Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Be the Blessing | November 15, 2020

Before we begin, why don't you take a moment to rally some people around you?

Again, each week I remind you, it's always greater and better when you're listening together.

So you might not be in the same home, but you're listening together online, and that's always so great as it increases the experience together, as you're hearing the word together, you're discussing together online during the chat.

Go ahead and let people know that church is live.

For all those who are faithfully watching online and you've turned your living room into a place where you're leading from your home, thank you for continuing to watch.

Thank you for continuing to lead from your home and engage and instruct your family and lead your lead in your worship and lead in your engagement.

We are an engaging church.

And that doesn't change if we're at home or if we're in the physical service on Sundays.

So we know you're with us.

We feel it.

Let's get on the message.

This week is our second message from our series entitled Be the Blessing.

Be the Blessing.

And this is where we endeavor to live our lives with an open hand and love with an open heart.

And this series is part of our Make a Difference portion of our series throughout the year.

And each year we determine to take a little bit of time at this time of the year to set our hearts right.

As this season becomes really all about us, we want to take our time to actually turn our hearts towards others and learn what it means to be the blessing in our community, in our church, in our family, looking for ways to deny our selfishness and actually give generously to others through intentional acts of service or through intentional giving and special giving.

This week we're going to talk about what it means to know the blessings.

Know the blessings.

You can be full of blessings as we know we are.

We've been richly blessed.

But do we know the blessings that God has given us?

If you're having difficulty just relating to that word blessing, just consider the word giving.

Giving, that's what blessing is all about.

It's about receiving a blessing and then being a blessing to others, being a giver to others.

This message is about our opportunity to be able to give to others.

So know your blessings.

Know what you have in you to give.

Now, first point here is that I'd like to make you aware of this, that there is more in you than you know.

There's more in you than you actually realize.

With our faith in us, with our with God in us, with all the gifts in us, with the Holy Spirit alive in us, there is more in us than we can even imagine.

Can you believe that?

We need to elevate our thinking, elevate our thoughts to realize all that God has put in us.

Now, what's in us often gets comes out of us when we get squeezed.

And it's the good, the bad, the ugly comes out of us.

But the reality is there's something in us.

There's something in us.

I was watching an episode with the kids on Gordon Ramsay, the best chef in the world, according to YouTube.

But Gordon Ramsey is going through uh different countries and places, and he's experiencing food, and we were watching this one episode where he's in Morocco.

And Morocco, a desert-like area in a lot of spaces, but in this desert, they produce these incredible olives.

And these olives, uh, according to the way they do it traditionally, they push them all together into a mill and they begin to grind with a stone these olives.

They put all the mash under this big press and they squeeze it down.

They press these olives down, and out of the press pours this olive oil, pure olive oil.

And it was just so incredible to watch this traditional method of extracting the oil from this what would seem to be like a dry place.

Here, this oil pours out.

And the scripture talks about this oil in our lives.

It's an oil of blessing, an oil of joy.

It's an oil that's a part of our lives, and what it's representative of the Holy Spirit and who he is and the gifts he brings in us that pour out of us into others.

So we give from a blessing.

We become a blessing, and we are this blessing, but we need to know what's in us and what how to get what's in us out of us so that we have something to offer to others.

We love oils in our home.

I read the other day that a lavender takes almost three pounds of this, what would seem to be this floral, this purple floral weed that just grows, that's crushed and ground and squeezed together to make just a 15 milliliter bottle of oil that then has healing attributes to it, healing qualities to it, has uh all these health benefits associated with it.

We just know that there's something more.

We know that there's more in us.

There's more in our neighbors, there's more in our church members, in our community.

There's more in us than we realize.

So the point of this sermon here today, and this point of this conversation, is actually to discuss what is in you.

Now the Bible says it very clearly, if you if there's ever an argument here, it says, What's in your heart will come out of you.

Galatians says, as you sow, that's what you'll reap.

What you put in is what you'll get out.

Proverbs 11 says the world of the generous gets larger and larger, but the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

Proverbs 23 7 says, As a man thinks and believes in his heart, so is he.

You are what's in you.

Proverbs 423 says, Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it will flow the issues of life.

That's why we guard our heart.

We keep our heart, we put a centurion in front of our heart, and we guard it, because out of us flows the issues of life.

Proverbs 16 9, a man's heart plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps.

I'm so thankful the Lord will direct our steps, but it's the man's heart that plans the course.

And so what's in us is so important.

Psalm 45, 1 says, My heart will overflow with a good and noble theme.

The good theme of your life, of your life story, is the life story of what's going on in your heart.

What's really in you is what's in your heart.

What's been invested and what you've invested into your heart is what's going to come out of you.

That's why it's so important that we guard it.

It's so important that we feed it.

It's so important that we nourish our heart.

It's so important that we keep it tender and keep it soft and keep it from offense and bitterness and anger or any type of emotion that would pull us away from the centrality of Christ being Lord of our heart and allowing his softness and his oil to work in us so that when we get squeezed and when and when we choose to bless others, we choose to give out, we have something that will nourish our community.

Luke 6.46 says, A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart will bring forth that which is evil.

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak.

All these things come from our heart.

So the principle is clear throughout Scripture.

3 John 1, 2, I pray that all may go well with you, and that you may be in good health as your soul is in health.

So, if you're doing well on the inside, and the principle of this, and it's a kingdom principle, if you're doing well on the inside, if you're full on the inside, it's going to work its way out.

If you've put good things in and you're seeing the good in yourself, and you're seeing the things that God is has pressed in and impressed on your heart, it will find its way out.

Verse after verse is telling us.

Even Jesus spoke about it in Matthew.

He said this from one of the famous sermons on as he was overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

He said Matthew 5, you're blessed when you're content with just who you are, no more, no less.

It's the moment you find yourself proud owners of everything that can be bought.

You're blessed when you're worked up, when you've worked up a good appetite for God.

He's food and drink and the best meal you'll ever eat.

You're blessed when you care.

At the moment of being careful, you find yourself cared for.

And you're blessed when you get your inside world, your mind, your heart put right.

Then you can see God in the outside world.

What is so important for us to be the blessing is we have to know our heart.

And we have to know what's in us, and we have to keep depositing in us the things that will create, that will create that blessing, that will keep our heart tender, will keep it pure, so that what is in us pours out of us is a blessing for others.

So I love worship for this, I love prayer for this, I love reading the scripture for this, I love listening to sermons of the scripture and unpacking Bible studies, and I love gathering with a community of believers because all of these things press into me and keep my heart right and keep it full so that I can be a blessing to others.

It's not necessarily our circumstances that affect the course of our lives.

Circumstances, in fact, can be bitter.

We can experience pain.

In fact, pain and sorrow is a part of our life, it's part of the journey.

And I can never discredit this reality.

But if you bring up your heart to God, it's out of the pure heart that we'll see God working in our lives.

It's true, some of us have experienced trauma and we've experienced challenges, and that's a reality.

But if you keep your heart right with God, it will overcome you.

The pure things out of our heart will continue to pour out.

If that's the case, what's in your heart will come out of you.

So the question is, what is it that you have been given?

What is it that you have been given?

To fill up our heart today, this is what we're gonna do.

We're gonna go to the book of Psalms.

And the book of Psalms is the preeminent place to deal with the conditions of the heart.

Psalm 103, it's a unique psalm.

It's one of my favorite psalms.

It's a teaching you how to handle your initial positions in life in general.

It's a constant reminder in this book of uh Psalms, in this chapter of Psalms.

If there's a problem, the whole problem David suggests that we have is with our heart.

And you're gonna find this very anticlimactic here.

He says, the problem is this, it's simply the fact, and it's very apropos that we actually went through this weekend uh or week this week.

It's our forgetfulness.

And that's why we celebrate Remembrance Day, lest we forget.

The main way to feed your heart, to honor God, to honor life, is to not forget.

We need to keep going to this place of remembrance.

Remembrance will keep our heart full.

Remembrance will keep our heart awakened and virile.

It'll keep our spirit dynamic in terms of watch, being watchful.

It'll keep the fire on in our heart when we remember.

Our major problem in our in our humanity is that we forget.

We forget what God's done.

And that's simply it.

And it's oftentimes we forget uh what our spouses, the blessing our spouses are, and so it's good when we go to a wedding, we're reminded of the value of our relationship with our spouse.

We are we oftentimes forget uh what's important in life sometimes, and I'm privileged to attend when I attend funerals or I'm uh coordinating or leading the the funerals.

I'm reminded of the things that are valuable.

It's not the car you drive, the shoes you wear, the fishing rod you have.

It's the people in your life and the values that you carry and pass on.

We remember.

And it's important to not forget.

So humans struggle with this forgetfulness.

That's why it's so important to pause and remember.

Now you may say, well, it's not me.

I I always remember.

But Isaiah says this in chapter 51, verse 12 and 13.

Even God says to him, You are afraid of mortal men who are but grass, but you forget the God who stretched out the heavens and the earth.

And it's so easy for us to just forget.

Forget God.

2 Peter 1.9 says, You forget that you've been cleansed from your sins.

Forgetfulness is a part of our nature, and I think it's just so important that we embrace it, that I can't forget.

Acknowledge that we have a problem.

I forget.

I forget.

I know people have forgotten anniversaries, forgotten birthdays, forgotten appointments.

We forget.

We're not perfect.

And we need to remember, particularly when it comes to remembering the blessings that are in our life.

It's so relevant for us.

So again, we go through this list in Psalms 103, recalling the things that have meaning in our heart that are allowed to become vivid in our spirit.

Now, these are blessings.

And when it's central to your life and when it's central to your heart, you begin to see these blessings bubble out of you.

And if your posture is of your heart is focused on the mercies you've received, then you'll become the happy person.

But if it's focused on the injustices you've received, you'll become a bitter person.

And it's all based upon what you remember.

So we want to remember the things that God has blessed us with.

We want to keep that in front of us, in our consciousness.

We want to keep it ahead of us and in our focal point.

It's interesting as humans, we and people in general, and it's our sinful nature, it's our fallen nature.

People can say a hundred times to us, good job, good job, good job, good job, good job.

But the one time someone says, Man, that really stunk, it's what sits in front of us.

It's that one thing that we begin to focus on.

That stunk.

That stunk.

That wasn't good.

And it takes so much time for us to remember the good that people have said about us in our lives, or the good things that in this scenario, what others have acknowledged that you've done.

But one time someone says that's that wasn't up to par, we remember it.

We need to be quick to forget.

But humans, we have a Teflon heart when it comes to the good.

It just slides off us.

We just appreciate it and move on.

When someone says something that's really sticky and hits our heart, and it was a criticism of sort, we just hold on to it.

We need to be quick to let it go.

So we need to remember.

Uh I love this one portion of scripture in Joshua, where um, or in Deuteronomy, when God leads them through the uh the river or the Jordan River.

And it's a miracle.

The river's been stopped on one side, river's stopped on another side, there's dry ground, and the Hebrew people walk over this river to the other side.

And as the last people get through to the other side, the first thing God says to them is, pick up some rocks.

They said, Well, why?

He goes, Pick up rocks, pile them up, pile up all these rocks, like literally make a mountain.

And so every time you come by this river, you'll remember what I did.

Why?

Because you'll forget.

So Psalms 103 is this milestone scripture.

It literally is a milestone.

It's a point that we come back to to remember all the things that God has done, lest we forget.

The psalm is addressed to the psalm is addressed not to God.

The psalm, when it starts off, is addressed to our own soul.

Our own soul.

David, it's a psalm of David to David, to his soul.

It's a psalm that says, Bless the starts off, bless the Lord, O my soul.

All that is within, bless the Lord, forget not his benefits.

He's redundant in his a reminder to his own soul to bless the Lord and don't forget the benefits.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

In other words, focus your mind, your will, your heart, your intentions on what God has done.

It's a meditation.

The Psalm 103, and I would love for the church to just be meditating on this scripture for the full of this next week, to be reminded of the blessings that are in you that can flow through you to others.

We meditate on them, and it's more, meditating is more than just an I believe.

I believe.

There are a lot of things that people believe.

Um but there's but there's a place where it surpasses just belief.

Like we had this situation in our home the other day where my sister was over and she's just got eyes to see.

And she's walking up our stairs and she looks under our stair.

And for those of you who can't handle talking about these things, she saw a spider.

If any of you have that arachne fear, uh she looked under the stairwell, and there it was a black widow.

And I see this black widow sitting under the stair, and I'm like, no, we've never had a black widow in our home.

And all of a sudden, there's this black widow that was sitting there, and we dealt with that black widow.

The next day, sure enough, in our bathroom behind our countertop, is another black widow.

This one looks like it had arms that could stretch all the way, like six feet big.

It looked huge.

And sure enough, my daughter found it.

You know, that creepy scenario.

You're coming out of the shower and you look, and there's the black widow in a humid environment.

It comes out from behind the counter.

It's that scary moment.

Spiders.

Well, imagine you're sitting on uh, you know, on your chair and you look over, and someone else, your spouse or your child, is sitting on the couches apart from you, and you notice crawling up their sleeve and up their arm this black widow.

And you lean over and you go, You have a black widow on your arm.

And they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They heard you.

Well, you do know you have a black widow.

Yep, I got I got it.

Versus, you have a black widow on your arm.

And it's, shake that thing off.

I do not want to get bit by that black widow.

Like I saw my kids deal with that, and now every time they're going to bed, they're walking in the bathroom, they're walking up the stairs, they're looking for that black widow.

They truly believed that there was a black widow in the place.

The difference between you saying, you know, God loves me and he cares for me and he's for me, he's not against me, is one thing to meditate on, to believe it.

There's another point where meditation actually steps into the deep part of your heart, and that meditative reality and truth galvanizes your heart in the truth of who God is and what God believes about you.

Meditation is literally praying your heart hot.

It is this scripture, Psalm 103, is not just about a light, uh, a light prayer or a light fuzzy poem.

It's about a heart hot posture where David is having to tell himself remind Brody, remind.

My heart of the blessings that God has for me so that I do not forget.

Seal it on my heart, imprint it on my heart, remind my heart so I don't forget.

This text is a sermon to my own heart.

It's taking it deep inside.

It's taking it to a place of deep listening.

It's a fire that is within me.

I go to bed and I'm reminded of it, and it's more real than the things around me is this blessing.

So let's look at it.

Psalm 103.

Praise the Lord, O my soul.

All my innermost being.

Praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

Forget not all his benefits.

And this is where the uh NIV translation has a dash here, and it's saying, okay, and we're gonna list them out for you here.

So he's talking to your soul right now, that he forgives all your sins.

He forgives all your sins, heals all your diseases.

And I just want to say thank you, Lord, for forgiving me of my sin, for taking my shame, taking my guilt, taking my penalty, and healing my diseases, those things that make me uneasy, that keep me from sleep.

You took away the dis-ease and you give me peace.

Thank you, Lord, who redeemed my life from the pit.

How you literally bought me, pulled me out, purchased me, redeemed me, took me my life where I deserve the pit, and you pulled me up, and you pulled me out of that pit.

Scripture says he places you on a solid rock.

Amen.

That's a rock of support and a rock of uh of confidence that we have, uh, that we can walk boldly before God, who redeems your life from the pit, crowns you with love and compassion.

That's right, we're crowned with love and compassion.

God loves us, he's compassionate towards us.

He wants us to be crowned with that love so that we have love and compassion to give to others.

And he satisfies your desires with good things.

The good things, God doesn't hold back one good thing from us.

He gives us the good things.

Taste and see that the Lord He is good, that there's no fault in him.

He's there to bless us, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

You get that new beginning.

The youth's renewed like the eagles.

Verse 8, the Lord is compassionate and gracious.

He's not the God in heaven who's just like the judge looking down on us, looking who he may smite.

The Lord is compassionate.

He's j gracious, he's slow to anger, lots of opportunity and abounding in love.

He's slow to act rashly or quickly.

He's slow.

You've got time.

Turn your heart, he's giving you space, turn it, he's abounding in love.

So not only is he slow to treat us the way we deserve, but his grace reaches out to us, pulling us towards him.

Verse 10, he does not treat us as our sin deserves.

That's right, our heart.

Our heart, who we are, who Brody truly is, is not treated like he doesn't treat our sin the way it's deserved to be treated or pay us according to our iniquities.

In fact, all of our debt was put on to Christ, and now we can walk boldly before him.

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.

High above the earth, as far as the heavens are above the earth, that's how great his love is for those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, that's how far he removes our transgressions from us.

That's just a that's an eternity kind of mind bend there.

You just will never be able to understand that.

As far as the east is from the west, it's eternal.

That's as far away as God separates our sin from us.

Verse 17.

From everlasting from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear him, his righteousness with their children's children, with those who keep his commandments and remember to obey his precepts.

The Lord establishes his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all.

We just remind ourselves, we refresh our heart today.

We just continue to remember the blessings, the benefits, these divine benefits that have been given to us in our life.

And this is where we stop today and we say, thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

I'm gonna remember that I've got I've been crowned with compassion.

I'm gonna remember I've been surrounded by your love.

I'm gonna remember that my sins are sent into a pit of forgetfulness.

I'm gonna remember, I'm gonna remember, I'm gonna remember, I'm gonna honor you and honor my service towards you, remembering that you've done what you've done for me and who you've created me to be.

So now I can walk with this heart that is full, and what come, what's in me, gets squeezed out of me to be a blessing towards others.

Amen.

If you've been listening today and you just may have joined us online, and perhaps it was this is your first time where you're thinking these, you're thinking this way, and and these thoughts have been spinning in your own heart and saying, Man, I want this.

I want these benefits to be alive in me today.

Now I'm just gonna lead you in a prayer, and we take this opportunity each week to actually invite you to come into relationship with Jesus Christ, to come into relationship with him because he becomes the way, the truth, and the life.

He's that way to the Father.

He's the only way to the Father.

It's the only way that we have access to who God in heaven, our Father in Heaven, actually is.

And when you open your heart to him, it becomes filled with the blessings that he has intended for us.

So if you'd like to receive that today, I invite you to bow your head or and just pray after me or read off the screen today as we'll post this prayer so you can participate with me.

Lord Jesus, thank you for coming to earth.

I believe you died and you rose again so that I could be forgiven and have friendship with you.

And right now, I ask you to forgive me from all my sin and I let the past go.

I ask you to come into my life to be my savior.

I receive you today as my savior and to be my Lord.

Make me the person that you intended me to be.

Amen.

God bless you.

We love you.

Reach out to us at any point in time.

We would love to hear what God is doing in your life today.