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Jeremiah 35:18-19 (11/4/21)

Increasing Your Influence

November 4, 2021

* “Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less.” -John Maxwell. * Influence - “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something.” * God made us to be influencers - that’s why He calls us salt. * But we can grow in influence, not just the number of people we influence, but the depth of that influence. * If you want to fgrow in influence, it starts with HONOR - honoring God and the authority He places in your life. * Difference between honor and obedience. * Honor includes obedience but goes even further. * You can teach an animal to obey, but not to honor. * DEFINITIONS: * Obedience - “to conform or comply with; to follow the commands or guidance of.” * It’s about placing yourself under the jurisdiction of another so that individual now takes responsibility for you. * Obedience shifts the responsibility from us to the one we obey. * Honor - “showing esteem and respect to a person of superior standing.” * It’s about placing the opinion of an authority on a balancing scale with your own or others and giving them more weight. * We honor God when we put more weight on His opinion than that of people. * Obedience is right behavior based on healthy fear - it comes from the outside-in. * A command is issued and you obey so you don’t get the punishment attached. * Obedience is compulsory. * Honor is right behavior based on respect and reverence - it springs from the inside-out. * You don’t need a command because you already know what your authority wants and likes. * Honor is voluntary. * KEY - when you obey out of honor you have God’s blessing. * EX: My dad asks me to do something - I don’t have to obey (he can’t punish me because he doesn’t have that authority). * But if I do obey I do it out of respect for him - this is honor. * When you honor your parents, God blesses it (Exodus 20:12). * When you honor God, He honors you (1 Samuel 2:30 - “…he who honors me, him will I honor …” * How? Lots of ways - one of them is by becoming a greater influence than you are today. * To show us what honor looks like, God used the RECHABITES. * Backstory - the Israelites treated God’s commands like they were optional. * They dishonored God in many different ways - all sorts of bad stuff. * God gives a word picture - he sent Jeremiah to tempt the Rechabites to drink alcohol. * 250 years prior, their great great granddad Jonadab told them no to drink wine - he wanted them to be set apart even from the Israelites. * He did this out of a spirit of honor to God - and his kids throughout the centuries obeyed. * So Jonah makes the offer, and they * Vs 6 - Jonadab no longer had authority to punish them, but they honored him by their obedience. * Vs 12-14 - God’s response. * Vs 18-19 - the reward - INFLUENCE! * They weren’t priests or levites, but they would hold a position of influence for God in Israel. * Do you want to grow your influence? Then honor God out of reverence for Him and let Him build you as He sees fit.

Psalms 107:33-38 (3/27/24)

March 27, 2024 • Benham Brothers • Psalm 107:33–38

* When we make our work worship, God responds favorably.   * He opens up the land - it yields to us!      * He blesses our work.     * Remember two curses:      * The curse of Adam - work would be hard, but still fruitful.      * The curse of Cain, however - work would be hard and unfruitful.        * Cain didn’t offer his best to God.        * His work wasn’t worship.    * If you do your own thing your own way, you run the way of Cain.      * You work hard but you don’t feel fulfilled in the work you do.    * EX: Mowing lawns - I knew I wouldn’t be there long, but it was fulfilling.  * Backstory:    * This psalm exhorts God’s people to give thanks for God’s gracious act of redeeming his people from Babylonian exile and gathering them back in the land.    * It talks about the difficulties people went through on their way back to Jerusalem…      * …and about what happened to the land before they left: * vs 33-34 - “He turned rivers into a desert, flowing springs into thirsty ground, and fruitful land into a salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who lived there.”   * God can do whatever He wants with the place we inhabit.    * If we work with a heart to please Him, He will “bless the land.”   * 70 years later… * vs 35-36 - “He turned the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into flowing springs; there he brought the hungry to live, and they founded a city where they could settle.”   * The land itself was ready for their return.    * Matthew Henry - “The goodness of God has often mended the barrenness of the soil, and turned a wilderness, a land of drought, into water-springs.”    * They got to work, and look how God blessed:  * vs 37-38 - “They sowed fields and planted vineyards that yielded a fruitful harvest; he blessed them, and their numbers greatly increased, and he did not let their herds diminish.”   * Imagine trying to dig a well in the middle of the desert - not gonna happen.    * Now think about it in the middle of a field located between two rivers.    * God is saying that if you worship Him and obey His commandments, what was once a dry land will be turned into a fertile place.      * EX: REO space in real estate.  * Sometimes the land doesn’t yield because you haven’t made your work worship.    * But other times the land doesn’t yield because God wants to move you somewhere else.  * Either way, we do Godly work, and God will respond. 

Psalms 108:1-13 (3/27/24)

March 27, 2024 • Benham Brothers • Psalm 108

* The cultural seems to be getting worse by the day.    * Truth is trampled in the streets.    * Those who stand for truth are treated as criminals.    * We’re in the middle of a major spiritual battle.  * So what do we do?    * This Psalm will show us.  * Stephen Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, says, “Begin with the end in mind.”    * Applied to this Psalm, we need to read the last verse first:  * vs 13 - “With God we will gain the victory, and he will trample down our enemies.”   * This Psalm gives us a glimpse at the heart of a warrior and how David roused himself into fighting God's battles.  * 1) He praised God (vs 1—6).    * He started out by praising God for Who He is.     * This roused in David's heart a strong devotion to the mighty God, a God Who could never be defeated.   * 2) He listened to God (vs 7-9).    * He heard God speak, and remembered God's Word that Israel was His.   * 3) He rose up to conquer (vs 10-13).    * David praised God and called to mind how mighty He is.    * He remembered what God had said in His Word.    * He then rose to tread down his enemies.  

Isaiah 39:6-8 (3/20/24)

March 20, 2024 • Benham Brothers • Isaiah 39:6–8

- God gives grace to the humble, but He resists the proud (James 4:6).  - Humble people have God as a partner.  - Prideful people get God as an opponent.  - Backstory - Hezekiah was a good king, but he got sick and was going to die.  - So he prayed and asked God for healing.  - God responded and gave him another 15 years.  - Then Hezekiah got comfortable.  - This grew into pride.  - A sense of desperation keeps you humble.  - The King of Babylon sent messengers to him with gifts.  - Hezekiah showed off in front of them - displaying all his wealth.  - Pride is often revealed by your need for approval from others.  - Isaiah rebuked him for his pride.  - vs 5-7 - “Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: 6 The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. 7 And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”  - What if someone told you this would happen to your kids?  - How did Hezekiah respond?  - vs 8 - “The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.”  - When pride enters your heart, discernment disappears.  - The king no longer had good reasoning capacity because his eyes had been shut.  - Pride does this - it blinds you to wisdom.  - Prideful people do not think generationally.  - KEY - either choose humility on your own or be humiliated.  - Every decision of a prideful person moves them closer to humiliation.  - It’s a principle as true as gravity.  - Notice the punishment for his pride. It was two-fold:  - 1) Possessions - All the stuff he showed the dudes from Babylon would end up in wicked hands.  - God is in the business of transferring wealth.  - He either transfers it to the righteous or the other way around.  - Choose to be in the “right relationship” with God, and what you have will be yours forever, not to be possessed by the wicked.  - 2) Posterity - He would lose his kids to the enemy, and his sons would be emasculated. (vs 7)  - Pride ruins families.  - If you are a prideful parent, you will lose your kids. - Is anything worth losing your kids?  - Please don’t be prideful!