Blessed

Well, today, as we've already experienced and as we've already mentioned, it is a special day. You know, it is a special day. What we have opportunity to commemorate here today in this blessing of little children, it is something that's special. It's a tradition. It is something that, you know, is not a commanded thing that we see in Scripture. But we do see Scriptural examples of blessings provided to children throughout Scripture.

Many years ago, the Worldwide Church of God, its founder Herbert Armstrong, instituted this tradition to really recognize and to focus on and to provide for and honor this just precious gift of a newborn child, to honor this incredible potential that is in a newborn child. And again, as we mentioned, you know, initially the time of the blessing was during the feast. In fact, there's a number of the international areas for those of you that have gone internationally in recent years. Jamaica, I know, does this. Mexico does this as well. Unfortunately, it had to be canceled this year due to COVID outbreaks. But they typically will continue to do the blessing of little children at the feast.

Because that's the time everyone's together. You know, it's where they can get the whole country together. It's where they can get everybody in that area together in one spot. Well, again, as the church grew, the lines got longer. You know, we had to look at doing it this second Sabbath. But we come together for this very special ceremony of the blessing of little children. And when United formed in 1995, this is one of those just beautiful traditions that continued from our prior association.

As was mentioned earlier, Mr. Hanson turned there. We're going to go to a few of the same passages today, which is not a bad thing. Let's go to Mark 10. Mark 10. We're going to start there today because we see the scriptural foundation for this. We see the reason why we go about doing this in Mark 10. Mark 10, and we'll go ahead and turn to verse 13 to begin with here. But it's important to keep in mind, too, and if you want to jot this in your notes, you can. The parallel scriptures here are Matthew 19 and Luke 18.

And as always, with the harmony of the gospel accounts, you put those passages together. You get a much fuller picture of what exactly is going on here. But in Mark 10, we see there was a time at this point in which Christ came through Judea. And as frequently happened when Christ came to various places in Judea, the multitudes would gather. People came and they listened and they encircled him and they came around him to hear the words that he was saying. And he was teaching various things. In fact, he was just talking prior to this section on marriage and divorce.

And so those that are listening, they're hearing these things. But then what we see is that at one point it records that the parents began to bring their children to him. They began to push their way through the crowd. Probably not push, let's put it that way. But they would bring them up to him to divide through the crowd, this multitude of people. And they would bring their children up to be blessed, that he would lay his hands on them and that he would bless them.

So verse 13, we'll kind of pick up the context here. Verse 13 of Mark 10. Then they brought little children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. So imagine your picture for a minute. You've got Christ here. You've got his disciples. You've got parents that are bringing children up to him. And you've got disciples running interference. You've got Peter maybe jumping out there going, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, he doesn't have time for this. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Now, no, no, you know, we're not doing this today.

And ultimately, Christ is not pleased. And this isn't mild irritation. What does it say? Verse 14, when Jesus saw it, he was greatly displeased. And he said to them, Let the little children come to me, do not forbid them. For of such is the kingdom of God.

Of these little children is the kingdom of God. So this is the future. This is the future. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. So he takes as Christ often did, and he was so good at this, he was so good at this, you know, taking these teachable moments, you know, and finding these times where he could just turn it and turn it into a lesson.

You know, he was so good at identifying these teachable moments. But he tells them, assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child with the characteristics that come with little children will by no means enter it. Verse 16, he took them up in his arms, he laid his hands on them, and he blessed them. Okay, and so we see this example that is provided, and so we honor this scripture with this particular tradition, with this ceremony of the blessing of little children.

You know, I think we all recognize our little ones face an uncertain world. I think, you know, you look at the world around us today. It's a world that's full of danger.

It's a world that, quite frankly, is full of choices that can cause long-term, irreparable consequences. It's a world that is full of things that seem so desirable in the moment, but they leave you empty, completely empty when they're finally obtained. You know, it's a world that's more dangerous with each passing year. We just had recently no offense to Salem-Kaiser School District, but while we were at the feast, two different knife issues at North Salem High School. We get these lockdown notices.

I'm like, oh, I'm glad my kids are at the feast. You know, I mean, situations where kids have brought knives to school and are dusting it up. The world is increasingly more dangerous with every passing year, and quite frankly, it is a world in which our youth can stumble into danger at a moment's notice, in the blink of an eye, and quite honestly with our kids, most of the time unwittingly.

You know, most of the time they don't realize how much trouble they're in until they're like, oops, this wasn't a smart idea. You know, from their first moments, those of you that have had children, you know, recently or have had children, you know, at all, we know children can get into mischief quite easily. I frequently, my reference here, I remember the transition from what I term the human potato, you know, the human potato baby, where they just really can't do much of anything. They're wrapped in a little swaddle cloth and they just kind of hang out.

Maybe they wiggle a little bit like the grub worm stage of childhood, like they're just kind of, they're cocooned to a degree. But I remember that transition to a very mobile potato all too well. And I'm sure many of you that have had children remember that, too. How quickly a kid can be in a different location from where you left them, you know, or you looked away for a split second, all of a sudden they're somewhere else. Suddenly they have something in their hands that maybe they shouldn't have.

I'm going to tell this story and Aiden's going to kill me, but I'm going to tell it anyway. I remember Aiden was probably about 10 or 12 months old when this happened. Aiden had him up on the counter sitting, you familiar with the bumbo seat?

Those little foam rubber seats that kind of, when your kid's big enough, you kind of can stick them in there and they go thump and they stick. They can't really get out. They're great, you know, nice big base on them and you can set them up there. He's about 10 or 12 months old, and I can't remember what I was doing, but if I'm being perfectly frank, I clearly wasn't watching my kid. I hear this shriek from Shannon.

She's making dinner at the moment. And I look up just in time to see her grab a 10-inch long butcher knife out of Aiden's hand. She was preparing dinner. She assumed she set the butcher knife far enough away from him, but didn't account for not just the length of his arms, but the length of his reach with the lean, and he managed to get the butcher knife.

Thankfully, all he wanted to do was go like this, like the guy from Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark, just ahhhhh, round and round and round. She grabbed the thing out of his hand. I mean, it could have been a disaster.

It wasn't a dull butcher knife. You know, that could have been a really bad situation. Thankfully, he wasn't injured, but both of us were shook how quickly he went from, as far as we were concerned, perfectly safe to imminent danger in the snap of a finger, blink of an eye. We learned a very important lesson that day about making sure that our kids had a no-man slant of space around them that had nothing in it for about a three-foot radius because they could get there and somehow find a way to get a hold of it.

You know, when you see Christ in this section in Mark 10 taking these children up into his arms as Mr. Hanson mentioned earlier, they were young children. Those were infants, you know, in many cases, young, young children. You know, he wasn't picking up, you know, 15-year-old kids and blessing them. These were young children. These were kids that were not necessarily able to provide solutions to their own problems yet.

But yet they were just as capable of getting themselves into trouble as Aiden was at 10-12 months old. Christ takes a moment, he picks them up into his arms, he blesses them, he asks God to provide for them. And a task, which again, as Mr. Hanson brought out, was commissioned in part for the angelic realm to help complete. And I think that's an important point that we can't gloss over, that we cannot just kind of go, okay, well, yeah, you know, there's angels involved. No, no, no. There's angels involved. This is how God has done this. Again, let's go back to Matthew 18, and we'll read that one more time.

Matthew 18, just to make sure that we understand what it is that's being said here. Matthew 18, Christ is talking to his disciples about the attitude and the mindset of those that would be the greatest in heaven. There's numerous places in Scripture where the disciples get into this little spat about which one of them is going to be the greatest and who's got the preeminence, etc.

And Christ was really great at times about being able to pull a little kid in and go, you want to know who's the greatest? This little guy right here. And then explain the reasoning why. What is the mindset? What's the attitude that needs to be there? The characteristics that need to be in place.

Talking about those that become childlike, those that humble themselves as a little child, are those who will enter the kingdom. Not the ones fighting for preeminence. Not the ones fighting to be top dog and the top of the pile. But he goes on to talk of the consequences. After all of that, he goes on to talk of the consequences of causing one of these little ones to stumble.

And how important these little ones are to our God. Just how important they are. As we see in Matthew 18, as he kind of digs in and starts getting to this point here, he starts talking about verse 10.

So he gets into this idea that these very serious words about a person who causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them to have a millstone around their neck and thrown into the depths of the sea. Millstones are heavy and oceans are deep. And that is not the fate anybody wants to experience. But God takes the protection and the care of these little ones very seriously.

So verse 10, he goes on and says, Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones. You know, that you don't end up just, ah, get out of here. Get away from me. I don't want anything to do with you right now. You don't despise one of these little ones. For I say to you that in heaven, their angels, they're possessive, their angels, the angel that has been assigned to them always sees the face of my Father who is in heaven.

What Christ is saying here is that there are angels that have been a part of this angelic host that have been assigned to serve our little ones. Now is that outside the realm of possibility? Of course not. Hebrews 1, verse 14 says that angels are ministering spirits to serve those who will inherit salvation.

Our children have been sanctified. They've been set apart. They've been called just like all of us have. Of course they're going to have angelic servants that are going to be assisting them and protecting them and helping them, providing care and assistance.

But not only that, those angels are regularly in and out of God's presence with regularity. They see His face. They're talking to Him. They're interacting with Him. We can't forget that, brethren. We can't forget what that means. Our little ones have the benefit of angelic assistance. They have the benefit of angelic protection, as Christ points out here in Matthew 18, verse 10. To be quite frank, each and every one of you do too, because those are ministering spirits to serve to those who will inherit salvation.

There's times in our children's lives in which that protection is necessary. There's times when the blessing that we ask on our youth, as we did here with Annalise today, gets redeemed. There are times in which those are redeemed. And honestly, there's probably more times than we even know in which God has intervened on our children's behalf to keep them safe and keep them protected and to guide them in the right direction. With the time that I have left today, what I'd like to do is pivot just a little bit. I want to take a look at what this concept of blessing is.

What does it mean to be blessed? How does that work? What does it entail? What does it mean to be blessed? So the title of the sermon today is just simply, just blessed. Blessed, in quotes. So when we consider this concept in Scripture, and when we look at what this means to be blessed, there's a couple of different words that get used throughout Scripture. There's one primary word in the Old Testament and a number of variants of that word.

There's two words in the Greek that are used, one of them more so than the other. The Hebrew word is the word barak. B-A-R-A-K. And it's H-1-2-8-8, if you'd like to look it up later, H-1-2-8-8. And then a number of variants. Because with any language similar to like Spanish, you have a verb and then you have conjugates of that verb.

It's the same way in Scripture. You'll see versions of barak. Barak-u, barak-ai, barak, you know, a number of different versions that are used throughout. The two Greek words, one of them is macarios. That's G-3-1-0-7, again, if you'd like to use the strongs to identify it.

And the other word is eulageo, which is G-2-1-2-7. Now there are a couple of other words that are used in the Old Testament, but honestly, the predominant word that's used is barak. That is the predominant that is used. When you look at what barak means, barak means to kneel. Simply it means to kneel. So you'll see it translated sometimes in Scripture as someone who's knelt, you know, either in prayer or in front of someone else or whatever. But when it's used in the PL form of Hebrew, which is like an intensive form, an action form, it means specifically to bless.

It means to show someone respect. It means to commend that individual. And if you want a word picture in your mind, like we talked about on trumpets, how else do you show respect and honor than by kneeling and, you know, taking the knee, so to speak, to the sovereign that is in charge?

And so you kind of have that word picture. Makarios in Greek, it means to be blessed and it means to have happiness. It's like the state of being blessed. Makarios is the state of being blessed. When you see Matthew 5 and it talks about the beatitudes, blessed is the one who. Blessed is, blessed, that's Makarios. That's the state in which they find themselves. And there's an island off the coast of Greece called the island of Makarios.

It's near Cyprus. And it's a self-contained island that contains essentially anything anyone would ever want. And so that's one of the reasons that they named that island that is because if you lived on Makarios, you were blessed. You were someone who had everything you could ever want. It was all covered. It was a state of happiness and blessedness. But interestingly, the commentaries talk about how that is something that lies beyond circumstance. That it is a contented state that does not depend upon external circumstance because it is an internal contentedness. Then there's finally the word eulogao, which means to speak well of someone or to praise or bless that person.

You're familiar with that word through our English word eulogy. A eulogao. Eulogy. It's when we take the time to speak well of someone at the time of their death. So these three words are the primary words that we'll see throughout Scripture as we look at various places. Primarily in the Old Testament, Barak, but in the New Testament you'll see Makarios and you'll see eulogao as well.

The source of blessing comes from God. What we see is that a blessing is His divine favor. It's His mercy. It's the benefit that He provides that is received by an individual who receives that blessing. At its core, it establishes a spiritual state of well-being. In many ways, that spiritual state of well-being was independent of the circumstances that one found themselves in.

Often, we can be kind of trapped, I think, in this trap of thinking, well, if I have a number of physical possessions and I'm doing really well, well, then I'm blessed. Well, that may be true, yes. But would you not still be blessed if all of those physical circumstances were gone based on the calling that you've been provided?

And so when we consider it from a spiritual standpoint, what we're looking at here is that the circumstances, or time and chance, don't invalidate the blessing of God. A person can be blessed and still be destitute. A person can be blessed and be wracked with disease. A person can be blessed and be dealing with a number of other challenging circumstances.

It's all about how we define and how we look at this concept of being blessed. The first usage that we see in Scripture we've already read today, let's go back to Genesis 1. Genesis 1, the very first use of the Word is found during the fifth day of creation. We read a different one, but during the fifth day of creation, we see the very first use of the Word, Baroque, or variant of Baroque. Genesis 1, and we'll go ahead and we'll pick it up in verse 20.

Genesis 1, verse 20 says, We see God fills the sea with marine life, He fills the air with birds, God looks at this and He says, it is good. And then in verse 22, God blesses these newly created things. He pronounces His divine favor, His mercy, and His benefits upon them, telling them to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the waters and the seas to let the birds multiply in the earth.

And this newly created life went forth with God's blessing in place, with His protection, with His favor, that they might fill the earth as commanded. A couple verses later, we see the word used again. Verse 26, and we read this earlier, let us make man, God said in our image, according to our likeness, which is a blessing again in and of itself, that we have the ability to be creative and to think and to plan and to engineer with the mind of God. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female. He created them. Then verse 28, God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Now speaking specifically of man, God has created man in their own image.

That's a blessing again in many ways, but not only that, they would have dominion over the fish, they would have dominion over the birds, the cattle, ultimately over the entirety of earth. We see in verse 28, God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply. Brethren, we need to realize this blessing that God provided them in verse 28, it is not a hopeful well-wishing. It is not God saying, I sure hope that you go out there and are fruitful and multiply. God declared upon them his favor, his mercy, and his plan that they would be fruitful and multiply.

It is declarative in its sense. It's not a hope that it would come true. God was declaring this blessing on man. They would have dominion. They would be fruitful and multiply. Another example, a little further here, Genesis 2. Genesis 2 in verse 1. Again, just seeing places where this word is used and the context in which it's used. Genesis 2 in verse 1. Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. On the seventh day, God ended his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Verse 3. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.

So we see the designation of the Sabbath. We see the creation of the Sabbath here with God resting on the seventh day after six days worth of work. We see that he blessed it. We see that he sanctified it. He set it apart. We see that he rested from his labors and ultimately holy time was created. Holy time that was then ultimately given to man as a blessing. Right? Imagine what would happen if we worked seven days a week just constantly. We'd lose it.

We'd absolutely lose it. That rest day is so critical when it comes to the way that God has set things up. And it's important for us to consider again whether a person recognizes the Sabbath as a day of rest or not. That doesn't change the fact that it is regardless of whether they believe it or agree with it or not. God blessed it. God sanctified it. Period. End of sentence. Whether they agree with it or not.

Whether they believe it or not. Whether they follow it or not. The seventh day is sanctified. It has been blessed declaratively by God. And so we see these blessings that God has put forth. We see these things that he has done. And again, not a hope. Not, well, I sure hope that the Sabbath is blessed. No, the Sabbath is blessed. Because God blessed it. He's given it its divine favor and he's designated it as such. Now when we look in Scripture, there's a few common routes that blessings take.

We see examples of God blessing man. We see some examples of man blessing man. And we see some examples of man blessing God. Wait a second, what? That's different. But we see some examples of man blessing God. So we've seen a lot of examples of this first round of God providing a very specific blessing to man in the form of various aspects of creation or of the Sabbath.

But what about when man blesses man? One of the probably most famous examples of this is in number six. Let's go ahead and turn there. Number six, and we'll see the Aaronic blessing. Number six, the Aaronic blessing.

It's in number six in verse 23. Something you may or may not know, and this is a Mr. Stiver bit of information. You've probably already heard this before, but there is a tie-in between the Aaronic blessing and Star Trek. There is. So, the supposedly the Aaronic blessing, when the priest would bless the people with the Aaronic blessing, they would hold their hands out in front of the congregation like this. Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, was Jewish. He remembered from his childhood this taking place. When they said, you need a hand motion for live long and prosper, he thought, what am I going to do? Then he remembered the Aaronic blessing. He stuck his hand up like this. Ultimately, that stuck and that became Spock's thing. It's kind of a little interesting tie-in there, I guess, to some degree. The Aaronic blessing was a blessing that God commanded the Levites to pronounce upon the children of Israel. Number six, we'll pick it up in verse 23. So, again, this is an example of man blessing man, but at the command of God. Okay? So, it is man blessing man, but at the command of God. It says, speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, this is the way that you shall bless the children of Israel. There was a very specific way. He said, say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. He says, verse 27, so shall they put my name on the children of Israel and I will bless them. You know, God provided here the Aaronic blessing and the Levitical priesthood with essentially a model for the types of blessings that would take place and that would ultimately mark the people as God's. That they would mark as God's people. First, you'll notice the source of the blessing is acknowledged not once, but three times. Notice it says, the Lord bless you, the Lord make, the Lord lift. They're focusing that entirely upon the source of those blessings, making it very clear where they come from. You know, the Lord baroque, the Lord bless you and keep you, ultimately asking for God's protection and for his watching over them. That word keep is Shemar, which is to hedge about with swords, to protect, to keep.

Secondly, they ask God for a blessing that really only he could provide. That he would be, that they rather would be in his presence, that he would make his face to shine upon them, that they would be able to be within his presence. That his face might shine upon them, they might receive his grace in his favor. And lastly, the last thing that they asked for was that God would lift up his countenance upon them, that he would look on them with favor, that he would see them and look on them with favor and ultimately give them, in Hebrew, shalom, that he would give them peace.

But peace in Hebrew, that shalom concept, it's more than just peace. It's prosperity, it's success, it's health, it's welfare. It's a lot of things wrapped up into one word. But again, this concept of God blessing his people through the priesthood, it's important for us to consider because this blessing was commanded by God. This blessing was more than, again, just well-wishes. God specifically states in verse 27 that the Aaronic priesthood, as his agents, would place his name upon the children of Israel in such a way.

And that as a result of doing that, that he would bless those individuals as a result of their being set apart in that fashion. We've just done something similar here with the blessing of little children today. We are specifically praying to God to set this little one apart in his eyes, that he would pour out his blessings upon these little ones. It's a very similar situation in that regard, despite not being a Levitical priesthood. Duv'r'on'em 21, verse 5, we'll just reference it. Levi and his sons were provided a very special calling. They were chosen as the ones that would minister to God and ultimately would be the conduit through which these blessings would be provided.

Ultimately they would do the request and God would follow through. We see that when they pronounce these blessings, that when Israel obeyed their God, the blessings would be poured out. When they did not, they received the curses that he described to them that would take place based on their disobedience. Let's go over to Deuteronomy 28 real quick to get an idea of what this favor of God really looks like in our lives. What does this favor look like? Something in mind, there were aspects of the promise that God made to Abraham that were absolutely unconditional.

That they would, regardless of Israel's behavior, that they would be followed through because of the faith of Abraham. But there were other aspects that God had entered into that were conditional upon Israel's obedience. And if Israel did not obey, then they would not have the blessings that God promised them in that sense. So Deuteronomy 28 kind of shows us what that favor of God would look like. Deuteronomy 28, verse 1, says, Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all of his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.

That they would be this special people. That they would be exalted above the nations of the earth. He says, All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you. Not even come upon you. They would bury you. They would overtake you. There would be so many blessings because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

He said, Blessed you shall be in the city and blessed you shall be in the country. Any place you're not blessed there, maybe the suburbs. Whatever's in between the city and the... No! You'll be blessed everywhere! He said, Whether it's your farms, your fields, your shops, your homes, you'll be blessed exceedingly. He says, Blessed you shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds.

Your children will be fruitful. Your ground will be fruitful. Your herds will be fruitful. Your increase, your cattle and your offspring of your flocks. Bless will be your basket in your kneading bowl. So you'll never have want of bread. Never have want of bread. Blessed you shall be when you come in. Blessed you shall be when you go out. Whether you're here or whether you're there, you're fine. You're blessed. The Lord will cause your enemies to rise against you, to be defeated before your face. I love this. This vivid description.

They'll come out against you one way and they'll flee before you seven ways. You know, it's like they come running in and realize, oh, we're in trouble. Go! Seven different directions as they retreat. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and all to which you set your hand. He'll bless you in the land which your Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself, just as he has sworn to you if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways.

Now why is that important? Why is that critical? Because of verse 10. Then all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will be afraid of you. They'll have a respect. They'll also have a fear, you know, in many ways, because they know that God is with you. Because they can see it. They know for an absolute fact God is with you. It says in verse 12, God will open up to you his good treasure, the heavens, to give you rain in your land in due season, to bless all the work of your hand.

It says, you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall be above only and not beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you and are careful to observe them. You shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day to the right or the left to go after other gods and to serve them.

Now what's happened? The Israelites nations of this world are not receiving the rain in due season. They're not receiving bread with regularity. They're not receiving these blessings. Why? Because they have been disobedient to their God. Instead, they are receiving the curses that are listed here in Deuteronomy 28. And we're not going to read through them all. You can look at Deuteronomy 28.15 through the end of the chapter.

But when you look at the specific curses that God provided in Deuteronomy 28 as a result of Israel's disobedience, they're eerily specific. These things happen to Israel directly as time went on in exactly the way God said they would in Deuteronomy 28. And so you take a look at the providence of God, this favor of God, and you see it here in the beginning of Deuteronomy 28.

You see these things. This was the effect of the divine favor of God. This was the effect of the blessing of God on Israel. If they lived their lives in accordance with His ways, they would be blessed. If they didn't, then the rest of the passage goes on to explain what would happen if they did not. Something else to consider as we look at blessings and as we consider them in Scripture, God takes blessings seriously.

God takes blessings seriously. Even in a circumstance where a blessing may have been obtained in a less-than-truthful manner, God honors that blessing despite the method by which it was obtained. Let's go to Genesis 27. We see throughout the early part of the Bible, especially the first five books here, the Pentateuch, we see this patriarchal period of Israel. We see these blessings that are handed down from father to firstborn, down to the next firstborn, and on down.

They all take very prophetic wording in the way that they're lined out in many ways. They are prophetic in many senses. In Genesis 27, we see an example here of Jacob and Esau. We ultimately see that Rebekah and Jacob colluded together for Jacob to receive the blessing that Isaac had reserved for his firstborn son Esau.

We see a plot hatch that has Jacob putting on specific clothing, putting on animal skins so that he felt like and smelled like Esau to Isaac. I always thought about, if you've ever touched goat skin, just how hairy goat skin is, and to then have him put it on his arms and be like, okay, Dad, it's me, Esau, and him to be like, yep, it's Esau.

Wow, that was one hairy guy. I've never, you know, listen, that's just weird to me. But anyway, it's different. But hey, I guess.

So, it was of the way, though, that he was able to then have the feel and the smell ultimately to Isaac that would believe that Jacob ultimately was Esau. Genesis 27, and we'll go ahead and we'll pick it up in verse 21, says, Then Isaac said to Jacob, Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, whether or not you are really my son Esau or not. So here's test number one. Jacob went near to Isaac, his father, and he felt him. Notice what Isaac says. Isaac says, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

So he says, I'm a little bit suspicious here. The voice ain't right, but the hands? Yeah, it's definitely Esau. So Jacob went near to Isaac, his father, and he felt him. Oh, I'm sorry. I just read that. He didn't recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. And so he blessed him. Then he said, Are you really my son Esau? He said, I am.

And he said, Bring the food that he had prepared for him. Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's game, so that my soul may bless you. So he brought it near to him, and he ate, and he brought him wine, and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, Come near now and kiss me, my son. Now notice, Isaac's a smart guy. Notice what he did. And he came near and he kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his clothing.

This is the final test here. You don't sound like Esau. Something's maybe up here. Get in here. All right, you smell like Esau. And so ultimately he says, smelled the smell of his clothing, and he blessed him. Notice what he says. He says, Surely the smell of my son is like the smell of a field, which the Lord has blessed. Therefore may God give you of the dew of heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be master over your brethren, and let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you.

Blessed be those who bless you. So we see that Isaac pronounces this blessing that originally was intended for Esau upon his second son Jacob. Jacob was to receive the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, plenty of grain and wine.

People serve him, nations bow down to him. He'd be master over his brothers. They would bow down before him. These are the words, the son of promise, that Isaac, through whom God continued the line of Abraham, ultimately stated over his son. Now God honored these words as they were spoken to Jacob, even though it wasn't Esau. In fact, when he was questioned on it, Isaac actually seems to insinuate that once those words were spoken, there was no going back.

Verse 30, again, just to see how seriously God takes blessing, verse 30, it says, Now it happened as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, that Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting. He had also made savory food, and brought it to his father, and said to his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son's game, and that your soul may bless me.

As father Isaac said to him, Who are you? Who are you? So he said, I'm your son, your first-born Esau. And Isaac trembled exceedingly. And he said, Who? Where is the one who hunted game, and brought it to me? I ate all of it before you came, and I have blessed him, and indeed he shall be blessed. It had been pronounced. It had been stated.

When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and he said to his father, Bless me, me also, O my father! But he said, Your brother came with deceit, and has taken away your blessing. Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright, and now look, he has taken away my blessing. And he said, Have you not also reserved a blessing for me?

Isaac answered and said to Esau, Notice what he mentions. He says, Indeed I have made him your master, and all his brethren I have given to him as servants, with grain and wine I have sustained him. What shall I do for you now, my son? It is like I have already given him everything. What more do you want me to give you? He has already got it all. I can't take it back. What is done is done. But Esau says to him, Have you only one blessing, my father? Bless me. Me also, O my father!

And Esau lifted up his voice, and he wept. And so Isaac his father answered and said to him, Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, of the dew of heaven from above.

By the sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother, and it shall come to pass when you become restless, that you shall break his yoke from your neck. And so we see that there was a blessing, again, prophetically also, provided to Esau as a result of what had taken place. So God upholds the initial blessing of Jacob, and he ultimately upholds the blessing that Isaac pronounces on Esau. Now it should be noted, when we talk about how these blessings take place, you know, we're not in the time of the patriarchal period.

This isn't, you know, the firstborn of the chosen patriarch given to the firstborn of the chosen patriarch, where God is like honoring what those things that are said. And we do things a little bit differently now. And the way that we do them differently now is we come before God humbly, and we request in full faith, in full trust, and in full assurance that what we have asked God to do in the lives of our young people will be done.

And there is honestly no question in my mind that it is. There's no question in my mind that it is. You know, absent a specific command by God to bless individuals in a specific manner, or the obligation of passing along a patriarchal blessing, the blessing that we offer is a request to God for His favor. It's a prayer to Him to pour out His favor and to pour out His mercy and His benefits upon the individual. It's not declarative in the sense that we've seen it so far. It is a request to an honorable God that knows how to give good gifts to His children.

You know, today, we trust that the things that we ask, the things that we request are going to be given by God. We ask a blessing over church services. We ask blessings over our Bible studies. We ask blessings over our meals, over events, over travel. We ask blessings on behalf of people who are ill, in need, in some other way. Man, if I could be declarative in that and declare that cancer gone or this issue gone, that would be incredible.

That's not the time in which we live. We put a request in to God, humbly, asking for His favor, coming before Him in prayer, acknowledging Him, acknowledging His providence in our lives. Now, when we get to the New Testament, and we take a look at some of how the New Testament is set up, the blessings that are provided frequently take the form of the Greek word eulogaiō.

So, typically, when you'll see the word bless in the New Testament, you're seeing the word eulogaiō. We see that that particular word means to speak well of someone. It means through that, to bless, to praise. And when we're encouraged in Scripture to bless those who curse us, that's what it's talking about.

To speak well, to praise, to bless those individuals who curse us, to praise those who mistreat us. We see that usage throughout the New Testament in a lot of different places, encouraging our blessing or our praising of others with good words that we speak well, essentially honoring others with the words that we speak.

But we also have the opportunity to bless others in different ways. We have the opportunity to bless others through the things that God has provided us. That might be a gift of physical blessings, it might be monetary, it might be something that somebody needs that we happen to have. But it might also come as a result of God-given talent. We might be able to go out with the skills that God has provided us, that we've grown and that we've dealt.

We might be able to go out and provide things. We do work parties quite a bit, and have over the years, and we go out and sometimes things get built. A deck will get built, or something like that will get built. You will not see me designing the deck and probably building the deck. There are others in this congregation with that skill set. We will let them do that because we want the deck to be level when we're done. We don't want it pitching forward, we don't want it collapsing. That's not my skill set. I have other skills, I have other talents, but it's not those. Maybe it's a kind word during a difficult season in life, but it's important that whatever we do, when we share these blessings and have opportunity to bless others, we have to recognize, even though these blessings may come from our hand, that they have their origin in God.

That they are coming from God through us as the conduit through which He provides these blessings to His people. There's one final route. One final route that we see that blessings take place in Scripture, and that is from man to God. So we've had God to man, we've had man to man, and we've had now man to God. It's kind of an odd concept to consider when you think about it, because thinking about what could man do to bless God, God has everything.

He's God, He doesn't require a blessing, He doesn't require our favor, so to speak, or our benefits. He already has everything He could ever need. So when we think about this example, when we think about this, we do see Scriptures that talk about man blessing God. I'll give you three quick examples. Deuteronomy 8 and verse 10. Deuteronomy 8 verse 10 says, "'You shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God, for the good land that He has given you.'" Psalm 103 verse 2 says, "'Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.'" Psalm 145 verse 10, "'All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you.'" This concept of blessing, when we think about what we're talking about here, all our variant forms of the word Baroque, what they indicate is our willingness to kneel or to honor God with our words and our actions.

The blessing that we pass on to God is an acknowledgment of His sovereignty and, to be honest, of our willingness to bend the knee to our sovereign. That's what we're talking about when we talk about blessing God in this way, that we are willing to recognize that we are not God.

He is. And we are willing to kneel before Him in subjection to Him in all circumstances. And it's through that action, through that concept of kneeling in this form of Baroque, that we show Him respect, we show Him favor, that we honor Him as our God, that we bless Him. There's a number of ways we've seen today that blessing can take place in Scripture. It can come from God, it can come from other men, it can be provided to God.

In the Old Testament, the majority of the time that it's described, the majority of the time it's used, it comes from the word Baroque, which is H1288, which means to kneel or to bless. And what that blessing comes from God, it's His divine favor. There's significant benefits to the blessing that He provides. Sometimes those blessings are conditional on obedience. Sometimes they're unconditional. Sometimes they're provided based on the faith of the individual that God made covenant with. Men, we see, can bless one another. Declaratively, when it comes to the line of promise that God provided, so throughout that patriarchal period, we can see that God can command individuals to provide a blessing to His people.

But we see that primarily today, when we see a blessing take place, we see it as like Eulogao in Greek, this idea of a humble request to God to pour out what He has promised upon His people. In the New Testament, when we see someone who is blessed from God, typically that resulting state is the Greek word makarios. It's a contentedness and a happiness, a blessedness that comes. And in the Beatitudes, that's the blessing that we see. We see contentment and happiness to those who are poor in spirit, those who are mourned, those who are meek.

When we bless someone else, when we go through and bless someone else, because it's a request and we don't necessarily have the ability to instill that state of makarios in someone, the word that we see is eulogao, to speak well of someone, to praise them or to bless them. Today we had an opportunity to follow the example that we see in Scripture of Jesus Christ taking up children into His arms and blessing them. That word that we see in Mark 10 is eulogao. Again, it's to speak well of them, to ask God to pour out His blessing, His love, His guidance, His protection, His providence on them as they grow and develop and as they mature.

And as they mature, as we see them grow and as we see them develop, as they begin to then bless Him through the kneeling of their lives before their King, as they speak well of Him, as they respect Him, as they honor Him, as they praise Him, as they grow and they dedicate their lives to Him, that relationship will continue to develop more fully and that blessing of God will continue in their lives.

You know, these young people that we have in our congregation, these young people we've had the opportunity to see grow up before our very eyes, folks, they're an incredible blessing to us as a congregation. You know, Eugene doesn't have young people. You know, they had a young person down there today and they were just overjoyed. You know, they were so excited to have somebody that wasn't my children that came along with me for services. You know, these young people that we see grow up, you know, they are an incredible blessing to us.

We are so thankful for them. We're so appreciative of God working in their lives and parents. Got a tough job to do. Got to turn them towards God. In the time that you've got them. So take a look around, brother, and I want you to take a look around today. Notice our young people. Notice these little ones because we are truly, truly blessed.