Leading The Way

Dr. Michael Youssef: God is basically saying to every one of us: Get me at the center of your family. Get me at the center of your finances. Get me at the center of your decision-making process. Get me at the center of your business. Get me at the center of your time. Get me at the center of everything that you see with your eyes and you hear with your ears. And watch how I'm going to bless you. I'll take care of the details. Just focus on the center.

Guest (Male): Is your home a place of safety and comfort, or have the stresses of life moved in and chased away peace and blessing? Today on Leading the Way Audio, encouragement coming out of Valentine's Day weekend as Dr. Youssef invites you to hear challenging words in Psalm 128 to align your household with the God of the universe and experience his blessing. Listen with me now as longtime pastor and international Bible teacher Dr. Michael Youssef begins today's teaching called "The Characteristics of a Blessed Home."

Dr. Michael Youssef: There can be no doubt that the word "blessed" or "blessing" is one of the richest words in the English language. It is a wonderful word. It is a comforting word. It's an assuring word. It's a great word. And who doesn't want to be blessed?

In Psalm 128, the psalmist tells us what we can do to be the recipients of the blessing of God. The most important step is to reverence God. Look at verse one. It says, "Blessed are all who fear the Lord." Sure, he's primarily addressing the fathers and the husbands, but he generalizes it by saying in verse one, "Blessed are all." The application is for everybody. The blessing is for everyone.

Blessed are all who fear the Lord and walk in his way. In fact, he's saying that anyone who reveres the Lord, anyone who seeks after God's wisdom, anyone whose heart is after God's heart, anyone who is God-focused in all of their life, anyone who obeys the will of God with gladness will be blessed, whether you're young or old, man or woman.

And the psalmist, of course, is going to show us in a minute the scope of that blessing. And it's going to bless you just to know the scope of the blessing. I'm going to come to that in a minute. But he's beginning by letting us know that you cannot even think of being in that land of blessing when you place God at the margins of your life.

You can't even begin to think of being blessed if you place him at the peripheries of your life—when he gets the crumbs of your money, when he gets the leftover of your tired hours of the day, when he gets the fallen pieces of your talent. Some people, I'm sure, are saying in their mind, "Well, how can I get into that land of blessing?"

Well, first of all, he said there has to be a profound reverence for God. The fear of the Lord always trips our modern generation because the word "fear" causes you to think you've got to be terrified of God. If you're not terrified of God, you're not living well. No, no. He is saying that God's reverence has to be absolutely central in our lives.

When the reverence for God occupies your thought pattern, when the reverence for God is your lifestyle, when reverence for God is reflected in your financial ledger, when reverence for God is reflected in your use of time and the hours, when reverence for God receives the talents and the gifts he's given you, then you can expect to be in the land of blessing.

I want you to hear me right on this one. It's very important. God is basically saying to every one of us: Get me at the center of your family. Get me at the center of your finances. Get me at the center of your decision-making process. Get me at the center of your business. Get me at the center of your time. Get me at the center of everything that you see with your eyes and you hear with your ears. And watch how I'm going to bless you.

I'll take care of the details. Just focus on the center. Clear up the fuzzy areas in your viewfinder. Get rid of that fuzzy thinking about me and my kingdom from your lens. Focus your lens on the circle in the center, and everything else will work through me. Someone might say, "Well, Michael, I walked with God for a while, but I'm not blessed. I placed him at the center of my life for a season, and I got into trouble instead of being blessed. I sought to please God for a period of time, and I did not prosper."

It will never cease to amaze me how some people think in their mind that they can trick God. They really do. And I'm telling you, they do it innocently. It's just false belief systems that have penetrated into their minds and their hearts, and they do it innocently. But they really think they can trick God—trick him to get what they want and then kind of, "Okay, we'll remember him in the by-and-by."

And they often deal with God the way children deal with their parents. They will do what they think their parents want them to do until they get what they want. If the parent says, "There is no ice cream until you clean your room," they walk to the room like molasses flowing uphill. Have you ever seen molasses flowing uphill?

And they do some sort of a job cleaning the room, and they come back. "Okay, I did it." Why? They want the ice cream, right? So they muddle through obedience just to get the ice cream. Now listen, that's how some people deal with God. They really do. "God, I want the ice cream. God, give me the ice cream. God, I need the ice cream. And God, by the way, I'm going to even tithe my money. And God, I'm going to go to church on the regular basis. And you know what, God? I'm even going to go Wednesday night prayer meeting." Wow, I mean, that's something.

Really? You want that ice cream so badly? "Yeah, I'll do whatever it takes." Here's a question: What do you do once you get your ice cream? Think about that. What happens after you get the ice cream? Beloved, please listen to me. That is not how God works. That's why I tell you day after day, spend time in the Word of God. Why? So that you understand the character of God, how he worked in the life of others and how he works in our life, that you know him so that you might know his character.

That you might know that you can't trick him. You cannot do this with the God of power and might. Pagans do that with their gods. They try to appease their gods to get what they want. But our God knows our thoughts before we think them. Our God knows our motives before we do. Our God knows our desires, even our hidden feelings.

God knows what you will do once he answers your prayers. Ah, but when you get him right at the center, when you get him in that focus all of the time, not just when you want the ice cream, not just when you need his hand to work in your life, not just when you want something from him, not just for the period of time when you're really desperate for him—no, no, no. When he is at the focus all of the time, the blessings will take care of themselves. They really will.

Make the reverence of God to be your overall focus. Make the reverent trusting of God to be your focus. Make the obedience of his will to be part and parcel of your lifestyle, and everything will take care of itself. There are no techniques. There's no "do these things and you get what you want" and all that stuff. That's paganism that's invaded the church.

Question: When you get God precisely at the center, what should you expect God to do? We're talking about the long haul. I'm talking about change of lifestyle. Look at the Psalm. He said, "You will eat the fruit of your labor." Now listen, this is a biggie, okay? This is a biggie here. He did not say you're going to sit on your blessed assurance and do nothing, and God's going to just dump it from heaven on you. That's not here.

He's saying that you will be blessed by your hard work. Your hard work is going to be enjoyable. Your hard work is going to be productive. There's more. "Blessings and prosperity will be yours." God is going to bless the work of your hand. And he says, if you fear the Lord, if you obey the Lord, if the Lord is the center in your lifestyle, then nothing you're going to do is going to be useless.

Your labor will be fruitful. Your projects will prosper. Your family will thrive. Does it mean you're not going to face tough times? Does it mean you're not going to get difficulties along the way? Of course not. Do you have problems? Welcome to the human race. We all have them. But you know what? When the Lord is at the center, even the difficulties in your life, even the problems in your life are going to make you stronger and not make you cave in.

In fact, when God is at the center, even your problems will be turned around in the economy of God, and he turns them into blessings. I've seen it happen in my life. I know it happened in many of your lives. In fact, many of you are familiar with my testimony, and I often repeat it for the glory of God. Back when I started the church, I was the only pastor here, and I was running haggard. I mean from early hours to late nights. I was going day in and day out, seven days a week. I was going, going, going, going.

I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was ministering. You say, "What's wrong with that?" Listen to me carefully, please. I let the ministry become the focus and not the Lord. Some of you in ministry, some of you are serving, be very careful. Be very careful lest your serving and your ministry become your idol, like it was in my life. God is a jealous God. But listen, when he's at the center, your ministry will be blessed ten-thousandfold.

Not the ministry, but him. And when back then, in the late 1980s, I made a pledge to the Lord and I kept that vow to the Lord when I changed my lifestyle of placing him first and foremost at the center and not the ministry, I can testify to you, to the glory of God, that the things that used to take me weeks or months to do were taking me hours. Why? That's how God blesses. It is the quality, not the quantity. God can bless the little you have in such a way.

And you don't have to have my word on it. You have God's word on it. In fact, the prophet Haggai, in chapter one, verse six, is talking about those who do not fear the Lord, those who do not place God at the center of their life, but they're making buckets of money. He said basically they keep stuffing that money in a bag. And the problem is they can't get blessed. They can't get blessed and stuffing the bag, can't get blessed. Why? He said there's a hole at the bottom.

The more they pile in, the more it goes out. The more they put into it, the less blessed they are. Please hear me right. When the center is right, when God is at the center, he blesses. He blesses your coming and your going. He blessed, the money is blessed, the time is blessed, the family is blessed. Joy and happiness become your companions, and contentment, regardless of your circumstances, will be your lot. God never forsakes the righteous. He never forsakes the one whose God is at the center of their life.

Listen, I know the Lord doesn't give us what we want. Sometimes he does, but not often. Oh, but he always gives us what we need. He always gives us what we need. The apostle Paul said, "My God shall supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

It's not a secret that happiness is an elusive commodity in our culture. Oh, people spending their lives and spending their money to try to get happiness, but they can't find it. Think of it as a plant, and that plant can only grow in one type of soil, and only one. You put it in this soil, it dies. You put it in this soil, it dies. Only one soil in which that plant of happiness will flourish and grow and enlarge its circle.

What is that soil? That focus on God, that circle in your viewfinder. When the center is right, happiness will dwell in you permanently. It will dwell in your family permanently. Regardless of your circumstances, regardless of the ups and downs of life, it's going to dwell in you. Second blessing: He said the person who has the center right has a fruitful and joyful wife. I know you've heard the cliché: If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Well, I tell you, I discovered a book online recently. Guess what the title of that book is: "If Daddy Ain't Happy, Nobody Cares."

My beloved friends, just listen to me, because the Bible is saying that happiness in the family, mama and the children, is channeled from God through daddy. Listen, you know my heart. I ache for the single moms who are raising up kids by themselves. I pray for you regularly that God would give you double portion of his blessing and his strength. But for the men who are listening to me, please listen. God chooses to bless your wife and bless your children through you. And you do not want to be a hindrance to God's blessing.

We're going to see in a moment, not only the family be blessed through the father and the husband, but the entire nation will be blessed. The children will be like olive shoots around the table, olive trees. Did you know that olive trees grow best in hard, rocky soil? Did you know that? The roots go deep, finding their way into the crags and through the tough soil.

There's another thing about olive trees that you need to know: They are very slow-growing. As a matter of fact, you can't even see berries on them for the first seven years. And even then, those berries are not good. Only between 10 to 15 years would you get good berries from these olive trees. They're slow-growing. But an olive tree will continue to be extremely productive for many years to come.

Dads and moms, will you listen to me? I know firsthand of how tough and how difficult and how hard the first few years in children's life. I know that. My wife knows that. We both know that. Each stage has its own challenges. But young moms and dads, let me encourage you: It gets better. It gets better. When you persevere in disciplining them, when you persevere in instructing them, when you persevere in pruning them, when you persevere in loving and caring for them, when you persevere in instructing them, the long-term results are wonderful.

Just like an olive tree. It takes long time to grow. Oh, but once it takes, it's a blessing. Believe me, it pays off in the end. Perseverance pays off. Wonderful beyond measure. Susanna Wesley had 19 children. Yeah, I know some of you are groaning just at the thought. I mean, I can't even imagine that. She instructed them, rebuked them, directed them as often as 20 times each.

And she used to say that if I don't do it the 20th time, the first 19 could be wasted. And how God honored her. Two of her children transformed the world for Jesus Christ: John and Charles. But here's the great news. I always leave you with great news. The properly rooted olive tree lasts for 20 generations. 20 generations. In fact, the well-established olive tree doesn't need cultivation once it takes off. It doesn't need supervision. It literally takes care of itself.

Ah, but not the vineyard. Not the vineyard. You neglect the vineyard for one season and it could die. You see, it's not by accident that the Word of God says the wife is like a vineyard and the children like olive tree. Men, listen to me: Your wife at any age and every age and continuously needs your nurturing, needs your encouragement, needs your support, needs your loving, caring attitude toward her all the time.

But when your children grow and they take off, you don't have to worry about them. They will live forever. They'll take off and they will live forever. But if the vineyard is neglected, it would soon die. Not the olive tree. That is why the scripture said, "Train your child in the way he should go." It did not say "train your child in the way he wants to go" or "she wants to go." That's what we do in our culture today. The parents are following the children. But he said, "You train them in the way they should go, and when they're old they will not depart from it."

Something else I want to tell you about olive tree: An olive tree is an evergreen tree. It's evergreen. If it sits right in the right soil, it will display its beauty no matter what season it's in. And that's what God is saying to moms and dads today. He said if he is and when he is at the center, when the center is right, your children will turn into an evergreen, meaning they will live forever, they will live for eternity. Not only they'll have eternal life, but they're also going to pass your legacy to the next generation.

Not only would the family be blessed, but they will be a blessing to the nation. Let me tell you why. Look at those verses five and six: "May the Lord bless you from Zion. May you see prosperity of Jerusalem." What is that? The capital city. See, capital cities is where the decision-making takes place, where society is influenced from the capital city. And that's what a God-centered family will do. They will impact the culture. They will impact society. They will impact government. They will impact decision-makers. They will impact the future of a nation.

Guest (Male): Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to listen to Dr. Michael Youssef and his biblical words for dads and for families. This is a message he's called "The Characteristics of the Blessed Home." I know you want to listen again, and you probably want to share this message with family and friends.

Well, you can guide them to the comprehensive listen page at L-T-W dot org, or the Leading the Way app or podcast. Information links are available at that same website, L-T-W dot org.

Dr. Michael Youssef: We stand at a crossroads of history, and we can walk through these doors of opportunities that God has opened for us, or we can do nothing. We have the choice.

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