Bless Every Home: Week 1, April 15, 2018

Oprah Winfrey is an America pop icon.  Her rags-to-riches story is remarkable.  Her long-time talk show was famous for generous giveaways.  While I don’t see eye-to-eye with her on theology and politics, I do admire her giving spirit.

 

One her most famous giveaways happened when all 276 members of her studio audience were blessed with a new Pontiac G-6 sedan. The cars carried an individual retail price tag of about $28,500. 

 

The last giveaway was to celebrate her 25 years as hostess of the show.  Every person in the audience was blessed with an 8-day, all-expense paid vacation to Australia!

 

Her favorite giveaway was in 2006.  Every audience member was blessed with a bank card for $1,000 and a camera.  Their assignment was to go home and within one week give that money away in a creative, charitable act and by so doing bless someone else.  The camera was to video their respective acts of kindness.  That giveaway unleashed some remarkable stories of generosity. 

 

One example was a lady from Illinois named Minnie.  She did not know whom she would bless with the $1,000.  Upon returning home she learned about a father of nine children who had brain cancer.  His name was John Newcomb.  She not only was prepared to give that John’s family the $1,000, she rallied other people and businesses in the city to help.  Within a week she had raised over $70,000.  They paid off the Newcomb’s mortgage, his medical bills, provided groceries, and a two-year college scholarship for their oldest son. 

 

Minnie was blessed to be a blessing.  And she complied with that intent!

 

Did you know that you have been blessed to be a blessing?  That is God’s heart and His missiological strategy.  He has blessed us so that we might be a blessing.

 

We are launching today a 4-part sermon series entitled, “Bless Every Home.”  Even more than that, what we’re truly hoping is to launch or augment a lifetime of missional living by each of us.

 

Please open your Bibles to Genesis 12 as we open our hearts to embrace God’s call on our lives to “Bless Every Home.”

Bless Every Home

Genesis 12:1-3, 8b

 

1. The requirementsfor God’s blessings

Now the Lordsaid to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you . . . (12:1).

 

1. Go from our oldlife
2. Go to our newlife

2. The realitiesof God’s blessings

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (12:2-3).

 

1. We receiveHis blessings
2. We relayHis blessings

3. The responsesto God’s blessings

. . . And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD(12:8b).

1. Make worship a priority
2. Make worship a practice