Build & Bless - Part 4

Hello Life Church! Welcome to part 4 of our vision series for 2022: Build & Bless. We are excited about what God is doing through our church and are expectant for all that is to come this year.

Thank you for taking the time to go through this content with your group, we pray that it is a great blessing to you.

In this session we look at one of our core values at Life Church: “Blessed to be a Blessing".

Written notes

Today we’re going to be unpacking the saying we have here at Life Church, that we are Blessed to be a Blessing. I’m sure you’ve heard it before and if not then you’re about to learn about it anyway.

We are blessed to be a blessing. 

We are so blessed aren’t we? We are blessed to live here in New Zealand, for the most part, this is a great country, we have access to clean water, and education. We are blessed to have access to food, a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs. I mean the person next to you is so blessed to be sitting next to you! I mean come on they should be so grateful!

And it’s good to take stock every now and then and be grateful for the things we have.

But those are just material blessings. They are not the full scope of a blessed life.

We are truly blessed because we have Jesus. We have a relationship with Him, we are set free from our sin, our debt is paid, and an eternity with him in heaven is guaranteed.

We have the Holy Spirit with us right now, leading us into all truth. No matter what I go through, I have the presence of God with me in all things. We get to know the fullness of God’s love for us in our lives. Know the unconditional love of our Father. We are so blessed. 

And the mark of correct building is blessing. Blessed to be a blessing. As Carl put it: a lifestyle of blessing shows a correct kingdom perspective. Because I can see how blessed I really am.

This is why maintaining an attitude of gratitude is so vital. Gratitude releases generosity.  Gratitude says that I can see that regardless of what might be going on there is still so much I can give thanks for!

When I truly understand how blessed I am, then the natural result of that is worship. When I truly understand the blessing I have received from God, not just material blessing, but the understanding that Jesus has paid it all for me, that I am made right in God’s sight. That my record of wrongs is destroyed.

The overflow of that in my heart is worship to God, and when I bless people it is worship.

So I’ve got some discussion questions now for you to get into:

And the first is a simple one but is actually quite powerful because maintaining an attitude of gratitude sounds good, but it’s not always easy. 

So to get started share with the group: What can you thank God for right now? I know there will be varying situations in the group, but there is always something that we can give thanks for. Maybe even list a few things if you can.

And then question 2: What is your perspective when it comes to blessing in your life? Do you find it easy or challenging to live with an attitude of gratitude?

Now I want to talk about a counter-cultural way of living. 

The Bible tells us that we are in this world, but we are not of this world. Meaning that even though we are surrounded by different ways of thinking, all sorts of different lifestyles and expectations. We operate from a different perspective. We operate from a heavenly perspective, we might be present in this world, but we live differently from its customs. 

We live counter to the culture of the day. And one of the cultures in our day right now is Materialism. 

Materialism in essence is the value of material things. The Oxford dictionary puts it like this: the belief that money, possessions and physical comforts are more important than spiritual values

In other words, life is all about what I can get, it’s about me and my comfort, it’s about gaining as much stuff as possible and that will make me happy. And when we look at our culture today we can see that manifest in so many different ways.

But for us as followers of Jesus, the lifestyle he calls us to live is radically different. It’s counter-cultural. 

Here’s how the early church lived it out from Acts 4:32 NLT

All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.
Acts of the Apostles 4:32

Having had their lives transformed by the Holy Spirit, they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. It goes on to say that they shared their resources to give to those who were needy among them, even to the point of selling their land or homes in order to see the kingdom grow. Completely counter to the culture of the day.

The revelation they had, was that everything we receive in this life is actually a blessing from God, not a right.

What we have is not ours anyway. Nothing we have belongs to us, in fact, Paul the Apostle says “I have become a slave to Jesus Christ.” A slave has no possessions, anything he receives is a blessing from his master.

So it is not ours anyway, we have given up those rights when we accept Jesus. My finance is not mine, my possessions are not mine, my time is not mine, my gifts and talents are not mine. God gives us these blessings because he loves us, but we are called to use those things to relentless bless this world.

And as we bless others, we reveal the character of God to people.

This is how we build, we are here to build God’s kingdom, not the world’s. So the way we build is counter to what the world is building. 

So before we move on to our final section, I’ve got a discussion question for you again:

If you lived as if everything you had wasn’t yours, how might your life be different?

For the final section of the video I interview Jeremiah where he shares about our La Vida Youth Trust and how they outwork “Blessed to be a Blessing”

Thank you for taking part in this study, I pray it was a blessing to your group. Take some time to pray as you finish.