Who You Say I Am | I Am Blessed (March 17th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

Amen.

Well, if you would uh get your Bibles open to Ephesians uh chapter one right now, and uh who you say I am is uh is our current series right now these days uh in our church, and it's really where we're looking to God uh through the scriptures uh to tell us exactly who we are, right?

What our what our identity is as followers of Jesus.

And uh we've been highlighting, one of the things we've been doing is highlighting the just just the perils of trying to find our identity in things other than Jesus, right?

In things like uh our hobbies, right?

It's amazing how how we do that.

We you know, we get so excited about our hobbies, something like running, right?

And I'm a I'm a runner, and we become super obsessed with that, and we start to see ourselves as that influences our wardrobe, and our entire schedule is you know is around you know, running, and we're trying to shave off time and getting in shape, and it's just you know, that's that's how we see ourselves.

It can be even as things like, you know, I'm a good cook, right?

That can be a hobby of yours, but it can become your identity after a while if you're not careful about this.

And maybe it's seen in things like, you know, um, you know, it's just the the affirmation you get from people about your cooking and how good you are about that.

Or, you know, if you happen to invite some people over and you make a dinner for them and it doesn't turn out very well, you're just like crushed, right?

You're devastated about that uh because it has become too much of your identity.

How about appearance?

We've talked about that a little bit, and it's amazing how so many of us measure our self-worth on our attractiveness, right?

Our hotness or our our lack thereof.

Uh we do that.

The world is screaming at us for us to identify ourselves based on that.

Uh, for so many of us, our identity is just built so and tied so deeply into our vocation and what we do for a living.

And and for some, it's like I, you know, I'm in, I'm in construction, and you see yourself as that.

You're a construction worker, I'm a really gifted, you know, craftsman, and I've got, you know, I've got the truck, and I've got, you know, I've got all the car heart stuff, and you know, it's it, it's it's just it's my identity, it's who I am.

You know, for others of you, it's you know, I'm a stay-at-home mom.

That's totally become your identity, and it's tough for it not to be, right?

You're just with the kids constantly, right?

They never, it seems, go away, right?

You you constantly smell it spit up, and you know, you're you know, you're changing diapers and you're feeding them and you're telling them to be quiet.

And I mean it's easy for you to just, this is who I am, right?

This is totally who I am.

For others, it's that maybe you're you're unemployed.

I don't have a job, and so you see yourself as a failure, or you know, you're a student and you base yourself on your success in that, or you're retired and you're not used to working, and you go through an identity crisis as you enter into that phase of life.

For a lot of us, we base our identity on our on our relationship status.

Right?

Am I single?

It's it's being married, it's maybe you see yourself as a divorced person, if that's you, or or widowed.

We often look for identity from people, and we're people pleasers, and we have a real fear of man, and we rise and fall based on what people tell us and who they say we are, and people who approve of us, we feel pretty good, and when people criticize us, we're devastated.

Right now, why why is it so dangerous for us to look to these types of things to inform who we are?

Well, for one, if you haven't noticed it already, these things are completely unstable, right?

Have you seen that?

Unstable.

Our appearance, our our attractiveness, for one, that just that just fades over time, right?

There's no amount of makeup, there's no amount of vitamin D that stops the aging process and and really slows that down entirely.

We shouldn't have our identity wrapped up in our in our appearance, right?

Our jobs, they they come and go.

Our careers can can change, we can be fired, all of that stuff.

You want to have your identity tied to that?

That's a that's a yo-yo.

If your identity is tied to your marriage, I mean, even the best marriages, the most godly marriages, they just have crazy ups and downs, right?

There are major challenges that that every single marriage goes to, and and and and that, and all of these things, they're they're they're not designed to be the thing that defines us.

Right?

They're not.

None of those things are meant to be our identity.

Okay, only God can define us.

And here's the thing: He does.

Right?

He does define us.

Who we truly are is found in him.

Right?

It's found in who he is, what he has done through Jesus Christ, and and who he declares you and I to be.

And so the specific element that we're gonna be looking at here this morning today is that in Christ I am blessed.

Right?

I am blessed.

John just led us through that song, counting every blessing, right?

That I am blessed is is who I am, it's who you are too, if you know Jesus as Lord.

And so before we jump in here, I just want to pray and uh invite uh the Spirit of the Lord to do a great work through his word.

And so why don't you join me as I pray, God, we come before you and and Father, we have our identities so tied up in um just ridiculous things, really.

And some of them, though, are good things.

They're just not meant to, and they can't carry the weight of our identity, Lord.

And so many of us we learn that the hard way and we go through identity crises and we experience just a lack of of peace and constant inner turmoil because our identities are are flip-flopping all over the place and and and and it's not found in the right thing, which is which is you.

And so, God, I pray that you continue to teach us week by week, bit by bit here in your word, exactly who we are.

And so, God, I pray that you would fill me with your spirit now, Lord.

I pray uh that you would uh transform us, uh, make us more like Jesus, stir up our affections for you and the gospel.

Lord, I pray.

I pray that you would do all of this and and even more, far more, uh than we can ask or think, Lord, I pray that you would do this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

So uh as has been our custom uh in this series, is it's uh one sermon, one point here.

So here it is in Christ.

I am blessed.

I am blessed.

There it is.

So Ephesians 1, verse 3 is where we're pulling this out of here today, really just focusing uh mostly on this verse, but using this verse as a springboard to look at a few other areas as well.

Ephesians 1:3

And so uh one point, you're like, man, I got a whole sheet here.

How am I gonna fill this out in my notes?

Well, we've got a bunch of other stuff for you to write down, so don't sweat that.

Uh, those of you who love to write, but here it is, here's the verse.

Okay, it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ.

There it is, that's the part we're focusing on.

But it says, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Now, as we get into this here and we start to you know think about this idea of blessing, uh, can we all just admit that as as North Americans, we're more than just a little warped when it comes to properly understanding the concept of biblical blessing?

Right?

We are.

We're a little spun about this because I think it's just so easy and it's so natural for us to kind of confuse and blend that, but what biblical blessings are with like the American dream, right, or the Canadian dream.

We've kind of adopted it that way.

Right?

The American dream is is the it's the pursuit of riches, it's the pursuit of uh of wealth and prosperity and and and happiness and material things, right?

Accumulation of stuff, right, which many would call the blessed life.

Right?

You are blessed if you have these things.

And so we, I think, as the church, as Christians, we take some of that, the American, the Canadian dream, and we mix all of that together with some biblical concepts of what it means to be blessed.

And as a result, I think we're deeply confused.

We're disoriented about the whole thing and we're misinformed and we get misled by all of it.

I mean, let's just unpack this here for a second.

I mean, just think about it.

Even the poorest of us here in this room, I don't know everyone's financial status, I don't know everyone's bank accounts, I don't know anyone's bank accounts.

That can just make you feel good right there that I don't know any of that stuff.

But even the poorest of us have far more, right?

Far more than the vast majority of the world's population in terms of material goods.

Do we know that?

Like way, way more, right?

And and to and and we've all been influenced, I mean, all of us to some degree, anyways, by just the extreme, the extreme wealth and and the affluence that that surrounds us.

I mean, we've all bought into that system to some point.

We're all impacted by the by the North American way of living, right?

Pursuing the good life.

We all kind of want that, I think, to some degree.

We we you know, pursuing comfort, it's accumulation of belongings, such like things like that.

But in the midst of those pursuits, uh many have have rightly noted that society as a whole, despite you know being up to our eyeballs in these so-called blessings, we're not becoming any more satisfied.

Have you sensed this in your own life?

In fact, it's actually the opposite.

We're immensely dissatisfied despite all the things that we have.

And and we don't know what to do with this.

Right?

We don't, and and we're we're uncomfortable with it.

And so, you know, a lot of us, we, you know, and then this is certainly the world's approach is you know, well, I I guess I gotta just I gotta try harder, right?

I I gotta go for for for for more and really go after it.

I I I must be lacking, I just haven't found it yet.

And and if I dig deeper here, I'll I'll find it.

Meanwhile, things like depression and prescription medication and therapy and suicide and all of that, all of it is it's skyrocketing.

Right?

It's it's rising, even though materially we all have so much.

And so what ends up happening as as you and I, as we buy into the world's systems and and the world's you know values and and their way of thinking and their definitions of of what it means to be blessed, is that we end up approaching God and and his blessings this way.

Right?

And we start to view ourselves and think of ourselves as as lacking when it comes to God's blessings.

Right?

His blessings are something I don't have yet, or I don't have enough of yet, or or I need more of.

If only I could you know kind of tap into it, you know, the the blessings that he's got in in store for me.

If I if only I could figure out the magic formula here, or or somehow convince God through my, you know, through my Christian behavior uh day to day in life to somehow get him to kind of like unlock the vault that he seems to be wanting to lock and hold back the blessings from me.

And how we end up functioning when it comes to God's blessings is we act and we operate as you know from a position of deficit instead of realizing that we actually operate from a position of surplus.

Right?

We act as though we're in the red, but we're actually in the black.

A biblical understanding of blessing is where we realize that we are blessed.

Right?

We're blessed now.

Again, it's it's our it's our current status.

It's not just something yet to come.

All right, here's how John MacArthur puts it.

I think we have this on the screen.

He says, our resources in God are not simply promised, they are possessed.

And then he goes on.

He says, the believer's need, therefore, is not to receive something more, but to do something more with what he has.

This is exactly what Ephesians chapter 1 gets at.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

It tells us over and over again who we are now.

Not just who you're gonna be someday, but who you actually are.

And it tells us what we already have by way of a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

Now, in the original language here, verses three all the way down to 14, which is the content for this this series, in the original language, it all flows as one sentence, one continuous sentence.

In the English, it would just be one big run-on.

So we add we've added periods and stuff like that and broken it up a little bit here.

And so when it says there in verse three, take a look, it says that God and uh our God and Father has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.

It actually goes on and it proceeds to list exactly what those blessings are through verses four to fourteen, right?

And the very things that the rest of our series are gonna cover.

The blessings that you and I have in Christ are that we are chosen, right?

Chosen before the foundation of the world.

That's gonna be the topic of the next message, right?

We're we are predestined.

That's an immense blessing that you and I have.

It goes on to say that we have been redeemed, right?

Which is which is really the forgiveness of our sins.

How amazing is it that you and I can have all of the nonsense, all of the garbage, all of the mistakes, all of the sin and rebellion in our lives wiped clean and be forgiven.

I would call that, I would call that a blessing.

Right?

It goes on to explain this concept that we've been enlightened, we've been informed of his will.

You and I now, you know, we know what the purpose of life is.

How amazing is that?

You know, everybody out there is chasing after it and looking for it in different things, and and it's just it's a dead end after dead end after dead end.

And the depression just grows that much more and more and more.

You and I, we don't have that.

We know exactly what life is all about.

We know what we are to give our lives to.

So the glory of Jesus.

So we're enlightened of these things.

That's a that's a massive blessing.

We're also hopeful.

We're blessed in that sense because of our awesome future inheritance.

What's coming to us, heaven.

Right?

That's a blessing.

The last one we're gonna look at that it talks about in there is the fact that we're sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Huge blessing found in that, obviously.

I mean, these are just a these are just a few of the many spiritual blessings that God has blessed us with.

It says they're in in the heavenly places, in the in the supernatural realm, which speaks to the the security of these spiritual blessings.

Right?

They're they aren't temporal, right?

You don't just have them for a little bit.

No, they're they're eternal.

You you can't lose them.

Now, I I addressed this uh briefly uh a couple of weeks ago, but you see that the two words there in verse 3, spiritual blessings.

Okay, spiritual blessings there isn't so much uh you know a reference to the to the nature or or the kinds or the types of blessings given to us, you know, you know, whether they might be immaterial or material blessings, like an immaterial blessing that you may receive is is courage, right?

You ever play prayed for for boldness and and and the Lord rushes upon you and gives you boldness to share the gospel with somebody?

That's an immaterial blessing.

It's not tangible.

You can't hold on to that.

A material blessing might be a lot of different things.

It could be someone giving you a gift card just because they want to bless you and hey, take your family out for dinner sometime uh on me, right?

That's a that would be a material blessing.

Well, this, you know, when it's talking about spiritual blessings, it's not talking about the immaterial or the material uh as much.

Uh rather, it's referring to the source of those blessings.

The source being the Holy Spirit, right?

Spiritual.

That's what that's referring to.

Now, that's a really important, crucial distinction to make.

Okay, because before Paul goes on to list what the specific blessings are that we have in Christ, right, through verses, all the way through to verses 14 there, he makes sure, first of all, to get our eyes onto the blesser, right?

Onto the onto the source.

Which I think is just it's so key and so crucial for us as the church to understand that.

Because because I think it's because naturally, because of our because of our fallen flesh and and and the fact that you and I, we tend to be, I don't know, kind of shallow, right, and sort and sort of self-centered uh about our needs and all of that.

We we get very preoccupied with with our felt needs and and things like that.

And you know, in our prayers, we often you know skip right over the whole, you know, our Father who who's in heaven, hallowed be you know, your name, where we're just enjoying him and extolling his name and and meditating on his greatness and his character and his nature.

We we skip all of that, right?

And we just get in straight into the like, you know, give us this day our daily bread.

Right?

We don't think about who God is.

We want to, we just want the blessings.

We just want the things.

Or give me, give me, give me blessings, right?

Answer my prayers, give me, give me stuff.

I want things from you.

And we're all tempted to do that when really we should be setting our attention and and our focus and our affections on the very nature and the very character of God Himself, which is to bless.

Right?

God desires to bless, He desires to help us, He desires to strengthen, He wants to pour out uh grace upon grace.

Okay, but it's so imperative for you and I to get that we learn to get our eyes on the giver and not just the gift, or the blesser and not just the blessings, and really get to know who our God is.

Scriptures, I mean, they they tell us exactly that.

They tell us who God is.

Yes, God blesses us, but all of it flows from from his essence and and his nature, his character.

And so you can write this down here, it'll be on the screen.

But God's desire to bless flows from his character.

All right, we've got eight things here, and they're just eight scriptures really that we're gonna look at here.

You can jot uh down the reference if you like and and study this on your own time.

I don't encourage you uh to do that.

These are just some key verses, they're just simply in order of when they show up in the scriptures.

First one here is just Isaiah 41, uh verse 10.

Look at this.

It says, Fear not, for I am with you.

Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you.

That's a cool blessing.

I will help you.

There it is.

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

So, yes, right there, even in that verse, right, we see that God, God blesses, but notice that that these particular blessings that it's talking about in this verse here flow from his what?

His righteousness.

Do you see that?

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

That tells us something about who God is, does it not?

It tells us that that he is perfect.

And as we understand the scriptures and as we study that and we and we see that across the board, we realize that he's only perfect.

He can't be anything other than perfect.

And from his perfection, from his righteousness, comes this desire to strengthen and and to help us in our times of need, to uphold us with his righteous right hand.

Love that.

God's desire to bless flows from his character.

We see it there, we see it also in Jeremiah 29, 11.

So many of us know this one.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.

Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Again, right there in that verse, we see that God wants to help.

But what does it flow from?

It flows out of his sovereignty.

You see that there?

I I know.

I know the plans that I have for you.

I've got this whole thing figured out.

I know your life, I know the beginning from the end.

We should read a verse like that and not just want to know what the plans are, but rest in the in the God who knows the plans.

Rest in his sovereignty, see his nature and his character, his attributes there.

Right?

He's awesome.

He's he's always in total control.

Here's the next one.

Moving into the New Testament now, Matthew.

Matthew 7:11

7 verse 11, it says this if you then who are evil, I love how he just calls it out, right?

You then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?

Right?

So we see God wants to give good gifts.

If if we as parents know how to give good gifts to our children, he's like, how much more, me as God, do I want to give good things to you?

Right?

And so we see there that goodness, okay, is God's very essence.

He's good, he's not evil.

We're the ones who are evil, we're the ones that have sin.

He doesn't have a shred of that.

And none of it.

And so from his goodness flows this, his desire to give us the good things that we need.

How about John chapter 1, verse 16?

John 1:16

For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

Grace to us comes from the overflow of God's fullness.

That's a pretty amazing thing to think about, right?

The fact that God is full.

He's never depleted.

He's never lacking.

We should never see him pour out his goodness in someone else's life and think, well, he's that's just for them.

He's not, he doesn't have enough left for me.

That's not the way that it works.

He's never depleted, he's never lacking at all.

It's from his fullness that we've all received grace after grace.

He never, he never tires.

He's not like that.

His character is awesome.

How about this one?

2 Corinthians 9 verse 8.

2 Corinthians 9:8

It says, and God is able.

God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

I love there what we learn about God is that he is able, right?

He is able to give grace.

You know, sometimes we like, we don't want to bother the Lord sometimes in our prayer, and yeah, you know, if you're he is able.

Trust him.

He is able to do these things, give grace, he's able to make us abound in every good work.

He's never unable.

It's his character.

Sixth one, James chapter 1, verse 17 says this every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

James 1:17

Don't you love how God is the same, right?

Yesterday, today, forever.

He's not unpredictable in that sense.

Right?

Where he's, you know, we're we're constantly, you know, wondering, are we gonna set God off?

You know, is he is he gonna change?

You know, I've seen his goodness before, but maybe he'll be evil tomorrow, right?

That's not it.

From his character, from his nature, from the fact that he doesn't vary, from that come good and perfect gifts to us, his children.

Here's the seventh one.

Philippians 4, verse 7, just preached through this verse about a month ago.

Philippians 4:7

It says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

What do we learn about God there?

Well, we learn that he wants to give us peace for sure, but we also learn that he is, I think he's inexhaustible, right?

The peace he gives surpasses, it transcends, it exceeds all human comprehension.

I mean, it just shows how deep and wide our God is.

He's amazing.

How about this one, final one?

It's just a few verses later, Philippians 4, verse 19.

Philippians 4:19

He is richly glorious.

Nothing, nothing, nothing compares to him.

As we realize that, we're filled with holy awe and wonder, all those false identities we're running to and hoping they'll provide for us, and all of that.

It's just like they're not richly glorious.

They don't, they don't stack up, they don't compare at all.

Right?

In all these verses, I mean, we we absolutely see the various ways that God will choose to bless his people as he decides, but but don't miss out on what these verses, and these are just a few, right?

All of scripture says about him.

Don't miss out on that.

Who he is, what he's like, what is what his attributes are, the the sheer weight of his grandeur and his majesty and his glory.

When our hearts are captured by who God actually is, we begin to lose some of that kind of childish and spiritually mature attitude of like, I just need more blessings.

And we're almost kind of whiny about it a little bit in our approach to the Lord.

We kind of have that mentality inside.

As we embrace who he is, we we just find ourselves stabling in stabilizing internally.

Do you kind of understand that?

We're growing more secure as we embrace who he is.

Why?

Why?

Well, because our identity is solidifying around the truth and around the knowledge that my God is incredible and I am so blessed because I don't just have things from him, I have him.

Now, all that being said, perhaps there are still some of us here who remain unconvinced.

You know, and you're like, sorry, man, like I I still don't really see how I'm all that blessed.

You know, all I see, to be perfectly honest, are the immense difficulties in front of me.

All I can really see are the challenges that I'm dealing with, the hardships in my life.

I can definitely see how other people are blessed.

Good for them, but I'm not really feeling it personally.

Now, while I would certainly never want to minimize, you know, the intensity of the many hardships that we face in this life, and we certainly do, you know, and I definitely wouldn't want to, you know, like pounce on somebody who's just hurting, you know, and I understand that as you go through difficulties and challenges, it's there's an acute pain that can come with all of that.

I get that.

But truthfully, if as Christ followers, if you would call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ, if as Christians we're unable to see, if we're unable to sense or understand God's heart to bless and the blessings that we have in Him, listen, the problem does not lie with God.

The problem lies with us.

Now maybe the issue for you is it's you know a measure of stubbornness in your heart, or maybe just a flat refusal to accept what we're talking about today, and maybe you've been hurt, and maybe you've gone through awful, awful trials, and maybe you've looked at that as God's out to get you, and you've become bitterness uh bitter about that and angry and all of that, and maybe there's some you know repentance that needs to happen on your part with all of that, and maybe there's some people that you can talk to, and some people that can maybe counsel you and help you through this and just encourage you.

Maybe you need that.

Or maybe you're the kind of person who's just you know you're just discouraged about the pain, right?

You're discouraged about the difficulty that you're that encompasses your life right now and and monopolizes your mind and and your emotions and all of it.

Or perhaps all of what we've been talking about here this morning, it makes perfect sense to you.

And you're like, no, I I I I got that, and I and I see that, and I and I even believe that, but but listen, you know that tomorrow's coming, right?

And you're gonna you're gonna walk back into work and and you're gonna be faced with that horrible person, right?

Or you're gonna be like, you know, back into the grind at home, and you've got kids, you know, tugging at you literally, and you know, the stress is rising, and you know, bills gotta be paid, and you know, all of those things, and you're and you're and your concern here is you know, all this talk of how blessed you are, it's it's all just gonna go out the window as soon as you leave this place, as you fall back into old habits and and patterns of thinking.

Well, no matter who we are and what our particular circumstances are, I believe it's really good for us to identify what might be going on on a heart level, you know, in our minds and in our thinking, and really on a belief level when we when we tend to lose sight of the truth that we are blessed.

It's good for us to think think through what's going on on a heart level when we forget our identity and we get wrapped up in the cares of the world, and that becomes the dominating thing that's driving us and our actions and and our thoughts.

All right, so you can jot these down.

These are three lies that I can believe when I don't see how blessed I am.

These are maybe maybe one of or three of these, all three of these could be lies that you believe.

These are lies that we can eventually begin to believe if we just we refuse to see or or or can't see, don't see how blessed I really am in Christ.

Here's the first one.

I'm being robbed by God.

Right?

Is that is that something that you've felt before?

Is that a thought that's crept through your mind?

I'm being robbed by him.

Right?

He he owes me better than this.

Right, Colossians 2, verses 9 to 10, just the the address is there.

Colossians 2:9–10

I'll read it for us.

Look what it says though.

It says, For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

And you and I, here it is, have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

One of the things that verse tells us is that you have all that you need.

Right?

You have it all because you have been filled in him.

You have Christ.

You're not actually lacking.

You need to think about it this way: if there's something that you think you need and something that you don't have, and and you feel that you're lacking, guess what?

You don't actually need it.

You don't.

If you needed it, guess what?

You would have it.

God would give it to you.

God, God holds back these things because He He knows us better than we know ourselves.

He understands the big picture.

He's holding back, He's trying to produce endurance in you.

He's trying to produce humility in you, He's trying to produce dependence in you.

If He just gave you everything, you'd just be a spoiled brat.

Right?

And He knows this, and so He holds back.

He's like, You have me.

You have everything you need.

You've been filled in Him.

Some of the things that we think we need are not actually needs.

We don't need Him as badly as we think we do.

Do you have this kind of lie flowing through your heart, through your mind?

I'm being robbed.

God doesn't owe you.

Kind of leads into the next one.

Here's the second lie.

I deserve better than this.

I deserve better than the treatment I'm getting, than the cards that I have been dealt.

I'm this is a raw deal.

Romans 6.23 just pulls out the shotgun and blows holes in that whole idea.

It says, for the wages of sin is death.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You don't deserve better than what you have.

That sounds harsh, Pastor.

No, it's true.

It's true.

And you need to hear that, you need to receive that.

We actually deserve death.

All of us, every person, because of our sin.

It's against a perfect and holy God.

That's what we deserve.

That's the wage that we deserve for us and is death.

Separation from God.

We've been given the free gift of God, it's eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So listen, lose the sense of entitlement.

Lose it.

It's a lie.

You don't deserve better than this.

You deserve much, much worse.

We're blessed.

Final lie that we can believe and we don't see how blessed we are.

God doesn't really love me.

God doesn't really love me.

I've had this one flow through my heart a lot.

I kind of, you know, through a lot of my childhood, really thought that this was true.

I don't really know why, but I did.

Here's what John 15, 12, and 13 says, though.

It says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

And then here's an amazing picture of the gospel.

Greater love has no one than this, than that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Exactly what Jesus Christ did for us through the cross.

Right?

God loves you.

He has made it abundantly clear.

And listen, you may not be saying it out loud, but we can easily get that inner monologue going where we're, you know, we're talking to ourselves and we're listening to ourselves and we're giving ourselves too much of a voice here, and we're starting to believe the lie that God, God must not love me very much, and I'm not very lovable.

And listen, it listen, the fact that God doesn't love you, that couldn't be further from the truth.

The gospel proves it.

The scriptures testify to it.

You and I are blessed people.

We're a blessed church.

It's in what we have, it's what we are, it's what we have coming to us.

All of it through a growing relationship with the Lord in this life.

It's nothing but good things for all of eternity with Him.

So what do we do with all of that in that knowledge?

You know, how do how do we respond in the meantime here in this life?

You know, as we seek to understand this and appreciate it and really, you know, live out of this truth that and this reality that we are blessed.

What do we do?

Well, it's simple, really.

We worship.

Our response is to worship.

Now I kind of purposely skipped over the first part of Ephesians 1, verse 3, but I'll get to it now.

Ephesians 1:3

It says this: Blessed, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be him, blessed be his name.

And then it says, Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places?

Right?

Or if I could kind of put it another way, it's that because God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, because he has done this, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Right?

To bless him means to worship him, to praise him, to praise his holy name.

So as you respond in worship to the Lord for these things this week, express your gratitude to him.

Right for it for his nature, the things that we talked about, the verses, the scriptures that we looked at, his character, his essence, his attributes, all of that.

Thank him for just for who he is.

Worship him for the for the cross.

The fact that he endured that, he absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf so that our sins can be forgiven.

Praise him for the resurrection, that he defeated death, he defeated sin.

Praise him for the for the other countless ways that he has shown you blessing in your life.

Listen, we can express this through prayer.

We express this through talking to others about his goodness and having conversations with each other as the church as we gather and get to know each other in our small group time and our accountability, all of that.

And of course, we can express this in our worship through song.

And that's exactly what we want to do right now as we gather and as we bless his name, for his goodness to us, the many blessings that we have in Christ Jesus.

So we're gonna sing before we do, join me as we pray.

God, we thank you again for the fact that we are blessed.

God, forgive us for being too surfacey about this.

Lord, we want felt need blessings, and again, we see ourselves as lacking, we see ourselves as deficient.

And Lord, we have so much.

We are blessed.

It's a current status thing for us.

Not just a future thing that we hope to have at some point.

If you would not be so stingy, that's not it at all.

Lord, we have you.

And so, Lord, I pray that all of these things would really put into perspective wherever our lives might be right now.

Whatever the trials, whatever the difficulties, whatever the worries, whatever the concerns.

And so, Lord, as we sing, Lord, be honored, Lord be glorified.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.