In this episode, Bill English talks about how learning to live under God’s blessing is so important to becoming free from the bondage of sin.
[00:00:07.510] – Bill English
And welcome back. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. Today we are in a topic called Blessings in the Bible. This is the 6th of an eight part series, Becoming Free From the Bondage of Sin, which is really chapter two in my book, a Christian Theology of Business Ownership. And before we get started, then, I’d like to invite you to head over to Bibleandbusiness.com, which is my website.
[00:00:34.840] – Bill English
This is a site built for Christians who own for profit businesses and you can download the slides for this video series in PDF format. You can sign up for one of my CEO groups which I hold live over Zoom every six weeks on a Saturday morning. You can read articles, listen to the podcasts, and even participate in our surveys. And when you do that, you’ll see the results right away of what’s happening in each of those surveys. So I invite you to come over to Bibleandbusiness.com and see if I can be of help to you in your business.
[00:01:09.150] – Bill English
So I’d like to start with a couple of general introduction comments right now. The first one is this there are general and specific blessings to which Scripture points that have an impact today on our daily lives. Scripture outlines certain blessings that occur as a result of certain actions that we take, and we’re going to illuminate some of those in just a few moments. But we also need to bear in mind that becoming free from the bondage of sin is really a prerequisite, so to speak, to living under God’s blessings. And I put it this way one of the ways we can become free from the bondage of sin is to live under God’s blessing.
[00:01:52.090] – Bill English
But there’s both a cart and a horse here, and we have to get the horse in front of the cart, and that horse is becoming free from the bondage of sins so that we can live under God’s blessings. So let’s start by defining what a blessing is, and then let’s look at a couple of verses that deal with blessings. First of all, what is a blessing? A blessing is really the opposite of a curse. So by comparison, if a curse makes it more and more difficult to achieve less and less, then a blessing makes it easier and easier to achieve more and more with the same or similar effort.
[00:02:31.460] – Bill English
Here’s a couple of verses that will illustrate that. Proverbs 1022 the blessing of the Lord brings wealth without painful toil for it. In Deuteronomy 28, verses one and two, if you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, then the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God. So when we live under God’s blessing, he brings us wealth without painful toil.
[00:03:08.880] – Bill English
Now, the Hebrew there actually means that the wealth that God brings to us is not accompanied by the trouble that would come with wealth if it was gained by nefarious or unrighteous ways. You’ll see this time and again in Proverbs that those who become wealthy through sin, through deceit, through evil ways, there’s always a lot of pain and hardship and really curses that come with that wealth. And what the sage is saying here in Proverbs is that when we live under God’s blessing, the wealth that God gives us will come without all the trouble that can accompany the wealth that comes through unrighteous ways. But Deuteronomy really makes it clear that God’s blessing only comes when we are careful to obey his laws and commands. This is why those who are cavalier about holiness probably are not living under God’s blessing.
[00:04:07.380] – Bill English
They’re probably experiencing some hardships. We cannot be cavalier about obeying God and then expect to live under his blessings. This is one of the real problems that I have with the Prosperity Gospel movement is that they just emphasize that God is this cosmic ATM machine that if we put money in, we get a lot more money back out. And there’s really very little teaching, if any, tied to our holiness and our sanctification before the Lord. We need to carefully follow God’s commands.
[00:04:43.410] – Bill English
We need to be careful in following God’s commands if we are going to live under God’s blessings. This is why becoming free from the bondage of sin is so important. When you’re under the bondage of sin, you’re not obeying God’s commands, at least in some form or fashion. You’re just not. And so becoming free from the bondage of sin enables us to carefully follow God’s commands and that enables us to live righteously before Him and that enables us to live under his blessings.
[00:05:18.710] – Bill English
Now, there are specific things that the Bible points to that we can do to bring God’s blessings into our lives. The Scripture references for what you see on this slide are found in my book. I didn’t put them here on the slide, but there’s a whole host of things bearing children, lending to others, being generous towards others, celebrating the presence of God, not charging a fellow believer interest when loaning money, giving generously to the poor, obeying God. All of these things can bring God’s blessings into our lives. Taking delight in God’s laws, taking our refuge in God, confessing our sin and trusting in the Lord, having regard for the weak, fearing God and pursuing and finding wisdom.
[00:06:03.430] – Bill English
That’s another way of saying being careful to obey God and taking delight in God’s laws, waiting patiently on the God when his timing is different than what ours is, right? Hungering and thirsting for righteousness, these are the kinds of things that can place us under God’s blessing and begin to remove us under the curses that come when we disobey God. So look, if the management of your company is characterized by one or more of these things, then it’s likely you’re living under one or more blessings from God. And you’ll find yourself working hard, but you’ll find yourself achieving more than probably what you ought to. Even some of your plans that may not be fully baked, they might be what I call here less than stellar plans.
[00:06:52.680] – Bill English
They’re going to produce quite well for you, and you may engage in a particular direction, and you may not know exactly how you’re going to be successful, but you know, God is leading you to take this on. And as you go down that path, god will show you the ways to become successful. And people will kind of look at you and say, man, it’s almost as if everything that he or she touches turns to gold. And in reality, it’s really not so much about what you do that turns everything to gold as it is the generosity of God which turns everything to gold for you. But it’s for his glory and his honor.
[00:07:31.390] – Bill English
God wants to bless us. He wants to see us living under his blessing. But we have to do our part to get there. We have to shun evil, engage in righteous behavior, and be careful to follow his laws and commands. So the lesson that we’ve learned today is this the blessings are real, and they advance our ability to steward well that which God has entrusted to us.
[00:07:56.410] – Bill English
In our next episode, part seven, we’re going to look at the practical considerations for becoming free from the bondage of sin. I hope you’ll join me for that. And thank you for joining me today. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. I hope you go out and make it a great day.
[00:08:13.020] – Bill English
Take care.
[00:08:33.260] – Bill English
Thank you.