We are watching and some of us are adhering to the new fad among the evangelicals, the seeker-friendly church. Someone called it the zip code ministry. Those churches try to do everything that they can to attract seekers, people that are hunting or shopping for a church.
Most of us have been there and done that. At a certain point in our lives we thought that if we had a good community where we could plug in, our families would be better, and our personal lives would improve. We thought that the community would make the difference.
Sometimes we think that if the community has the blessings of the Lord our family will receive some and we will get some. We are wrong! This is not the way that God planned. He starts with the individual and goes to the family and then to the community.
After you have the blessing of the Lord in your personal life and in your family life, then and only then, will you have the blessings of the Lord in your community.
3 – IN THE COMMUNITY LIFE – Let us see how the blessings of the Lord come to the community. In Psalm 128 we have these verses: “[5] May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem, [6] and may you live to see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel.”
A – The Temple is the starting point – The psalmist helps us to understand that the blessings come from Zion, where the Temple was built. We must realize that the blessings of the Lord will come to the community from the Temple.
B – It involves your whole life – The Second thing that we must know is that the blessings will come from the Temple but it will involve our whole life. Some times we have a good season in our lives and we think that that will be enough to bring the blessings of the Lord. We are wrong. The psalmist says, “all the days of your life.” That is the goal and purpose for us.
C – It will produce fruits – This kind of community life will bring fruits in our lives. They are the fruits that come from the blessings of the Lord. Let us look at some of these fruits:
I – Watching the community prosperity – The first fruit is that the community will prosper in every area. We will see good things in every aspect of our lives.
II – Watching your posterity – We will grow old and see our posterity grow. We will see our children, grandchildren, and some of us will see great grand children. This is an extraordinary blessing.
III – Peace – Finally we will have peace in the community. We really could use some of that right now, in our communities; the problem is that this is the end of a long and sometimes hard process. It is possible, but it is not always easy.
As you can see the blessings of the Lord start in our personal life, reaches our family, and goes to our community. Every one of us is responsible to bring these blessings to our communities and our families.
If our community does not have prosperity, growth, and peace it is because the blessings of the Lord are not flowing from our families and our personal lives.
Every one of us has work to do, to be an instrument in bringing the blessings of the Lord upon our family and our community.
Let us do it!
Have a blessed week,
Pastor Lucas