Understanding How To Be Blessed. Deuteronomy 28:1-13

Bro. Jesse Byrd preaches “Understanding How To Be Blessed” from Deuteronomy 28:1–13, reminding listeners that God’s blessings come through obedience, faithfulness, and walking according to His will.

Message preached on April 26, 2026.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

It says that it shall come to pass here. Thou shalt hearken diligence unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments, which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee, and thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shall thou be in the city, and blessed shall thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kind, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy sword, blessed shall be when thou comest in, and blessed shall thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall cause thy enemies that rise up against thee to be spit before thy face. They shall come out against thee one way and flee before thee seven days. The Lord shall command the blessings upon thee in the storehouses and all that thou settest thy hand unto. He shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee and holy people unto himself, as he has sworn unto thee, that thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God and walk in his ways. And all the people of the earth shall see that thou art called on the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee. And the Lord shall make thee studious and good in the fruit of the body, and in the fruit of the cow, the fruit of the ground, and thy land which the Lord swore for the fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heavens to give the rain unto the land in the season, and to bless all the work of thine hand, and thou shalt land unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the Lord shall make thee the head not the tail. And thou shalt be above, and thou shalt not be beneath. Yet that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day to observe and do. That's right. Father, we thank you again for this opportunity we have to preach our word to thank you, reading the Holy Word. God, thank you this morning for bringing this down. And God, we're gonna pray this morning to place the Holy Spirit. That's all service. I pray God that you want to be here. The heart and the mind of everyone want to tell our words this morning, God. I pray that the feedback, I pray God, that come up and I pray that the Holy Spirit. We ask this in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The time of our sermon this morning is understanding how to be blessed. Understanding how to be blessed. God is so good. I don't know if you realize this morning, but God is good. God is so good, yeah, we are so bad. Think about the ways you feel God on a daily basis. God is still God to bless us. God is a God that no matter how deep in sin we are, no matter how far away we run away from God, God is a God this morning that still loves us so much that he's still willing to forgive us and bless us. Think about how good God is this morning. God is so good, even though we don't deserve it, God is still good all the time. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make in life is when we downplay the goodness of God, the greatness of God. And it tells us that I've said this before and I'll say it again. We can have 10,000 tongues at all the times in the day and still wouldn't have enough time in tongues to thank God for what He's done. You just think about it this morning of uh maybe you are struggling this morning, maybe you're not feeling good, maybe you're not in the best health you've ever been in. But you just think about it this morning, how good God has been to you, that you are still able to get up and find your way to church this morning. That you're still able in your right mind to be able to talk, to be able to see, to be able to hear. Maybe we are limping in. Maybe we are dragging in. But we still got to thank God this morning for just how good He is. Think about it from the time you've been born to the time you've died, God still gives blessings. But to think about it, our God is this, God is even better when we obey. You see, you think about it this morning, we've got to remind ourselves, blessings is from obedience, curses is from disobedience. So if you all the time feel like you're cursed, if you all the time feel like that you've been going through it, if you all the time feel like that God hasn't blessed you in a while, you've got to ask yourself this morning, have I been obedient to God? Because God will curse you. The Bible Twitter tells us that the moment we start disobeying God, that's when we become cursed. But the moment we start believing and obeying God, that's when blessings pour down on us. So if you're all living through a trial time right now where you're going through stress, whether you have uh depression, whether you're going through body sickness, whether you're going through spiritual sickness, whatever it may be, if you're going through those times now, we've got to ask ourselves, am I obeying God? You see, it tells us that nobody wants to be cursed every day. Uh day in and day out. Everybody wants to be blessed. I've never been into anybody where they said they want to live in disobedience and curse God and make God curse them. Everybody wants to be blessed. So we're getting our text this morning. Moses is on the plains of Moab will be the final sermon to the Israelites just before they enter the promised land. So this is the second sermon Moses gave them. And this time here, it's the final sermon before they go into the promised land, which God had promised them. The promised land was going to be flown with milk and honey, the promised land was going to be blessed, and they're going to do all good things, everything was going to be good about the promised land. But Moses felt that it was his last time, the final warning that he should give the Israelites. The warning this morning, not only to the Israelites, but to us as well, is that if we turn away from God, God will destroy us. If you forget what God has done for you, God will take away. The Bible clearly tells, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. So Moses was preaching to the Israelites. He was telling them that yes, God has promised us all these things. Promised your forefathers, promised you. But in order for God to keep blessing you, you've got to live in obedience. You see, we're struggling. Our families are struggling this morning. Our country is struggling this morning. The whole world is struggling this morning. It's all because we've turned away from obeying God and started disobeying God. We forgot how God is. We forgot that God is not only a God of love, God is also a God of wrath. That God will destroy us just by the wink of an eye, just as quick as he will bless us. So we've got to understand this morning. What if this was your last sermon before you entered the next step of your life? Maybe it is. We can't tell what's going to happen in the future. We can't tell what's going to happen in the next step in our life. So for somebody this morning, this very well may be their last sermon they ever hear being preached. That's sad to say. But if you're a Christian, it's a blessing to say. Because you know that this is not going to be your final sermon. Maybe on this side of the earth, but when you stand before God, you'll be able to praise God daily. So it tells us that today I want you to understand how to be blessed. Number one, it says, the contract has been made. The word if is a big word in our lives. Think about it. We serve a free will God. This God that we serve loved us so much that he sent his son to die on the cross by sin to save us. But this God that we serve is also a free will God. That he tells you what he'd done and he tells you what's going to happen if you don't accept Christ. So God has made a contract with you this morning that it says that the word ill can cost you your life. Think about the word ill. It can cost you your marriage, it can cost you a job, it can cost you prison time, it can cost you your friendship. The word if can cost you eternity. God establishes a contract with his people. His people are the ones who can call upon Jesus to save you. You see, I thank God this morning that even when I fail God, God never fails us. Amen. Even when I let sometimes when I let God down, God never lets me down. I thank God this morning that sometimes when I get lazy in my worshiping, when I get lazy in my praying, when I get lazy in my beliefs, God never gets lazy with me. Thank God this morning that God sees how big of a wreck we are this morning, and he still loves us. The Bible says that he says if you obey the voice of the Lord and do all his commandments, then the Lord God will set you high above all nations of the earth. In order this morning to receive any of your blessings that God is going to give you, you've got to first obey. Obey. You think about it. As children, I've told you many times before, whenever we would want something in life growing up, I would do everything my parents would ask me to do. Sometimes I would get ahead of them before they would ask I could have done it because I wanted something. This morning you've got to understand. In order to receive God's blessings to you this morning, you've got to be willing to dishonor your own life, be willing to step away from your own life and obey and honor God. Everybody this morning must obey God. God's goal of blessing is to make God's people more visible on earth. In verse 2, it tells us that his blessings will be so big that they will literally overtake you. That's how good God is. That it tells us the more you obey God, the more blessings you'll receive. You know, I thought about it this morning. There's been times in my life where, in my marriage, in my family, in my life, where I didn't have nothing to give God that I thought. But little did I know God had already gave it to me, so I must give it back to Him. So when you think about it this morning, I was praying. And I thought about just what God has done for me. How many times God has moved that mountain? How many times God has shut that door that I wasn't supposed to go through? How many times God has shut that door but also opened up five more doors? I thought about how good God has been as we're getting older. I pray every day that God gives us good help to continue to glorify his name. Think about how good God has been to you this morning. But in order to keep moving forward, you've got to obey God. You see, I was one of those ones that I tried to do it on my, even after I got saved, I tried to run my marriage the way I wanted to run my marriage. I tried it to work the way I wanted to work. I tried to do all these things the way I wanted to do. But then I realized as long as I keep doing what I want to do, everything that I'm doing on my own, I'm going to struggle. My marriage was struggling. My family was struggling. My job was struggling. My health was struggling. But in order to get right with God, I had to deny myself. I had to say, God, I'm willing to give you everything I got. At that moment on, I can tell you this morning, from that time on, I've realized just how good God is. I can't. You cannot give God this morning. I don't care what we give, I don't care how much we do, we cannot give God. God is a God this morning that we cannot give. So it tells us in order to be successful, you must be obedient. But you see, our God, the creator, the one true living God, is of God to give you an option. As I said, you think about it. Since the beginning of time, God gave Adam and Eve free will. God gave you free will this morning. Many of us didn't feel like going to church. Many of us heard the thunder. So there it is. I just lost my truck yesterday, and now I've got to take it out of dirt room. Many of us didn't feel like it. Who all gets the best sweet of their lives when it's starting and raining outside? Everybody does. It's hard to have to drag yourself out of bed. But this morning we had to realize that in order to receive God's blessings, we had to choose to come to church and follow God. You see, God is a free will of God. God will let you decide whatever you want to decide. God is not the God that will empower you and make you follow him. You see, whenever God gave his son to die with the cross by sins, he left the door open to that. If you want to choose heaven, you've got to choose Jesus. If you want to choose hell, you've got to choose disobeying God. So God is a free will God this morning. Everything that we do, we do it on our own until we realize that God is the one that gives it. So it tells us that we served this morning a free will of God, and Jesus told his disciples in the garden. Night before he betrayed, he went to the Garden of Gethsemane. He thought about it and he went and took his disciples. He told them to sit here and he found a place to sit here while I go to you and pray. You stay and pray while I go over here and pray. You see, and he was telling them, pray. So that you don't give in to temptation. It wasn't the temptation of man, it wasn't the temptation of their families, it was the temptation of you getting out of the will of God. You see, we've got to stay prayed up because whoever is outside, living outside the will of God this morning is in trouble. Jesus told his disciples to pray that you don't fall into temptation, that you stay in the will of God. So it tells us that this temptation that Jesus knew about is the same one we go through this morning. We become tempted by the devil to get out of the will of God, to stop living with God, to stop praying, to stop reading the Bible, to start talking about God. We see we get tempted by the temptation to leave God alone. Every time we try to move forward with God, we have a backset. We have something that comes along and detours are walking God. I remember I know from firsthand experience, everything seemed to go good from Monday through Friday. That either Friday night or Saturday, something happened that the devil tried to take you away from God. Happens just like that. Every day, every week. Everything goes good, and all of a sudden, right before it's time to go to church, something happens. You feel like you've grown in your prayer life, you've grown in the faith, then all of a sudden something happens and start to make you question. But you see, God doesn't want us to get into temptation. He says, pray. So it tells us that when we outside the will of God, it costs you your blessings. Now, how many times have you been on the outside looking in? It's a testimony, right? You go the outside looking in. Amen. We all go through it, we all on the outside looking in. Before we got saved, we were on the outside looking in. We saw people going to church, we saw people praying, we saw people getting saved, we saw people doing things for God, God doing things for people. We were on the outside looking in. So as I was thinking about that this morning, how many times as a child, I was a bad child, I'll tell you right now, I'm bad. How many times, I thought about this morning, how many times I've had to sit in a classroom in time out. Maybe when it was in the building, you couldn't go outside because you were in trouble, but the teacher made you stare at the window and watch them play while you're in a sit in the classroom. See, when you're on the outside, you miss out on all these things. You disobey God, you get put in time out. You miss out on these blessings God's got for you. But the moment you say, God, I'm tired of living on the outside, I'm tired of living outside of your will, put me in your will. You see, as a child, we become disappointed because when we have things that we don't get live, we become disappointed. You see, when the Bible says that we must humble ourselves as children. Jesus said that you must become a child. Because children is more humble than adults. Children are trying to get to that stage. So a child is more humble. I can tell the children this morning that if you want this, you want me to buy you that, you want me to get this, take out the garbage, wash the beef, clean up all these things, and they're good because they're humble. But as you get older as an adult, it's hard to stay humble because you can get your own things on your own. But as a child, we are humble. So the Bible says that we've got to realize this morning that so many people is on the outside looking in. What the sad part about it this morning is, you don't have to live on it outside. God has to come right on in this morning. Amen. That's what type of God we serve. So it tells us that you and God have a treaty if you obey. Verse 3, it tells us in the city, in the field, the location doesn't matter, the blessings will come. You can be in the city, you can be in the field. You can be inside, you can be outside. If you choose God this morning, the blessings will come to where you're at this morning. Then in verse 4 tells us that your children will be blessed, your crowds will be blessed, your herds will be blessed, your storehouses shall be full in verse 5. In verse 6, it says, From the time you come in to the time you go out. You see, that's what type of God that we serve. From the time that you come in to the time that you go out, God will bless you this morning. But we've got to be willing to obey God. We've got to be willing to obey God. It says, there'll be no time limit on your blessings, but we must be obedient. You see, the draft is this weekend of L draft, but a lot of people don't watch it, but I do. Everybody is battling about salary cap, how much money they got to pay, how much money they got to give out. There's a limit to their spending. Look, my friend, as you think about God's blessing this morning, there ain't no salary cap on God's blessing. There ain't no limit to God's blessing this morning. You ain't too young, you're not too old, you haven't done nothing too bad, you're not too rich, you're not too poor. The moment you obey God, you receive those blessings that there's no limit to those blessings this morning. So if you're looking for a blessing this morning, you've got to obey God and be obedient to his word and his will. Then it says, God desires to bless you. In Numbers chapter 6 and verse 24, it says, The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lifted up his countenance upon you and give you peace. You see, God is desiring to bless you this morning. You see, God is a God that, as I said, many times we fail, God. We ask God to forgive us. God is still desiring to bless you this morning. Then secondly says, blessings is not earned but received. Think about it, Jesus Christ is the source of all blessings. When you accept Christ this morning, you are redeemed. By his blood, you are redeemed. There ain't nothing else that can send you to hell because you've been born again. All the things that you've done in the past, all the things you have around you, will be cut loose this morning the moment you accept Jesus, because his blood, one drop of his blood was enough. Thank God this morning. Then it says that you are forgiven of your sins, sin that has been counseled and cast into a seal of forgiveness. By his blessings, we are now a part of his family this morning. So there's God tells them in Leviticus 26 and verse 3, it says, If you obey and follow him, he would give them rain in due season and bless the land, protect the land, peace in the land, and promise victory. You see, we're struggling right now. We're struggling as a nation, we're struggling as families, we're struggling as churches. Because we have decided to disobey God's word. Amen. You see, over the years, every second, every day, people change. But this Bible that we live by, God's Word that was inspired by God, we live by these words because they never change. The Bible says that God is God and He changes not. That the moment we start changing, God still hasn't changed. We can take all the scripture we want out of this Bible to fit our way of living and leave out the ones that don't, and we're still in trouble because we can't change God's word. God's word is true from cover to cover, and we've got to live by it. It says, take heed to this. Fourteen verses in the chapter that we read out of this morning is devoted to blessings. Fourteen times God talks about blessings. 54 verses talk about disobedience and curses. You see, God knows what the man's heart is. God knew that we have a heart that's full of lust. God knows that we have a heart that's full of sin. God knows we have a heart full of jealousy. So God spent 14 verses telling the Israelites that if you obey, this is what you get. 54 verses telling the early Israelites if you disobey, this is what's going to happen. You see, God knows the moment we are born, we're born into sin that we're born. Think about it this morning. Never have I ever taught my children, had to teach my children to go cut up. Never. They grew up, they were bad from the time they come out of Moh's woman. Your child's bad. Not just my child, your child's bad as well. From the time they come out of the womb, they know how to cut up. They know how to disobey, they know how to lie, they don't lie, they know how to lie. They know how to be hardhead, they know how to do all these things that's not good. I didn't teach them, I didn't teach them bad. You don't teach a child to go and steal that candy bar. You don't teach a child to go and be disrespectful, it's just dinner. You see, but as a parent, you have to be the ones that teach them the right things. Because God knew. God knew that when they were born, they were born with the room, they knew they knew that they were born bad. So as a parent this morning, we have to do as God did and teach them right from wrong. If you never teach them, they don't know about right. We got people that's raising children this morning that ain't never taught them about the right things. They're always talking about the bad things. Don't let nobody do this, you do that, don't let them do you do that. This and up. But as a parent this morning, as a Christian, we've got to teach them the right things. That son or daughter, if you want to be blessed by God, you've got to behave. If you want to be blessed by God, you've got to honor thy father and thy mother. You've got to have respect. You've got to have courtesy. You've got to have all these things in order to be blessed. But this world this morning has forgotten that we've got to teach them the right things and we let them do the bad things. I remember growing up. I've seen some children get beat down before. I've seen my brother get beat down before. All because of you. All because of me. But it ain't like that anymore. You see? We got chastised. And as the generations go on, I think just like it is with the gospel, it gets watered down. The chastising gets watered down. Now instead of saying that's sin and you shouldn't do that, we pat him on the back and say it's going to be okay. That's not true. Same way it is with the gospel. We got people now teaching that there's other ways to heaven. Be a good person. That won't do it. You see, it's got watered down over the years, and the world keeps standing, keep turning, and keep standing. It's going to keep getting watered down and watered down. But as a Christian this morning, we've got to take a stand for God. We've got to tell these that's living in sin. The Bible says that God loves you, but God ain't sin. Get out of sin and come to God. That's what we've got to do as a pastor, as a Christian this morning, is let them know that God hasn't changed. God still ain't sin, but he also still loves you and save you. Get up and get out of sin and find your way to church. Find your way to Jesus this morning. That's what we got to be teaching as Christians this morning. So it says that God clearly saw the heart of the people. It says God tells Israel they'll be the head and not the tail of the body. Now I disagree on that. Everybody wants to be the head. They don't want to be the tail. The tail wags and the tail, you know what happens at the end. You don't want to be the tail this morning. The Bible says God told Moses, Moses told the Israelites, that if you obey God, you will be the head. You will be the leader. You'll be what everybody is following. This morning we got people that's been the wrong type of person while trying to be the head. They are leading people in the ditch. Many people this morning is in the ditch because it was laying in the ditch and they can't get out of there on their own. This morning, if you find yourself in that ditch, you can't get yourself out of that ditch. The only way to get out of the ditch is by Jesus Christ. Amen. This morning we've got to understand that God will allow you to put yourself in the ditch. The devil didn't tell you. Skip church today. Think about how many people this morning the devil told me, skip church. Skip Bible study and you go next week. Skip reading your Bible tonight. You can read it in the morning when you first get up. Stop praying. You can pray in the morning when you get up. You see, once we get in that ditch, the devil keeps giving. The devil keeps brainwashing. The devil keeps telling you this okay. You start committing one little sin that people don't know about, and that one sin becomes two sins. That two sins becomes a snowball effect. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. Before you realize it, you turned away from God and started blaming God for everything going on. That's the way the devil works this morning. That if you give the devil an inch, he'll take a mile. I told you this morning, I told you plenty of times before. Before, as soon as that door opens, when Brother John in this roommate opened the door, guess who came in with him? The devil. So they're going to be prayed up, you better be praying up. I'm going to be praying up because the devil's in there this morning. The devil's around us. And the way we get rid of the devil is stay in prayer and unit according to start speaking to Jesus and watch the devil run out. But we've got to preach it this morning. So it tells us that today you have to make a choice. If I want blessings or if I want curses, if I want heaven or if I want hell. You've got a choice this morning to make. All that word ill. If you choose Jesus, you'll make it. If you choose to disobey and choose the devil, you ain't going to make it. On the word ill this morning, you've got to make a choice. In closing, the Bible says the Lord is seeking today. God is seeking it today for a man or a woman to stand in that gap. What would you choose in order to be blessed? You must obey the Spirit today. If you delay, you're playing with hell. If you deny, you're playing with hell. If you disobey, the cursing will come. If you place your heart in Jesus today, you can make your reservation in heaven. If you trust Jesus this morning, if you trust that moon in your heart, if you trust that voice today telling you you need Jesus. If you trust that voice today telling you that there's a better way than the way you live in this morning, trust that voice, trust that spirit, because there is a better way today. But you must be willing to choose if you trust that voice telling you today, today is your breakthrough. You can break through today if you trust God. Think about it this morning. If we choose God today, it must come down. Pray that sinner's prayer. Show God that you trust in Him. It's not that hard to pray the prayer this morning. They seized. You pray to God this morning, telling God that you are denying yourself, that you know that you need a Savior, that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that you're confessing, to ask him to forgive you of sin. That's how easy it is to get saved. You must ask God to come into your heart this morning. So you think about it. Jesus said this He that is ashamed before men of me, I'll be ashamed before my Father of them. So this morning, maybe you let the devil tell you to be ashamed. Look who's around. Look who's gonna talk about you. I was shameful for many weeks until I realized that being shameful was sending me to hell. So this morning, you've got to think about it. If you deny Jesus before your brother's here, he's gonna deny you before the Father. I would hate to stand before God this morning and he said, Depart from me. This morning you must make that choice. If you choose Jesus, you have a paid eternity. If you choose Satan, you have a hell that's burning waiting on you this morning. What will you choose? God is a free will of God. God didn't make you come to church this morning. God didn't make you do anything you didn't want to do. But God is willing to save you this morning if you accept him as your Savior. Let's pray. Father, we thank you again for this opportunity we have with God. We thankful this morning that we serve a risen Savior, that we serve a Savior this morning, that can save us. Even on our worst times, he can save us. God, we thankful this morning that you have enough grace and mercy for all of us, God. I pray this morning that if anyone's in need of a savior, I pray to call upon you today, God. I pray that we step out and stop living on the word you. Not you, but when. Today is the day of salvation. I pray that they accept you. This morning, God, if anyone's in need of prayer, I pray that they step out this morning just as you ask, that you are seeking for a man or a woman to stand in there. Will they step out this morning, God? I pray that they will. I pray they call upon you, put their hand in your hand, and trust you this morning. We ask this in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.