we know better than any Antichrist teaching.

There is no religion in the world that can come and speak to me some religious truth or some other thing or some other way of believing about God

or believing about Jesus or whatever.

I know for a fact that it's not because I am living the subdivided blessings of God.

God said to me, go and I will go with you.

So I go wherever he says he'll go because when I get there, he's going to be there.

And if I don't go where he says to go, then when I get there, he's not going to be there or at least not going to have the promise that he'll be there.

You say, well, God is in you. Yes, God is in you.

The unilateral blessing of God is his presence.

But the subdivided blessings of God is will he do what he has told you he would do when it needs to be done.

Those blessings for every tribe were different and different parts.

This faith inspiring subdivided blessing.

Isn't it awesome to think that God put your blessing in your life, not just, oh, you inherited it or you thought about it or you thought, oh, this would be cool.

Or you came up with a plan and acted it out.

Suddenly, you're the top CEO of the company or something.

No, God put your blessings in your life.

Scripture says with regard to spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit gives one or more Holy Spirit gifts, exactly the one or more spirit gifts that are needed for that individual.

That is faith inspiring.

Also, it's greatly comforting.

God's fulfilled promises reminds us that God is real and he takes care of those who follow him.

And every time you look back on one of these, your memories overcome your loneliness.

Does it hurt? Does it hurt when things are said that you don't like, when things go on that you don't like, when health conditions persist that you don't like, when your loved ones are going through something you don't like?

Yes, it hurts.

But you can in that moment remember that you have God's subdivided blessing for your life, that God intentionally gave you exactly what you need.

It inspires gratitude.

We've been talking about that because we're heading into Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving dinner.

The subdivided blessings of God give us reason to praise.

Hold on now, because the unilateral blessings of God give us reason to praise.

He saved me.

You ever notice how we're praying, we're praying blessings and somebody's got to pray, thanking God for Jesus on the cross?

Well, we ought to, don't you think?

I mean, that's how we got saved.

Jesus hadn't gone on the cross.

We wouldn't be saved, at least not under the present system.

I guess God could have chosen to do it another way.

Jesus even thought that God could have chosen to do it another way and said, if there's another way, let it be another way.

And God said, no, it ain't going to be no other way.

And Jesus said, OK, well then let's go.

All right.

So we always pray, thanking God for Jesus.

And we can all do that.

So if you've got nothing else to pray for, thank God for Jesus saving you.

Right?

But you've got something else to pray for because you have subdivided blessings that are specific for you apart from anyone else.

You need to figure out what is it that God can do, will do, is doing through you that he's not doing through your neighbor?

Because that will give you that fulfilled promise reminds you in the midst of the darkest hours that you have reason to praise.

For those of you who cannot sing in worship, I submit to you that you cannot sing in worship not because you don't like the sound of your own voice, not because you don't know the notes.

I did that for years.

Whatever.

Not because of any of those reasons.

Not because you're shy.

That's not true.

It's not because you're inhibited.

That's not true.

Because when you get to heaven, after you've seen it fulfilled and you stand before God, you will see praises at every opportunity you possibly can.

And not because your voice is going to somehow be regenerated, but because you will have realized at that point in time that you have a reason to be joyful.

A reason to be joyful before God because God provided you personally with the personal blessings by air mail, by personal delivery of his Holy Spirit into your heart.

And you've got to go, I've got to do something.

And the Bible says 200 plus times that you're supposed to sing praises.

And you're going to go, well, if I can't figure out what else to do, I guess I'm going to sing praises.

And you're going to sing praises in heaven.

And you're going to be singing praises on earth at the point at which you realize you have been giving blessings apart from everyone else.

You are not saved because I was saved or somebody else was saved or this church was started or the Word was preached or the Bibles were printed.

You are saved because Jesus Christ went to the cross not for me, not for the world in the unilateral sense, but in the subdivided personal he died for you sense.

And that's enough reason to praise.

The Bible goes beyond that because you have your spiritual gifts, because you have your blessings spoken by God into your life,

because you have the Hartley possibilities or the Tate possibilities or the Mitchell possibilities.

You have the miracles of God, the blessings sent into your life specifically for you.

And that is reason to praise apart.

It's also reason to praise together.

I get that.

It's nice when everyone else is singing because the fact that I don't sound very good is kind of covered up.

That's why it's great that we can sing together.

But the bottom line is we are inspired with gratitude because we have those praises that are ours.

Your miraculous healing will bring you to the point of praise more than anyone else.

And before you say, well, I've never been miraculously healed, if you're saved, you've been miraculously healed.

In fact, if you're saved today, you probably would no longer be on the earth if you are not saved.

These powerful subdivided blessings accomplish specific things.

They often have specific kingdom purposes.

So I have the spiritual gift of serving.

When I serve, I feel lifted up.

By the way, I do not have the spiritual gift of service.

Deacon Tony does.

I do not.

But Deacon Tony has the spiritual gift of serving.

When he serves, when you let him serve, when he finds a way to serve, when he advances the kingdom through serving,

he gets that atta boy from God.

That's awesome.

But on top of that, he also gets to serve someone else and make a difference.

That's awesome.

These blessings don't have to be spiritual gifts only.

They can be skills, talents, etc.

Position, where you live, geography, your experiences.

They accomplish certain specific things.

They overcome suffering in someone else's life or in your own life.

And the last one I listed, although again I could have gone on with a dozen more,

is that these specific blessings promote others' blessings.

You get that?

When you operate in your blessings, you create awareness of the subdivided blessing in someone else's life.

Somebody said to me, dude, there's something about you.

You have this unique ability to notice, see things that no one else sees.

And I was greatly encouraged.

Because it's not a spiritual gift really.

Unless you kind of could say discernment, but not really.

But it's a blessing from God.

And I was greatly encouraged.

And I told them I was greatly encouraged.

And I realized that they were acting in a specific subdivided blessing for them from God.

That they could encourage me.

You see?

And it spirals up.

And it becomes the Kingdom of God.

But at the same time, I'll stop there with a list of power.

But I'm going to talk to you briefly about the list of dangers.

And then we're into our conclusion.

The dangers of these particular blessings are many fold.

And I did not list them in order of importance.

Because I don't even know what the order of importance is.

I think every one of them is completely destructive.

The first one is envy.

You can envy someone else's personal blessing.

Someone else's subdivided blessing.

You can desire it.

You want it.

But if you're functioning in your own subdivided blessing and feeling the blessing of God,

at work in your life, you won't go there.

Because you'll be too busy doing what it is that God has called you to.

That's easy to deal with.

Realize you have one.

You're like, well I haven't discovered one yet.

Okay, then work on discovering it.

Rebellion.

Basically, we can appropriate our personal blessing without recognizing the unilateral nature of God's blessings.

What does unilateral mean again?

One-sided.

He is sovereign.

So we go, well I have the ability.

I was sitting down with a friend of mine talking just recently.

He was talking about a pastor.

He was called the pastor.

He knew he was called the pastor.

He was serving in a relatively small church.

30, 40 people.

Not totally unlike this.

It was a country church.

And he started a blog.

Him and another guy talking about Christian things.

Video blog or maybe it was a podcast.

But anyway, it got real popular.

And then they monetized it.

It got to be eventually to the point where he was making more money with his podcast than he was pastoring.

And so he left pastoring to do the video audio blog thing.

And he became a full-time podcaster, blogger.

And I said, it got to that point in time in the story and I was like, something went wrong.

You started with, there was a pastor called to a small country church.

And you ended with a blogger podcaster.

So what he didn't understand was, here's a subdivided blessing.

I'm called to a small country church, which maybe leaves me the time to also be a podcaster, blogger, whatever.

And so I could spread the gospel throughout the world.

Not unlike what we do with our podcasts.

And if it was monetized and we were making the money, I could put the money back into King Advance, whatever.

So instead of seeing it as a subdivided blessing, personally for me, he walked away from his calling.

Now I'm not there.

It's not my calling.

No, he's got to sort that out.

But don't tell me in the same conversation, three sentences apart, I'm called to I'm not doing it.

And this is what people do.

We rebel against God because we have our personal blessing and we forget that God is the one who set it up.

God is the one who gave it.

God is the one who made it work.

So now I want to do it my way or I want to do it outside God's auspices.

You might be here in the room, for example, and you might be like, awesome, throwing stuff away, mudding out.

Ruined stuff, putting stuff in the dumpster, chopping it up, whatever.

That might be your thing.

You're like, I'm awesome at that.

Right.

And every opportunity that comes up, you do that.

But you've never used it to serve Jesus.

You've never gone out and shared the gospel that way.

We have a disaster relief team that goes all over the world and does that very thing.

Why are you not with them?

Why don't you go once or twice a year?

And while you're doing that, tell people about Jesus because they see people getting saved all the time.

You're like, well, I didn't even know about it.

Yes, that's one of the problems that we have with this whole thing is ignorance.

We don't know what our self-divided blessings are or what they can do.

The bottom line is rebellion is a very real possibility.

We begin to think like I'm all that in a bag of chips because I can make this look perfect.

I can do this or I can make this happen.

If I say the right thing, they'll do what I want them to do, whatever.

And you forget along the way that God is the one who set the whole thing up.

And God will not allow the blessings that he gave to be used in any way other than kingdom advance that honors him without ramifications.

And you will reap what you sow.

Misuse then follows the logical thought right with that.

Instead of being obedient with our blessing, we use it in some other way.

Instead of trusting God with our blessing, we use it in some other way.

Instead of we stretch its application so we go get a job doing what we are gifted to do rather than doing it for God's kingdom, that kind of thing.

We do it for personal gain.

We get people to do what we want them to do, manipulate them, et cetera, by doing that thing that is our gift.

Disunity, we judge other people because I'm particularly good.

R.J., I'm going to use you. You would not do this. R.J. would not do this.

But R.J. fixes cars for a living.

You sit down with R.J. and not only does he fix cars for a living, by the way, before he ever fixed cars for a living, he was already good at it.

He's been trained all the way along.

But he's always been kind of good at fixing cars.

Don't give Puffy a head now.

And you can sit down with R.J. and you say, well, I was working on my car and it was getting bad gas mileage and I did this and this and this.

And R.J. is not the guy who's going to go to you, well, that was stupid. You should have done this.

Or what kind of idiot does that?

And that's what we do. We get this gift and this personal blessing from God and we look at other people and how stupid they are because they can't figure out what we think is just obvious.

And as Deacon Tony once said to me a long time ago, and I'm using that saying again now and it came up to me several times during my sabbatical, common sense is not common.

Listen, your common sense inside your subdivided blessing is not common to anyone else because they ain't got it.

You can do what you can do because God made you able.

You literally decided to make you able. Now you're able.

You look at other people and go, well, they should just do this.

Would it just work perfectly fine?

Which is why he who has the no sin, let him cast the first stone.

Because when you look at somebody else, they're not functioning inside your subdivided blessing.

Get it?

It cannot create disunity as a gift from God.

Legalism cannot arise out of these blessings that God has given you because they come from God.

And that's not the kind of God we serve.

Some people wind up trapped.

This happens in two cases in particular.

One, when the blessing that they received was for a season and now they're stuck on it.

They're still trying to do what God gave them to do for a while and they're still trying to do it, beating themselves up, still trying to do it, still trying to do it.

And now that season has passed and God's no longer blessing in that way and they're still stuck there trying to do it.

That's how Sherry and I wound up living in our house in Michigan with both houses going in foreclosure because we were still trying to live in Michigan,

which God had told us to do, but for a season, we didn't understand it was for a season.

So we're still trying to live there and 450 plus resumes and applications between the two of us later, we couldn't find a job to save our lives.

About to have Aaron.

And it's because we were still trying to inhabit the season that God had put us in, but now that season was over and he was moving us on.

And finally I got smart enough, broken enough to say, God, what the heck? What is going on? What did we miss? What are we not doing?

And God said, well, you're moving.

And I'm like, well, no, no, we were living right where we're supposed to be living. I'm pretty sure.

I was sure until you just said that. Now I'm not at all sure.

And that's what we do. We hold on to the season that God blessed us with that.

And now it's gone and we're still trying to hold on to it till trying to make it be what we want it to be.

And what that results in is doubt. And anything that is of doubt is not of faith.

Anything that's in faith does not work for the kingdom.

And then the second one is signs, signs and signs. We love to interpret signs.

Even I was talking with my brother over the sabbatical, brother in Christ, and he said outside the church, not doing ministry.

He was ministering to me, if anything.

And he said, well, God's always closing doors and open doors. And if the door is open, that's a good sign.

It's the way that God wants you to go.

That, by the way, right there, that's a heathen helping a crap. That is not how God works.

You can't find it in Scripture anywhere.

God is a God who is with his people. He's sovereign. He's in person. He's king.

He subdivides the blessing specifically for you unilaterally in sovereignty in his own authority.

Your best thing to do is just believe in God and do what God wants you to do.

If you choose based on signs, you are looking for trouble.

Say, but I don't feel like it anymore. Or he or she said, and I'm bugged by it. Whatever. None of that means squat.

What matters is what God says, what God does, what God is.

And then who you are in Christ. That's it.

The last one is the most dangerous, and that is ignorance.

If you are willfully untrained or unfocused in the area of walking in your own blessing, shame on you.

We talk about spiritual gifts. We give spiritual gift surveys, which is just one tool.

But you could literally go to your wife, go to your brother, go to your sister and say,

what do you think my spiritual gifts are? And that alone would give you a place to start.

What do you see in me that you don't see everywhere you go?

What's unique about me? What's different about me? What is God doing?

What shape do you see when you look at me?

If you are willfully untrained or unfocused in the area of God's specific blessing for you,

you're slacking off as a Christian and you've got to stop and start living for Jesus the way you promised you would at salvation.

If you've never experienced what I'm talking about, you need salvation right now.

That brings us to our conclusion. Let me just kind of go back over those couple of points real quick.

So first of all, the first point was that God blesses his people unilaterally, meaning it is a one sided decision.

And then he does so subdivided to individual believers, families and churches.

God's unilateral blessings are shown as subdivided to individuals, the church and the family.

And then that brings us to the conclusion. Like you always got to ask yourself, what the heck do I do about this?

What should I do about the fact that God has individually, unilaterally and subdivided blessed me and I don't know what to do.

Well, the conclusion goes something like this. First of all, this is all, all of this, everything that we read,

all of chapter 33 is about God's sovereignty. Moses spoke for God. All those blessings come from God.

They go to God's people because God said so. It's all about God's sovereignty.

So first of all, recognize that God is in charge. You are not here today by accident.

Your attention right now, if your attention is divided between what I'm saying and what God is saying

and something else that is going on, that is not by accident. It's time now to decide that God alone is in charge.

Not what Pastor Dan says, but what God says. Not what I think, but what God says. Not what I want, but what God says.

God is sovereign and he is in charge and he unilaterally blesses. God's grace, it is by his grace that he gives gifts to the undeserving.

And so when you start to feel legalistic, when you start to feel judgmental, when you have been willfully untrained or unfocused,

when you have envy over someone else's blessings, when you have misused your own blessing intentionally or unintentionally,

realize that it is by God's grace that he gives these gifts to the undeserving and it is his sovereign grace.

God gives exactly the right specific blessing to the right person for his purposes and for his kingdom in exactly the right moment.

It is for the advancement of the kingdom and the personal edification of the person that he is blessing.

So they can personally sacrifice. The unfortunate truth is that some of these blessings are not very pleasant.

When God was talking to Ananias about going to heal Saul after he was blind, he said to him,

I will show him how much he must suffer. Sometimes it isn't good.

But out of the suffering, out of the difficulty, out of the trials, whatever, comes a blessed you that is able to be used by God in a way that would not have otherwise been true.

So the action plan goes like this. Number one, you need to receive. You start by receiving the unilateral blessing of God.

He died on the cross for your personal sins, for you personally. If you were the only human being in existence,

he would let you nail him to the cross so you could later accept him as Christ. Jesus. Receive.

But not only receive that unilateral blessing, but also receive your specific blessings.

Your blessings intended for you subdivided. What does that look like down to a me platform? Receive.

That means take a spiritual gift survey. That means study. That means read the Bible. That means pray.

That means work in what might be your gifting until you figure out that that's not quite your gifting.

That means live out your blessings until at some point in time God says, okay, that season has passed and something else is happening now.

But never until then. The rule of thumb is if you have received a certain set of blessings from God,

you continue to operate in that set of blessings until God specifically says to you otherwise.

That's how it works. Otherwise you're saying no. So you receive.

Secondly, you recognize. Ask God, what is it? Like manna in the wilderness. What is it?

Recognize the blessings that God has given you. Like as I was going back and looking at it over time,

the ability to redeem things and people or the dual realization between Sherry and I or that I would be completely changed.

I am so totally a different person than I ever was before I got saved. And so should you be?

And so what does that look like? Recognize that God has done something and then work in that blessing.

Right? Apply it. Use your blessings. This is what we're called to.

And then be in the church that God has put you in so that you can personally use your blessings as part of a larger group of people.

Personally using their blessings so that you can be the church that God has called you to.

Remember God's intention for these blessings. What is he doing?

I told you when we read 1 Corinthians 12 through 30 that we would use this verse one more time.

And 31 says this, 1 Corinthians 12, 31. But earnestly desire the greater gifts and I show you a still more excellent way.

And the truth of that verse and the truth of that passage is that these gifts that we have been given,

these intentional personal blessings that are for my life, for your life, Charlie for your life,

those blessings are to be acted out in love. Love is the key crowning piece. Love is what gets it done.

If you've got the blessing to preach but can't preach with love, if you can't stand up in this pulpit or in some pulpit somewhere

and preach the Word of God unadulterated, unchanged, exactly what it is, exactly what we need to see, even when it's inconvenient,

even when you realize they might stone you tomorrow, well if you can't do that, then you're wasting your gift of preaching.

Because all that we have, all the blessings that we're called to, all the subdivided blessings to us, these are exercised in love.

In Deuteronomy 33, 29 then the last verse that we read, it says,

Blessed are you O Israel, who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, who is the shield of your help and the sword of your majesty.

So your enemies will cringe before you and you will tread upon their high places. You hear it?

Because God unilaterally chose them out of Egypt, he then subdivided the blessings down which Moses listed out for them.

He subdivided the blessings out and because of their subdivided blessings, they would tread upon their high places.

False religion is nothing to us. It's worthless. If you think you can come to God by your devotion, that's worthless.

If you think you can come to God by acting a certain way or by making certain sacrifices, it's all worthless.

God unilaterally chose to save you, all you have to do is receive and begin to apply and live out what you have received.

False religion is nothing to us. We will tread upon their high places.

Evil spirits, demons, flesh, lies, villains, and all kinds cannot stand against us.

The gates of hell shall not prevail against us. Not because, against the church, not because unilaterally Jesus died on the cross,

not because God said, I'm going to send my Holy Spirit to be in you, all of that is true, but because we have individually been blessed.

Because God individually chose us unilaterally and then subdivided a blessing to us.

And this is because God blesses his people unilaterally. God's unilateral blessings are subdivided.

And we choose to receive his blessing, to recognize that blessing, and apply that blessing, and to be the church in love.

I'm asking you, will you do that? Your mind is either somewhere else, or it's right now asking, what are my blessings?

Now I can go around the room if you want. I can give every one of you one. Right now.

In fact, it's true, even some of you I only know recently, I could still name a blessing that I see at work in your life already.

And if you can't at least get one, you come to me later and I'll give it to you.

Your blessings are yours. They're given to you.

And you bring them into the church, and the collected sum of the blessings equals up to the unilateral overarching total blessing that God has sent to the church.

We will go in the direction that God will take us, because I will go, and Chris will go, and Josh will go, and Tony will go, and Amalia will go, and Arjun will go.

And we will all go in the direction that God will take us.

And we will go together in the direction that God will take us, because God is our God, he is our King.

He will crush our enemies before us, and we will stand united in our unilaterally given subdivided blessings.

But if you're going, yeah, I want to be part of this church, but you don't know even one of what your blessings are,

then the first thing you're going to have to do to be part of the church is to figure out what they are.

At least enough to apply them. You don't have to know them all. I don't know them all.

As I said, I could have listed a bunch more. I was discovering one.

I discovered the whole redeeming things that are lost and how God had sent several people,

pretty much everybody that I've ever led to Christ in a one-on-one, they were already ready.

Like literally all I had to do was ask, and they accepted Christ.

So I'm not even planting the Gospel in those circumstances.

I'm sharing the Gospel, and they're going, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, that makes all good sense to me.

Okay, will you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, begin to live for Him beginning now?

They're like, yep, yep, I'll do it, I'll do it, because God has already done it.

And I didn't even recognize that until I was writing this sermon.

So you can miss them, but you better find one, because how are you going to apply it?

The gallons of paint from your past painting projects really aren't doing you any good.

You may never touch up that wall, and eventually they'll be useless.

They're just sitting on the shelf in the shed or in the garage or whatever,

but your gifting from God, your blessing that God has given you, the unique person that God has made you,

your shape, your spiritual gift, your heart, your aptitude, your passions, and your experiences,

those things, they are not useless, never meant to be.

You are who you are, yes.

To some it may seem obnoxious at times, to others it'll seem needy, whatever.

But you are who you are because of your uniquely subdivided blessings.

Now get busy using those blessings, and let's make the Kingdom of God what it was meant to be in the first place.

A whole bunch of people following a sovereign God who called them out of a darkness, out of a slavery,

and made us free, free, free, and gifted us and made us able to lift each other up and more.

Two closing illustrations.

This is near and dear to my heart. I'm not sharing it from personal experience, but there is another story that I could have shared that is the same.

There was a young man who went to school one day, and they were having the Olympics or Field Day, what it's now called,

and he ran the 50-yard dash, and he got first place.

He was the fastest kid in his class or pre-classes or whatever he got, first place.

And they gave him a blue ribbon, beautiful blue ribbon, and he was very excited to get it.

But on his walk home from school, he gave it away.

So he went home and told his mom, he said, I got a blue ribbon today, first place, 50-yard dash.

Mom's like, where is it? And he goes, well, I gave it away.

She's like, kind of wondering whether he really got the 50-yard dash, you know, did he really just tell her story?

But she knew he was not one prone to lie, and she said, so where is the blue ribbon?

She said, well, I was walking home with Charlie, and he was crying because he didn't get a blue ribbon in anything.

And I felt bad for him, so I gave him mine.

And she says, well, that's pretty cool, you know, why did you do that?

And she said, well, he said, I don't need it. I already know I got first place.

When you have discovered the unilateral blessings of God, you're saved.

When you have discovered the personal blessings of God, you are enacting those blessings on a daily basis.

You are unleashed. And then you won't have to go back.

You'll never, ever go back and debate your salvation again.

Because God will literally be in you and fighting your battles on a daily basis.

And how can you deny that? That's the abundant life he let us in.

He did not lead us to an abundant life. Well, you know, this really sucks, but at least I'm saved.

That's not abundant life.

The abundant life is you walking in the gifting that God has given you every day, doing whatever you can.

And sometimes it sucks and sometimes it doesn't by our own estimation.

But in God, it never sucks.

Because as the song from Lauren Daigle says currently, if it's still bad, it ain't over.

If it's not good, it ain't over yet.

Because he works all things together for our good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

So if you're still going and it's still bad in your life, you still got problems, things still aren't right,

God's not done yet.

And you can only know that if you know that he is your shield and he is your sword and he is your gifting at work.

And he is your blessings on a daily basis.

And he is doing it right that you're right there.

You're like, wow, God did that.

And you probably won't be that surprised.

Actually, once you've identified what the blessings are, you won't be that surprised because, you know, he saved you.

You know, he's in you and he's already been working.

And so each time you'd be like, yes, Lord, thank you. Praise the Lord.

You did it again, Lord. You did it again.

Find your blessings and walk in them.

And then you won't need a blue ribbon because you already have known.