How to Be Blessable — Warren Wiersbe

Thank you, it was very nice of you to say all those things. Dr. Tozer was once introduced by a man who spent about 15 minutes going through his pedigree and his accomplishments, and Dr. Tozer stepped to the microphone and said, May the good Lord forgive that man for what he said.

Well, of course, a chill went through that huge congregation until Dr. Tozer then said, And may the good Lord forgive me for enjoying it so much. Well, I've enjoyed being here, my wife's enjoyed it, and I wish we could be with Brother Vines more often.

He does my soul good and you do my soul good. It just does me good to be with you friends. Some years ago, more than I care to count, I was in a late night prayer meeting. Sometimes they have those today, but back in the days of Youth for Christ, when we were all getting started and trying to reach a world, we used to have late night prayer meetings, and in that prayer meeting was a lawyer from Patterson, New Jersey, whose name was Jacob Stamm.

Now, that may mean nothing to you until I say that Jacob Stamm was the brother of John Stamm, the missionary who was martyred in China with his wife Betty in 1934. Jacob Stamm was a great prayer warrior, and we were praying, Oh God, bless this and bless that and bless something else.

You know, if you took the word bless out of our vocabulary, we couldn't talk. We couldn't pray. Then Jacob Stamm began to pray, and I'll not forget it. Oh God, he said, we have been asking you to bless this and bless that.

Becoming Blessable Through God's Blessing

Oh God, what we really need is make us blessable. I never forgot that. God yearns to bless, but he can only bless if we're blessable. Now, how can I be blessable? You see, God blesses us to make us a blessing.

He told that to Abraham, I'm going to bless you and make you a blessing. The greatest thing in the Christian life is not just to get a blessing, it's to be a blessing. Now, some people aren't. Some people in our churches don't even know how to spell the word.

They're grouches, they're sanctified obstructionists. They walk around looking like cheerleaders for an accident. As long as they're in the church, you don't need any fire extinguishers. They've got enough wet blankets to put anything out that may start.

I don't want to be that kind of person. I want to be a blessing. And God says, I'll give you a blessing if you'll be a blessing, but you've got to be blessable. Now, if you want to know how to be blessable, you find the answer in the first Psalm.

It's a Psalm we've all memorized. You memorize Psalm 1 and Psalm 23, and they do your soul good. Psalm 1, blessed is the man. That word man is generic, the human being, the person, the man, the woman, who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way, the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows, and that word means takes care of, the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Separation From the World

Now in verses 1, 2, and 3, the psalmist lays down three very simple conditions that I must meet if God is going to bless my life and my ministry. Wouldn't it be an awful thing to be the husband in a home and not be a blessing?

Wouldn't it be an awful thing to be a father in a family and not be a blessing? Instead of being a blessing, you're toxic, spreading trouble. Wouldn't it be an awful thing to be an officer in a church and not be a blessing?

Even worse, the pastor of a church and not be a blessing. Condition number one, if God is going to bless me, I have to be blessable by being separated from the world. God does not bless compromising Christians separated from the world.

Now you notice here that the trouble that this man gets into, gets into gradually. First he walks in the counsel of the ungodly. Then he stands in the way that sinners are going. And then he sits with the scornful, the people who mock God and mock the Bible and mock the church in Jesus Christ.

Separated from the world. Now before we get too far into this study, we better define what we mean by the world. He's not talking about the world of human beings because the world of human beings needs our witness.

We're the salt of the earth, we're the light of the world. My Lord Jesus was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, but he was the friend of publicans and sinners. Did you ever notice that Jesus attracted sinners, the Pharisees repelled them.

The sinners in Jesus' day did not get up in the morning and say, let's go find some Pharisees and enjoy ourselves. And we have the crazy idea that the farther unsaved people stay from us, the holier we are.

And my Bible tells me the more I'm like Jesus, the more I'll attract people because we are salt and salt makes people thirsty. By the world, the Bible means this whole system of things that pressures me to conform.

John puts it this way, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And he goes on to say the world is passing away.

Doesn't look like it, but it is. People say, boy, it's as sure as the world. There's nothing more unsure than the world. The world is passing away and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever.

Notice John's definition begins with the love of God and ends with the will of God. If you love me, you keep my commandments. Anything in my life that keeps me from enjoying God's love and doing God's will is worldly.

Anything in my life that keeps me from enjoying God's love and doing God's will is worldly. Even if it's good, it's worldly. Now, it's interesting to note, according to the minute testament, that I get into the world gradually.

Just like this man, he walked and then he stood and then he sat. For example, my Bible says in James chapter 4 verse 4,. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? There's a first step.

Get friendly with the world. I don't mean being a friend to publicans and sinners. I mean friendly with what the world stands for. Sort of neutral. Friendly with the world. Now, that gets dangerous because James chapter 1 verse 27 says,.

You keep yourself unspotted from the world. If I get friendly with the world, that is their counsel and their ways, I'm going to start being spotted by the world. That's what the world likes to do. The world likes to get its arms around Christians and spot them.

A spot here and a spot there. And then the next step is we love the world. Love not the world. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. And so I start by being friendly with the world, then I'm spotted by the world, and then I'm in love with the world.

And the next step is Romans 12, 2. Conform to the world. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed. This is what happened to Lot. Lot lifted up his eyes and he saw the city of Sodom, then he moved his tent towards Sodom, then he moved into Sodom, and then Sodom moved into him.

That's how it happened. But that's not the end. The sad part is 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 32. Condemned with the world. Everything Lot lived for went up in smoke. Everything. By the way, this is what happened to the Apostle Peter when he denied the Lord.

Peter's Gradual Compromise and Denial

Well, let's look at John chapter 18. I just want to show you something interesting. John chapter 18. They've arrested the Lord Jesus and taken him. And verse 15 of John 18 says,. And Simon Peter followed Jesus.

Now, he wasn't supposed to do that. I have read eloquent sermons on the text, and Peter followed afar off. Peter wasn't supposed to follow at all. The Lord Jesus said they're going to smite the shepherd, and the sheep will be what?

Scattered. In other words, men get out of here. In fact, when they arrested Jesus, he said, Let these go their way. And then Peter began to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, and he followed. Now, you notice verse 16.

Now, Peter's standing at the door, and in verse 18, he's standing by the fire because it was cold. I would remind you that on this same night, Jesus was sweating as though it were great drops of blood.

He wasn't cold, but Peter was. There are in the Bible only three temperatures. You're either cold, lukewarm, or hot. You were either hot or cold. And so Peter walked in the counsel of the ungodly, then he stands in the way of sinners.

If you turn back to the Gospel of Luke, you'll see where it all culminates. In Luke chapter 22, in verse 55, Peter sat among them. Now, he's sitting in the seat of the scornful. Oh, you say, that'll never happen to me.

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. If God is going to bless me, I've got to be blessable, and that means separated from the world. If there's one thing in my life that God is displeased with, if I'm following the counsel that's ungodly, if I'm on a way that is sinful, if I am sitting lovingly, enjoyably with the scorners, I'm in trouble, and God can't bless.

Separated from the world. Well, back to Psalm 1. The second condition is given to us in verse 2, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. Not only must I be separated from the world, I must be saturated with the Word.

Delight in and Saturation With God's Word

Every once in a while, young preachers stop me. It's one of the few advantages of being old. Younger preachers will stop you, and they'll say, Oh, one said to me recently, Brother, what's the one thing that you'd say to me as I begin my ministry?

I said the same thing that I say to myself every day. Without him, you can do nothing. Doesn't say without me, you're handicapped. Without me, you'll have a rough time. No, no. Zero. Goose egg. Without me, you can do nothing.

The most important part of our lives is the part that only God sees when we take time to be holy. Some years ago, a survey was made by one of the missionary magazines among missionaries and pastors to find out how much time they spent in their devotional life, reading the Word of God, meditating, praying.

The results were abysmal. Now, if you want to find somebody in the Bible who delights in the Word of God, the place to turn is Psalm 119. So let's do that. Just turn to Psalm 119. We're going to be moving in and out of the sections of Psalm 119.

I want you to notice first of all in Psalm 119 that wherever you find the word meditate, you're going to find the word delight. Verse 15. I will meditate on your precepts. Verse 16. I will delight myself in your statutes.

Verse 23. Your servant meditates on your statutes. Verse 24. Your testimonies also are my delight. Verse 47. And I will delight myself in your commandments, which I love. Verse 48. And I will meditate on your statutes.

Verse 77. Your law is my delight. Verse 78. I will meditate on your precepts. Now, the reason this is repeated is because I'm a little dense and God has to say it over and over again to get my attention.

You know what he's saying here? Whatever you delight in is what you think about. Now, some people, their imagination, their memory, their thinking is a sewer. They have a secret life of sin in their imagination, in their mind.

And that's because they delight in those things. Now, whatever I delight in, I will think about. And whatever I think about is going to die my mind. My thoughts impregnate my mind. I've had newly converted people say to me, you know, my biggest struggle is to clean out my mind.

One man said, when I got saved, I lost 75 of my vocabulary. Now, what I delight in is what I think about. Now, if I delight in the word of God, I'll think about it. I learned something when I was going to high school.

I enjoyed mathematics. And I took geometry and solid geometry and trigonometry. And often I couldn't get my homework, this puzzle, the problem would be just a little bit too much for me. And so I'd go to bed.

Wake up the next morning, and first thought I had was the solution to that problem. I've done this with preaching. Now, I'm not saying I dreamed I was preaching and woke up and found out that I was. I'm not saying that.

What I'm saying is, more than once, I have wrestled with a passage, and I've said, dear Lord, I've done the best I can. Now I'm going to let it incubate. And you go to bed, and you think about those verses.

You wake up the next morning, and you know what? When you wake up, click, click, click. There's the outline. This has happened to me so many times, I may write a book on it. Now, the psalmist is saying if you delight in the word of God, you think about it.

You meditate on it. The Hebrew word for meditate means to mutter. If you've ever watched our Orthodox Jewish friends, when they pray and when they read Scripture, they do it out loud. This is why the Ethiopian, Philip knew exactly where he was in the Scripture.

He was reading it out loud. When you go down to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, there they are with their Scriptures, and they're out loud muttering. That's why God said to Joshua, this word shall not depart out of your mouth.

So whatever I think about, I'm talking about, I'm muttering to myself in my mind. That's what I delight in. Now, if it's not the word of God, we're in trouble. Saturated with the word. Well, while we're in Psalm 119, we don't know who wrote this psalm.

Some say David. Some say Jeremiah. We don't know. But whoever he was, he was all wrapped up in the word of God. Look, for example, at verse 14. I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches.

Here's a man who would rather have the word of God than have money. He's strange. Look at verse 72. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver. Look at verse 127. Therefore, I love your commandments more than gold, yes, than fine gold.

Look at verse 162. I rejoice at your word as one who finds great spoil. That's amazing. I dare say in our average church today, if there is such a thing, most of us are so below average. If in our average church today we were to get up and say, folks, you can take a choice today.

You either go to Sunday school class and study the Bible, or if you leave, we'll give you a $20 bill. You won't set any records that Sunday. I once heard Vance Havner say, our churches are in such bad shape today that you have to backslide to be in fellowship with anybody.

That's not always the case. But it does frighten us. Here's a man who says, hey, you give me a choice between wealth and the word. I'll take the word. This is wealth that lasts forever. But I can think of a couple of men in the Bible who didn't make that choice.

One of them was Achan. Joshua said to the soldiers, don't you touch any of the spoil from Jericho. It belongs to God. Achan saw a Babylonian garment and some gold and some silver, and he said, well, if you get away with it, it's okay, and he wrapped it all up and went and hid it.

The next day the army went to fight, as you know, and lost the battle. But God couldn't bless them. They weren't blessable. And we still have that phrase, an Achan in the camp. He'd rather have the money than have the word of God, and he lost both, and he lost his life.

I'm thinking of King Saul. Samuel said to Saul, you go fight the Amalekites, they're the enemy of God, and wipe them out and destroy everything. Everything. Saul comes back and says, I have done the will of the Lord.

And just then Samuel heard, ooh, he said, what's that noise I hear? Well, he said, the people saved the best of the spoil. Now hear me, when God says some things to be destroyed, there is no best. The will of God is not a spectrum that goes from darkness to light and various shades.

No, no, no. And so Saul would rather have the wealth than have the word of God, and he lost his kingdom. He lost his crown. But here's a man who would rather have the word of God than have money. What does it cost us to have the word of God and delight in it?

God's Word as Spiritual Food

Well, this man has some other peculiarities. Verse 103. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Rather have the word of God than have food. You announce a Bible conference in the average congregation, you're fortunate if the custodian shows up and unlocks the door.

You announce a banquet? People are there. In fact, the word of God is the best food in the world as newborn babes desire the unadulterated milk of the word. 1 Peter 2 .2. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Matthew 4 .4. This word is our milk and this word is our honey. This word is our bread, it's our meat. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said, I wish I could feed you with meat, but I've had to feed you with milk.

This is a complete meal. And if I can't make a meal out of milk and bread and meat and honey, there's something wrong with my appetite. And one of the problems today is people don't have an appetite. We live in the era of fast food and people want spiritual fast food.

They want to read a verse and a poem and a prayer and say, I've had my devotional time. They want to stick a tape in and listen to something. Milk is pre-digested food. Nothing wrong with it, but it's pre-digested.

A lot of our people today don't have any teeth for handling bread and meat. They just haven't grown spiritually and grown some molars and some incisors. And so we try to give them dentures. It doesn't work.

Here's a man who says, if I had a choice between a banquet and the word of God, I'll take the word of God. I can think of a man who got in trouble because he rather had the honey. His name is Samson. Samson was a Nazarite who was never supposed to touch a dead body.

He was attacked one day by a lion. He just took the lion and killed the lion and threw the body off to one side. Came back sometime later and there was the corpse of the lion. But he heard, bzzz. Now it wasn't ringing in his ears.

Some bees had made a hive in the carcass of the lion. My book of Proverbs says, let your eyes look right on. But Samson began to look off to one side and he heard the bees and he saw the honey. Had to make a choice.

If he ate the honey, he was touching a dead body, defiling himself. He lost his consecration. But he got the honey. Samson wasn't stung by the bees. He was stung by the honey. And he lost his holiness because he'd rather have the honey than have the Word of God.

The world today is so shrewd. They put a little bit of honey in some literature. And our professors say, now you've got to read this book. There's some good stuff in it. But it's honey in the carcass of a lion.

It's sweetness surrounded by deadness. And worse than deadness, rottenness. Movie reviews. My, this is a great film. It's filthy. I'm wondering why I own a TV set. Well, I do know why. My wife likes to watch the weather.

She was raised on the farm and first thing farmers have to find out in the morning is what the weather is going to be. I couldn't care less. We live in a state that's too poor to have weather. We have to import it from Kansas and Colorado.

And the church today is feeding on honey in the carcass of a lion. And they're defiled. Oh, but this is the way the world does it. Who cares? Here's a man who's really peculiar. He'd rather have the Word of God than have wealth.

He'd rather have the Word of God than have food. In fact, he'd rather have the Word of God than have sleep. Now I'm really meddling. Verse 55, I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law.

Verse 62, At midnight I will rise to give thanks to you because of your righteous judgments. Girls, aren't you glad you aren't married to this fellow? He's padding around the house all night meditating on the Word of God.

147, I rise before the dawning of the morning and cry for your help, I hope in your Word. My eyes are awake through the night, watches that I may meditate on your Word. 164, Seven times a day I praise you because of your righteous judgments.

All day long, all night long, this man's in the Word of God. He clothes himself and feeds himself and rejoices himself and encourages himself in the Word of God. He'd rather have the Word of God than have sleep.

How much sleep do you dedicate to God so that you might spend time with the Word? Jesus got up early in the morning and prayed, talked to the Father and listened to the Word. I met God in the morning, wrote Ralph Spalding Cushman.

I met God in the morning when my day was at its best and His presence came like sunrise with a glory in my breast. All day long, His presence lingered. All day long, He stayed with me and we sailed in perfect calmness o 'er a very troubled sea.

The wind that seemed to drive them brought to me a perfect rest. And then I'd thought of other mornings with sorrow on my mind when I too had left my harbor with my pilot far behind. I think I've learned the secret.

Learned from many a troubled way. You must meet God in the morning if you would have Him all the day. But we don't. We don't. If God is going to bless us, we have to be blessable. That means separated from the world, saturated with the Word.

Being Planted by the Waters of the Spirit

I suppose the greatest Bible conference ever held on this earth was on the Mount of Transfiguration. Number two would be when Jesus taught those two Emmaus disciples. On the Mount of Transfiguration, you've got Peter and James and John and Moses and Elijah and Jesus.

You certainly have three of the finest speakers, Moses and Elijah and Jesus. And then the Father speaks from heaven. You have the greatest glory, the greatest subject. They discuss His exodus, His decease at Jerusalem.

The greatest subject you can discuss. And while all this was going on, you know what the disciples were doing? Sleeping. Sleeping through the glory. That's happened to us. We just couldn't start the day early enough to get into the Word of God and let God talk to us.

And then we wonder why God can't bless. He wants to bless. He longs to bless. But we're not blessable. We don't delight in the Word. That's a third condition that the psalmist gives us in verse 3. We must be situated by the waters.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither. And whatever he does shall prosper. That reminds me of Joseph. Whatever they did with Joseph, he prospered.

Make him the dishwasher in the kitchen, he prospers. Make him the steward of the house, he prospers. Put him in prison, he prospers. Situated by the waters. Now, in the Bible, water for drinking is a picture of the Holy Spirit.

Water for washing is a picture of the Word of God. Don't confuse the two. Here is the tree with its root system down into the hidden brooks of water, the hidden rivers, and drawing up the resources and growing and producing fruit.

Now, that's the picture of the godly person God can bless. A tree. One of our problems today is we have a generation of tumbleweeds. No roots. No fruits. No beauty. No dependability. People are picking churches today the way they pick restaurants or theaters.

What's going on? Situated by the waters. Fruitful. Dependable. Beautiful. Useful. Jesus one day cried out and said, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Out of his innermost being, he is referring to the Messiah.

Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Let me ask you, are you depending in your life and ministry on the Holy Spirit of God? Years ago, I heard A .W. Tozer make a statement. I think he was quoting somebody else.

But I don't remember the documentation. But Dr. Tozer said this, if God were to take the Holy Spirit out of this world, most of what the church is doing would go right on and nobody would know the difference.

That scares me. That scares me. Depending on the Holy Spirit of God. At chapter 1, you find 120 people, which is about the size of the average church in America today. 120 people doing everything churches do.

Praying, that's good. Eating, that's good. Electing officers, that's important. Studying the Bible, that's good. But they're enjoying all of this behind closed doors and touching nobody. And then 10 days later, the Holy Spirit came upon them and they became the church of the open door.

And 120 people ignited by the Holy Spirit witnessed and worshiped God and 3 ,000 people were saved. Now imagine if you're one of those 120 and now you're outnumbered by a bunch of new converts. How are you going to run the program?

Somebody comes to Peter and says, Peter, do you realize we've got 3 ,000 people who can outvote us? He says, don't worry about it. The Holy Spirit's in control. And you walk through the book of Acts and you discover whatever was done, the Holy Spirit did it.

And He used the most amazing people. The church in the book of Acts did not have all of the wonderful resources we have. They didn't have radio or television or fax machines or telephones, publishing.

They didn't have, excuse me, it's the schools that we have and we're thankful for them. I teach for four or five different schools. All these things. They didn't have budgets. He said, silver and gold have I none.

Didn't have budgets. Didn't have any buses. Didn't even have buildings. All the things that we have, they didn't have. But we still have the same Holy Spirit situated by the waters. And the interesting thing about a tree is when that root system goes down and takes root, the wind can blow.

The storm can come. That tree is resilient enough to bend. Some folks just can't take the storm. I don't know about this town or the town in which you live, but I know Lincoln, Nebraska where we live, we have a group of people I call the nomads.

The nomads. They get mad at the preacher, they say no, and off they go. The nomads. They're tumbleweeds situated by the waters. Everything in nature depends on hidden resources. Whether it's your flower garden or your vegetable garden or your arboretum, those roots go down to hidden resources.

If I'm going to be a tree for God's glory, I've got to depend on hidden resources. Get my roots into the water of the Holy Spirit and drink deeply of Him situated by the waters. Now, why does God bless us?

The Perishing Need the Fruit of a Blessable Life

Well, He tells us because there are people in this world who are ungodly. And they're like chaff. Quite a contrast between chaff and trees. Nobody picks up the Wall Street Journal and says, I wonder how chaff is doing this week.

I think I'll put a few thousand dollars into chaff. Call my broker. Nobody wants chaff. It blows away. It's done for. Did you notice what sin does to people? Well, in verse 1, sin controls people. Where they walk, where they stand, where they sit.

In verse 4, sin cheapens people, turns them into chaff. Have you ever noticed that the word that Jesus used for hell was the name for the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem? Oh, the devil says, do it my way, do it my way, you'll succeed.

Yeah, you'll succeed in ending up in the garbage dump. Sin cheapens people. I have yet to meet anybody who will say, I'm a better person because I cheated on my wife. I'm a better person because I lied to my boss.

No. So sin controls people in verse 1 and cheapens people in verse 4 and condemns people in verse 6, the way of the ungodly shall perish. What a strange psalm. It starts with blessed and ends with perish.

But don't you ever forget that word perish. You can almost hear the hiss of hell in that word perish. You know why God blesses us? Because there are people out there who are perishing. It's our job to reach them.

Here's the tree. All the unsaved people in the world are hungry and they're living on substitutes. You can go to the drugstore and buy sleep. You can't buy rest. You can't buy peace. You can go to the theater and buy entertainment.

You can't buy joy. You can make a phone call and buy lust. You can't buy love. The people out there are living on substitutes. We've got the real thing. And He says, now look, you just produce fruit and people are going to come along and say, man, what does that woman have?

What does that man have that I don't have? And by the way, the tree doesn't eat the fruit. The tree supplies the fruit for other people to eat. And we are here to say to this perishing generation, we've got the real thing.

Come on. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Well, we must close by thinking about another question. Why is it that God can bless people like this? Here we have three conditions to be blessable. Separated from the world.

Now that makes good sense. Saturated with the Word. That makes good sense. Situated by the waters. Now that makes good sense. The life of God flowing through us. But why is it that this kind of a person is blessable?

Becoming Like Jesus to Receive God's Trust

Well, the answer I think is rather plain. This kind of a person is like the Lord Jesus. Remember what Jesus said? Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Jesus said, I'm the way.

His delight is in the law of the Lord. Jesus said, I'm the truth. He shall be like a tree. Jesus said, I'm the life. When you're like this, you're like Jesus. And when you're like Jesus, God looks down and says, hey, you're like my beloved son.

I'm well pleased with you. I can bless you. I can trust you with blessing. Years ago, Robert Murray McShane, that great Scottish preacher whose life you ought to read, The Life of Robert Murray McShane by Andrew Bonar, one of the godly men.

Died before he was 31 years old, I believe. Godly man. He wrote a letter to a missionary friend and this is what he wrote. Remember, it is not great talent that God blesses, but great likeness to Jesus.

Would you remember that? All across this country, God is using the most unusual instruments. One of the greatest choirs in this country is led by a woman who can't even read music. Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.