Blessings

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Hoover. I've got just one assignment today, and he's got like three or four, I think. So I appreciate it. I've got it easy. And our messages fit together pretty well. Actually, I like at the very end of that poem where it said, I am among all men most blessed. And we tie thanksgiving to our blessings. That's what we give thanks for. And we know God has given us so much. It made me want to look into the idea of what is blessing. We use that term a lot. And I found it interesting, as I was studying, I looked at the way Judaism looks at blessing. And I'm not going to do a lesson in Judaism, but within that religion there's a formal statement of blessing for just about everything. A specific blessing for times of praise, a different blessing for thanksgiving, blessings for times of enjoyment. And many times they follow a set pattern, starting with an affirmation of God's sovereignty. It's written, blessed are you, O Lord, our God, King of the universe, and then follows a specific acknowledgement. For instance, I wrote down the one that they would say upon hearing thunder, which, surprise me, there's a blessing to say after thunder, but it says, blessed are you, O Lord, our God, King of the universe, whose might and power fill the world. There are formal blessings to say over food and drink, blessings for freedoms, for new clothes, all kinds of things. I'm guessing some of you have seen the musical, Fiddler on the Roof. And there's one scene in the movie, at least, I'm not sure about the musical, the stage version, version, if I can get that word out, where one of the Tevias' daughters asked the rabbi, is there a blessing for a sewing machine? He says, my dear, there is a blessing for everything. And so someone will follow up and ask, is there a blessing even for the czar? And he thinks and he says, may the Lord bless and keep the czar, keep him far away from us.

You know, we use those words, bless and blessing, pretty easily. And I'm not saying we don't know what they mean, but I know I've said them a lot of times without thinking much. Reminds me of when I was a teenager, a friend of mine developed this habit, if someone would sneeze and then someone would say, bless you, he'd look and say, can you do that?

Because we say the words, can you actually give someone a blessing?

You know, he was saying it to be funny, but it made me wonder about questions like that. You know, who can give a blessing? And then you can say, what exactly is a blessing? You know, are there bigger blessings and smaller ones? We talked that way. Can a person be a blessing to another person? And although I'm good at raising questions, I'm not always good at knowing the exact answers, so I turned to a couple of my dictionaries. So, hope you don't mind if this seems a little academic, but Webster's gave some definitions for that. One of the definitions that Webster's gives is that a blessing is an act or words of a person who blesses. So, a person who's trying to bless someone, you call the words that they say or the act they do a blessing. Or the thing that's conducive to happiness or welfare, it says. So, something makes you happy or improves your welfare, many people would call that a blessing. Now, I also looked up the verb form of that, where it says, to bless. Now, it could be more religious or non-religious. The religious meaning is to consecrate by a religious right. To invoke divine care. These aren't words I usually use on my own, but... Another one, a non-religious definition, would be to confer prosperity or happiness. If I do something to you that helps you prosper or that makes you happy, you could say, I'm blessing you. And I find it interesting that even in our secular society, the words bless and blessing, I think, seem to still have for people at least a quasi-religious tone. They think of a higher power or something greater than themselves. Of course, Webster's isn't trying to be religious, so I also looked at my Unger's Bible dictionary. It gives them definitions that are a little more useful. And it describes three acts of blessing. So, I'm going to share those with you. Unger says, an act of blessing can be when God blesses men. God gives a blessing that makes men happy or gives them some type of prosperity. There's an example of that in Genesis 22, verse 17. And you might guess being that early in Genesis, it's God speaking to Abraham. Genesis 22 and verse 17, God says to Abraham, blessing, I will bless you.

And multiplying, I'll multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed, all nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. That's interesting that God was saying, in a descendant of Abraham, all nations on earth would be blessed. And we've seen that come true. I'm going to come back to exactly how we would explain that later. I probably don't need to define it here. I'm guessing most of you could easily think of that.

But let's move on to another act of blessing. For men to bless God... I was surprised at first when I read that in Ungers, how can a man bless God? But it's described as, for men to bless God is to describe to him his supreme sovereignty, or to express gratitude for his mercy and his blessings. Which is sort of a response. God blesses us and we thank him for his blessings.

Actually, I'm not going to turn there. The scripture is in Psalm 103, verses 1 and 2. Psalm 103, verses 1 and 2 read, Bless the Lord, eternal, O my soul, and all that is in me, bless his holy name. And it goes on to say, forget not all his benefits. And we look at that, he blesses us with healing. I think I could have brought it to memory if I just started singing it, because it's in our hymnal, where it says, Bless the Lord, eternal, O my soul. I've sung that a thousand times, probably.

I never thought that I could give God a blessing. But it's ascribing a blessing, saying a blessing. And the third act of blessing that Ungers describes is when men bless other men. And that's one of two ways, either expressing good wishes for them, or specifically calling on God to provide benefits.

And I'll give you a reference there I also won't turn to, because I've got some other passages I want to read. And 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel 6 and verse 20, it says that David returned to bless his household. And the larger story of that was when they brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.

They had a little trouble the first time they tried to bring it. One of the fellows put his hand on it, and God killed some people. So they set it aside, and later it seems David did some research and learned the Levites had to carry it on the poles. And they brought it in, and they offered great sacrifice, and David leaped and danced.

And his wife thought that was a little demeaning. But afterwards he said they offered these sacrifices, and then David came home to bless his household. So we wanted to confer on them a great blessing and ask God to bless them.

I think that's amazing. I'll give you a couple of other examples. Some of these are so well known that we could almost look over them without thinking. But near the end of the book of Genesis, in chapter 49, Jacob called all of his sons together. He was about to die, and he said, Let me tell you what will befall your descendants in the last days, and he blessed them.

So he went down through each one of his sons. I'm not going to turn and read it, but this is known as Jacob passing on these blessings. And Moses did a similar thing, going tribe by tribe in Deuteronomy chapter 33. So these are places, some of the foremost parts of the Bible, where blessings are conferred. Before I move on, I want to describe a couple of other terms.

Because blessing seems familiar to us, and we already knew what it meant, but I've given some more formal definitions. Sometimes we hear the term, benediction. And what's that? It sounds very formal. And actually, it is to some degree. It's a formal statement of blessing as part of a ritual worship.

We use that term most often, or when there's some type of formal ceremony, and someone asks a blessing at the beginning or at the end. I know in graduation, we have invocation and benediction, and I always kind of laugh, because, well, they're both prayers. But we pray to God for these things. If you do want to turn to Numbers 6, there is a place where God did describe a formal blessing that we could call a benediction for the priests to use.

And I've always found this kind of inspiring, the way God words it. He would have his priests, starting with Aaron, the high priest. Numbers 6, it begins in verse 23 with the description.

It says, the Lord, well, no, I wanted to start in verse 23, speaks to Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

This was said by the priest after every morning and every evening offering. They had certain sacrifices twice a day. In the morning and in the evening they would offer a lamb as a burnt offering. They would also trim the candles and burn incense inside the holy place. And tradition tells us that at the end of doing these, the high priest would come out and say these words. And tradition also says that it developed a practice later on when the temple was no more, that when the Jews would gather at the synagogue at the end of their service, they would say this blessing. I've sometimes wondered at...well, I started wondering it after we had our son, Connor, blessed as a little child, because Mr. Ed Smith, who was a long-time elder serving in Cincinnati, did the ceremony for us, and he actually recited these words from memory as part of his prayer. And that was very moving to me. It made me wonder even if in the stories in the Bible where they brought little children to Jesus to bless them, if you might have echoed these words or even said them specifically. And I don't know the answer to that question, but it's kind of intriguing.

One other term I'll mention before I stop giving definitions is we see the term beatitude, specifically in Matthew 5. I've sometimes wondered about that because it's not a word that's in the Bible, but it's a word that people use about this part of the Bible. And I learned it's from the Latin, and it simply means blessing, which fits. In Matthew 5, verses 3-12, Christ, as part of his famous Sermon on the Mount, said, Blessed are the meek, they'll inherit the earth. Blessed are those who are hunger, they'll be filled. And he pronounces several blessings.

So, I think it just sounds odd to us because it's Latin, but it's simply a phrase that means blessing. And Jesus Christ pronounced certain blessings.

But having answered some of the simple questions about what is a blessing, what does the word mean, still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. What are the ways that we want to be blessed? How can we help others to be blessed?

And you could say, should we seek to be blessed? In some ways, it doesn't seem wrong, but we're taught not to be acquisitive in gathering things for ourselves. So, it's worth looking at the Bible to see what ways should we seek blessings, and how should we try to share them.

I mentioned, my friend, making a joke out of that comment if someone sneezes, and you say, bless you. Can you ask a blessing?

Well, the short answer is yes. We can ask that. Especially, we can confer a blessing if we think of the generic definition of giving someone something that benefits them. But also, we can call upon God and ask him to give a blessing. Which reminds me that in the old days, I think that was the more formal thing that you said after someone sneezes. You would say, God bless you. Which is asking God to do that.

Of course, I sometimes put different colors in my notes, because that led me to the thought of, well, we don't do that in the church, typically. I grew up, I started attending church when I was about 10 with my grandmother, and that's one of the things I learned that was different about us. We tend to not say that when people sneeze. So, I wanted to get a little research. Why don't we? And it's largely because of the explanation of where that came from.

One is that it was an ancient superstition that sort of thought when a person sneezed, their spirit or soul was coming out of their body. And you wanted to ask God to bless them so that some evil spirits don't get in there in the meantime. And our tradition in the church has been to not follow traditions of men or things like that.

But another reason I found why people would say that, and actually there's another phrase that people say when someone sneezes that comes from the German. You've probably heard it's Gesundheit, which I always thought that meant, God bless you. And then I looked it up, and it means good health, good health to you. And I think that might have been another reason people would say, God bless you when someone sneezes, because it gives the implication, you might be sick.

So asking God to bless someone who's sick isn't necessarily a bad thing or based on evil spirits. So again, I got sidetracked, but to me, I like to know some of why we do things that we do in the church and don't do. Which reminds me, I should share that with the students at this college, because they might be wondering that sometimes too. But if we don't do it that way, then how should we conceit God's blessings?

I don't think there's a place where it specifically says, but the stories of the patriarchs in particular deal with blessings. The greatest blessings of all were promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants. Which, of course, much of the holiday we just celebrated was about realizing that we are the recipients of those blessings. God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Jacob specifically passed the majority of that on to Ephraim and Manasseh. And so we live in the most blessed country that's ever lived. We are the wealthiest, most powerful. And I kind of like that. But we can go back to some of their stories. I wanted to go back to Genesis chapter 14 for one of the examples about how a blessing was conferred in the attitude of Abraham when it came.

Now, without reading all the story, I'll give you the backstory. There were these little city-states in the Middle East at that time, not ruled by larger kingdoms or empires. And there was an alliance of these city-states towards the East, towards the River Euphrates. And they'd been dominating some of them in the Middle East, now what became known as the Promised Land.

And when the Promised Land stopped paying tribute, the other ones came and attacked them. And they defeated them in battle and took many captives away. The reason it's important is one of those cities that was involved was the town of Sodom, in Lot. Abram's nephew was living there. Well, Abram heard word, hey, they came and they captured them and they've taken your nephew Lot captive.

So Abram gathered up his servants and he had a couple of neighbors who went with him and they tracked down those enemies, perhaps spraying a surprise attack and defeated them and sent them running. And so Abram comes back with the spoil and with the captives. And that's where we'll meet him in Genesis 14 and verse 16. Here in verse 16 it says, So he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother Lot and all his goods, as well as the women and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the valley of Sheva, that is the king's valley, after his return from the defeat of Kedolaiomer and the kings who were with him. So king of Sodom comes out, but it says in verse 18, Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed him. Melchizedek blessed Abram. He said, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he, that is Abram, gave him Melchizedek a tie of the ball.

So we see a formal statement of blessing, Melchizedek blessed Abram.

And if it weren't for what is written later in the New Testament, we might read over that and say, Wow, that was pretty interesting. And kind of odd that there's somebody described as a priest of God Most High just out there. But in Hebrews chapter 7, we get much of this explained.

Hebrews 7, we'll begin in verse 4, because here's where we'll get some insight into the process of conferring blessing to some degree. And that was my focus, putting this together.

Hebrews 7, in verse 4. Well, actually, I'm not going to read... Actually, it starts in verse 1, where it says, King of Salem, priest of God Most High, who met Abram after the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. Okay, that's the story we just read. To whom Abraham also gave a tenth part of all. Speaking of Melchizedek, it says, Those are powerful things. Those are terms that are ascribed to Jesus Christ.

And rightly so. Verse 3 says, This Melchizedek was Jesus Christ before he became Jesus Christ. And he had, for his own reasons that we're not sure of, he met Abram. I suspect perhaps he spent some time explaining things to him. But I'm guessing about that. But we do know he blessed him. And it says in verse 4, Now, beyond all contradiction, the lesser is blessed by the better.

Here, a mortal man received tithes, but there he receives them of whom it is witnessed that he lives. I'm not going to continue there because we believe the author of Hebrews was Paul. And he was using that incident to explain why we do still tithe, even though the Levitical priesthood has been superseded by the priesthood of Melchizedek. But he makes the point that the lesser is blessed by the better.

Now, in life, such as we'll see soon when Isaac wanted to give a blessing to Esau, it wasn't always necessarily the morally better or superior. And of course, with Abram and Melchizedek, it absolutely was that. Melchizedek was God in the flesh, so he was far better, and he could bless his subordinate. But generally, among men, it's the greater in rank or stature, the person of a greater position, or more often the elder blessing the younger. The person that has authority would ask God to bless the person that's in the lower stature or position. And we see that a number of times in Scripture.

As a matter of fact, I do want to go back to Genesis 27 and visit that story. Every now and then I make myself pause and try to slow down. I've got a tendency to race through this. I'll confess, sometimes my style is affected by my teaching at the college, where I'm looking at the calendar and saying, I only have so many days left in the semester, I've got to get to the end of this.

And it comes out in my sermon sometimes. But in Genesis 27, I'll begin at the start, because we'll see this is a special occasion, and Isaac wanted to do something special for his firstborn son. It came to pass when Isaac was old, and his eyes were so dim that he could not see. He called Esau's older son and said to him, My son! He answered, Here I am! Then he said, Behold, now I'm old. I do not know the day of my death. Now therefore, please take your weapons, your quiver, and your bow. Go out to the field and hunt game for me.

Make me savory food such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, and that my soul may bless you before I die. It seems likely Isaac had been sick. He seems to think he's near the end of his life.

And perhaps losing his vision contributed to that. We wonder, because his eyes were dim, when I had an incident a couple years ago of having a rapid onset of cataracts, I developed a different appreciation for this. Now I get it. You can see someone came in the room and not be able to recognize who they are. I laugh a little because later on, if you read through the story, you see that Isaac ended up living 30 or 40 years after this event. But he thought the time was near, and so did others. Now I want to read in verse 6, because...

Well, in verse 5 it says, Rebecca was listening. So in verse 6, Rebecca spoke to Jacob, her son, saying, I heard your father speak to Esau, saying, Bring me gain and make savory food that I may eat it and bless you.

Verse 9, she says, Now go now to the flock and bring me from there, two choice kids of the goats. I'll make savory food from them for your father, such as he loves. Then you'll take it your father that he may eat it, and he may bless you before his death. So, Rebecca conspired to have Jacob get this blessing that Esau wanted to confer. I'll skip ahead. We know Jacob was a little nervous, because he said, Esau's a hairy guy, and I'm not. Rebecca had a plan for that.

I'll get the hair off the goat and put it on, and I'll have you wear his clothes, and Dad won't be able to tell the difference. I'm paraphrasing that part. But I want to move ahead to verse 27. It says, Be master over your brethren, and let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be those who bless you.

So that's a formal statement of blessing. The elder on the younger, calling on God to provide that. Now, we know the story later, Esau showed up. Matter of fact, it seems very soon after Jacob left, and he said, Here I am, Dad. I've got the food just the way you wanted it. And Esau says, Who are you? I've done some study in this. It says, Jacob trembled exceedingly. I think in a word-for-word translation of the Hebrew, would say, He trembled exceedingly with a great trembling. So he was just rocked to his core about realizing, I think, that he'd been deceived.

Esau wanted him to pronounce a blessing on him. Matter of fact, here it is in verse 33. Isaac trembled exceedingly. He said, Who? Where is the one who hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate all of it before you came. And I have blessed him, and indeed he shall be blessed. I've often wondered, it seems that God gave Isaac the right to confer a blessing, but not the power to take it back. Once it was said, it was said. Perhaps, as it says down in verse 35, Your brother came with deceit and has taken away your blessing.

Now, Esau thought there ought to at least be some kind of blessing that he could have. He says, Father, haven't you reserved a blessing for me? Do you only have one? That's in verse 38. And Isaac did confer a blessing on him, starting in verse 39. He said, Behold, your dwelling will be of the fatness of the earth, of the dew of heaven from above.

By your sword you'll live, and you'll serve your brother, and it'll come to pass. When you become restless, you'll break his yoke from your neck. And we'll see only a few verses. This starts becoming fulfilled. Esau was very angry enough that he would kill Jacob if he could get away with it, and so Jacob has to flee. It's kind of sad that Jacob and Rebecca had gone to this much trouble when earlier, Rebecca had received a prophecy that Jacob would have the greater blessing.

If you remember, when she's pregnant and she feels a lot of trouble in her womb, of course, they didn't have ultrasounds back then to go and tell her, surprise, there's twins in there. But God actually sent a message to her to say, there's twins in there, and the younger is going to be master over the older.

And Jacob turned out to be the younger, not by very much. So God had planned all along, for whatever reason, to give a superior blessing to Jacob. If Jacob and Rebecca had just paid attention to that, how much better their lives might have been? And this could teach us something about how to go about getting blessings. When God appeared to Abram as Melchizedek, Abram was very humble, and he gave him a tithe. That's the way to seek a blessing. Jacob conspired and used deceit to get a blessing. He would get the blessing, and we've enjoyed the results of it, but think of what happened to him also.

There's one point in the story where, as Rebecca's telling him to do this, he says, Well, what if Dad figures it out? He said, Don't worry, and he said, What if Dad figures it out, and I get a cursing instead of a blessing? She says, Let your curse be on me, my son. There's no record of it specifically being a curse, but we know what happened. Jacob fled to his uncle Laban and was gone at least 20 years. And there's indication that Rebecca died before he ever got to see her again. That could be considered a curse, that she lost her favorite son. Of course, Jacob spent time living in fear of Esau, and when he was so journeying with Laban, Laban swindled and tricked him.

He served seven years for one daughter, and he got the other one, and then had to serve seven more years for that one. It goes to show that we should take blessings seriously, but try to get them in the right way. There's a New Testament passage about this. I won't turn there, but in Hebrews 12 and verse 17, it says, Esau despised his birthright.

Now, this is before the blessing. Remember, he came in from hunting, and he was very hungry, and he saw Jacob was making a nice stew. And he said, Give me some of that. Jacob, not having the best attitude about it, says, Well, sell me your birthright. The birthright is the privilege of the firstborn.

And in many cases, that privilege came with a special blessing. The things that the firstborn would get would be a double portion of the inheritance. They would become leader of the clan, and they would get a special blessing from their fathers. When Esau sold that birthright, you could say he might have even realized he was giving the right of that special blessing to Jacob. And yet, he still wanted to have it later on. So, Hebrews 12-17 says he despised his birthright, and he could not get it back, though he sought it with tears.

He wept and mourned later. He wanted that. And I would think... It seems that Jacob learned a lesson about how to speak of blessing. If you're still open... Have your Bibles open to Genesis 27, I want to turn ahead to chapter 32.

Chapter 32 is a famous... Well, it's interesting because now we get the turnaround. Jacob has been gone for 20 years or more, and he's finally left Laban. He's got four... two wives and two concubines, and eleven... No, he's got twelve children counting Dinah. And Benjamin hasn't been born yet. But as he would say later, he crossed over the river with only a staff.

He comes back, and he's a band... two bands of people and a lot of livestock. And he sends gifts and messages to his brother Esau. But he's afraid of Esau. Last he heard from Esau, Esau wanted to kill him. So he organizes the whole family, you know, in a special way to be ready in case Esau comes to attack. Because actually... I'm looking for the message. He hears that Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred men. Yeah, it's in chapter 32, verse 6. The messengers return to Jacob, saying, We came to your brother Esau, and he's coming to meet you.

And four hundred men with him. And it says, Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and the herds, into two companies. Because he said, if Esau comes to one company and attacks it, then the other that's left will escape. But he does something that he didn't do before. Matter of fact, he should have done this when his mother came and said, Do this to get a blessing.

This time, he takes action, but prays to God. And verse 9, Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord, the eternal one who said to me, Return to your country and your family, and I'll deal well with you. I'm not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth that you've shown your servant. I tossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I've become two companies.

Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. For you said, I'll surely tweet you up, tweet, I'm hearing too much in the news about tweets. I'll treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

So he logs there that same night. I'm going to skip ahead, but, as I said, I realize there's a balance. I can take action to try to attain something that's good, but first and foremost, pray to God. Ask him for his blessing, and seek it diligently.

And we see that starting in verse 23. And this is a well-known story. He took them, that is his family, his wives and his children and servants, sent them over to Brooke, and sent over what he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. And we know from the context, this is no man, no ordinary man. When he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint, and as he wrestled with him.

And he said, let me go till the day breaks. He said, I will not let you go unless what? Unless you bless me. Jacob had realized, I'm sure, himself, that this was not just a mortal man. So I'm dealing with either a representative of God or God himself, and this is the source of blessings. Not trickery or deceit. I'm not letting go until I get that blessing. So he said, what is your name?

Jacob. Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, which means, prevailor or prince with God. It can be interpreted both ways. It says, you've struggled with God and men and have prevailed. Anyways, it goes on from there. Oh yeah, verse 29. Jacob said, tell me your names. Why is he who asked me my name, and he blessed him there? Never did tell him his name, but we know who it was. But Jacob was clinging to the source, the true source of blessings.

One of the things I've learned from studying his life is that Jacob developed and matured and changed over the years. He started off having a very small view of God and a big view of himself. And those reversed through the years. He came to see himself in a more humble way and saw that God was the source of those blessings.

I want to look at another example of finding blessings if we go to the New Testament.

Mark chapter 10 is a very well-known story because we look at this at least once a year, the second Sabbath after the feast, when we have a formal ceremony to ask God to bless little children who have been joined with, to become part of our congregation.

So we want to see more examples of the attitude we want to have in seeking God's blessings. And Mark 10 in verse 13 says, When they brought children to him, that is to Jesus Christ, that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. When Jesus thought he was greatly displeased, he said, Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly I said, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, will by no means enter it.

He took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. And I mentioned before, I wonder if he used any of the words of the formal blessing from Numbers chapter 6, but whatever words he used were powerful, because he was God there in the flesh, and he blessed them.

But it's interesting, this special lesson, he said, Let the little children come to me, for of such is the kingdom of God. Anyone who doesn't receive the kingdom of God as a little child won't enter it. That's how to receive the kingdom of God. As a little child, and it occurred to me, is there any greater blessing we could have than entering the kingdom of God?

To enter the kingdom of God means becoming a spirit-born child of God. We can continue, though. There's a story attached to that that gives a little more emphasis or lesson on how to attain blessings. It goes right on, and it seems, it says, now as he was going on the road. So this happened, he blessed the little children, the parents, I apparently took them back home, and his disciples move on.

But he doesn't make it very far before one came running, and knelt before him, and asked, Good teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? So he said he's asking for the greatest blessing there is. Eternal life. Jesus said, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one. That is God. This is the proper acknowledgment of the Father. But then Jesus answers the question. Do you know the commandments? Do not commit murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal.

Do not bear false witness. Don't defraud. Honor your father and your mother. He said, Teacher, these things I've kept from my youth. And Jesus, looking at him, loved him. He said, One thing you lack. Go your way and sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven. And come and follow me. I want to back up one of the things I found was interesting. The young man, when he came, it says he knelt before Jesus.

We don't see that as inappropriate because we know that Jesus was God in the flesh. One thing I didn't realize before is the Hebrew word for blessing is barak. And the Hebrew word for knee is barak. They're related to the same word. Matter of fact, because vowels weren't in the original writing, it's hard to know how much difference there was. But the connection seems to portray, say, a symbolic picture.

Imagine a subject and a king. And the subject is on his knees before the king seeking a blessing. The king has all the power and the subject has none. In Mark 10, this young man knelt before Jesus Christ, King of Kings, acknowledging that Jesus Christ had the power to confer a blessing.

And that's something we want to remember. Again, seeking the kingdom of God as a little child. The young man wasn't so far off there, but it does seem that there was a little bit more to it. Because in answer to the young man's question, Jesus said to obey the commandments. And then when he said, well, I've been doing that, it seems that there was even a bit more.

Sell all your possessions and give them to the poor and come follow me. Come follow me seems to be an invitation to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, to be in that inner circle, to devote your life. Well, I made a connection here that I'll complete the circle in a moment by going to a couple other scriptures. But I see in this an instruction to go on to perfection, partly because of what we see in Hebrews 6.

Hebrews 6 and the first two verses describe what are often called the fundamental teachings. Or elementary principles, as it says here. Hebrews 6 and verse 1 says, Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God. Of course, we need to have faith in God, first of all.

Hebrews 11, 6 tells us that anyone coming to God must first believe that he is, and that he is a reward of those who seek him. And implied in that, then, is being willing to obey him, which the young man was doing.

I'm obeying your commandments. So there is that foundation of repentance from dead works, faith toward God, the doctrine of baptisms, laying on of hands, of resurrection from the dead, and of eternal judgment. So understanding God's great plan and purpose and where we fit in, these are part of the elementary principles. And having that in us, or understanding those, we go on to perfection. I see going on to perfection described as maybe going beyond obeying the letter of the law to obeying the spirit of the law, as Christ described in the Sermon on the Mount.

And for that young man, he said, Be willing to put me above everything else. Jesus said, Sell all that you have and come follow me.

I'm going to, as I said, finish drawing the circle by turning to Matthew 19. Matthew 19 is one of the other accounts of the same story. But it'll connect us... Draw the dot between those back to Hebrews 6, where I just was, or where we just were. Matthew 19, beginning in verse 16. Matthew 19 in verse 16, it says, Behold, one came who said to him, Good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? He said, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one. That is God. But if you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Okay, we've read through that.

And of course he says, Which ones? Jesus lists several of the Ten Commandments. Verse 20, the young man said, All these I have kept for my youth, what do I still lack? Here, the wording of what Jesus answers is slightly different. He said, If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven. There's the connection back to Hebrews 6, going on to perfection. If you want to be perfect, put everything else aside and come follow me. Now, two things are apparent here. We could say, To have the greatest blessing of all, and I'm making the jump here. I don't think I can find a place in Scripture where it says, The greatest blessing of all is eternal life in God's kingdom. But I can't imagine a greater blessing than that. Well, the first thing we have to do is humble ourselves and put God above all else. Or maybe I should say that's the second thing. One of the two things, though, is also to obey God. Follow Him. Live by His commandments. A couple of pages later, in Matthew 22, Christ summarized all of the Ten Commandments by what we call the two great commandments. In Matthew 22, in verse 36, someone asked Him, Teacher, which is the great commandment of the law? Jesus said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. That's from Deuteronomy 6. Or remember, 6 verse 4, I think. He said, This is the first and the great commandment. And then He told him what He didn't ask. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets. That's fabulous. God has all the power to confer blessings on us. And He says, This is how to do it. You want to have the greatest blessings of all. Obey me. God says to us, Don't obey the guy standing up here saying these words. Obey God and put Him first, above all else. That includes loving your neighbor as yourself. So you could say, if we know what's required, in a large manner, we have a choice of whether or not we want that blessing. I say that because I want to turn back to Deuteronomy. I was about to say, I'm sorry for making you turn to all these scriptures, but I keep having older men tell me, Stop apologizing. So I want to go to Deuteronomy 28 first. This is the classic chapter that we think of. Matter of fact, we call it the blessing and cursing chapter. These are national blessings that God held out to Israel. Starting at the beginning of the chapter in Deuteronomy 28, God is speaking through Moses. And He says, Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments, which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you on high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you. I imagine someone being run down the street with blessings behind it and jumping on you. You can't get away from the blessings. If you'll obey God. In verse 3, Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed you'll be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, and the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. You get the feeling God wants to give blessings. And who could read this and not think about the holiday we just celebrated? And that describes us and how we've been so blessed. Country and city and in every good and great way. But it's a long chapter. And there's the other side of it, beginning in verse 15.

When you come in and when you come in and when you come in and when you come in and when you go out. And that also sounds, unfortunately, like what's in our country today. Our peoples have turned away from God. And this sermon isn't to focus on that, per se, but it's to remind us of where our blessings come from. And they're not predicated on how good we are or how deserving. They're predicated on, first, those promises that God made many, many years ago to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that He did fulfill those. He made them unconditional. But our people have been turning more and more away from God and curses can follow. The important thing is that we do have a choice. I'll turn a couple more pages. We have a choice and our country does. In Deuteronomy 30, verse 19. Deuteronomy 30 and verse 19 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible.

Again, Moses is speaking for God, and he says, I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I've set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. When he says, choose life, I think the implication is also choose blessings. Choose these blessings.

And if we put this back with what we've covered, we could say, how do we choose to be blessed by God? Well, we seek Him with a humble heart and do what He says. I don't want to say it's very simple, but in some ways it's simple. It'd be silly if I said, it's easy. Obeying God's commandments isn't always easy, and our humanity makes us not want to humble ourselves. But it's still not particularly complicated. There's not a secret formula. It's not arcane, distant knowledge that you have to study forever to learn. It's laid out here in the pages of the Bible. Let me mention some other statements. I don't want to...well, I have time, but I don't want to turn and read all of these. But in the Psalms there are many statements, like Psalm 34, verse 8. Psalm 34, verse 8 says, Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. There's a blessing for trusting God. Trusting God implies faith. Have faith. Trust God and you'll be blessed. Psalm 41, in verse 1, a lot of the Psalms begin by saying, Blessed is he who...here it says, Blessed is he who considers the poor. There's a blessing for considering those less fortunate than ourselves. And that's another thing. I'm glad many communities do have a tradition on thanksgiving, of taking in the poor or the needy to help them enjoy thanksgiving as well. Psalm 112, Psalm 112, verse 1, Blessed is the man who fears the Lord and who delights in his commandments. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord and delights in his commandments. That fits with what we said. Respect and honor God. Love his ways. And that brings blessing. I do want to turn to Isaiah 56. One more, since I shouldn't skip all of them without reading, Isaiah 56, verses 1 and 2. Although it's out of the Psalms, it's also still very poetic. Isaiah 56 says, Thus says the Lord, Keep justice and do righteousness, for my salvation is about to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, and the Son of man who lays hold on it, who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Blessed is the man who does this, keeps the Sabbath, avoids evil. Do righteousness and keep justice. I want to be blessed, and he says these people will be blessed. One of the things that struck me as I wrote down all of these things, and I thought, boy, this sounds like what some people would call New Testament Christianity. And yet all of these quotes are from the Old Testament. You know, Jesus Christ's way of love, and forgiveness, and serving others. You know, it wasn't new with Jesus Christ in the New Testament. It was there with God all along. Now, one of the things I want to comment on, and I don't have a lot more, but all of the things we covered in Deuteronomy 28, I mentioned those are national blessings. And they filter down to all the individuals, but a lot of the blessings given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were saying, these will be on your descendants, on nations of people. You know, I talked about them controlling the gates of their enemies, and having great wealth and power. But when we get into the era of God working through a church, we start seeing focus on things given to individuals. And I hesitated on this because they aren't necessarily described as blessings, but they're often described as gifts. And it's hard to think of a gift that makes you able to do something or helps you in a particular way of not being a blessing. And I was going to turn to 1 Corinthians 12. Because if we do want to... If it's okay for me to categorize gifts, and especially spiritual gifts as blessings, there's some good instruction on what we should think about those. I'll start in 1 Corinthians 12 with the first verse.

This is, "...as now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren. I don't want you to be ignorant. You know you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus a cursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." It's interesting. There, on one hand, he says, he's cursed. Usually the opposite of cursing is blessing. And so I think that helps to make my case. And he says, in verse 4, "...there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." Okay? He goes... He describes some other things. I want to skip to verse 7. He says, "...the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit. To another faith by that same Spirit. To another gifts of healing by the same Spirit. To another the working of miracles. To another prophecy. To another discerning of spirits. To another different kind of tongues. And to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills." And we often cite this because he goes on to talk about how a body has many members, but it's one body. And we look at members of the church having different assignments, different responsibilities, but also different gifts, different abilities. But all of those could be considered blessings. Verse 7, he tells us that they're given for the profit of all. So a blessing that's given to me shouldn't be just for my benefit, it should be for the benefit of all. And that's something we don't want to forget. God made us to be unique in enjoying varying traits and different blessings. But, well, actually before I go on, one of the things that I've always been intrigued by this list of these spiritual gifts, how many of them focus on what goes on between our ears and the words that come out of our mouth. You know, the wisdom through the Spirit, the word of knowledge, faith, the understanding of prophecy and discerning of spirits. I'm looking at the things that have to do with intellectual knowledge and communication. Only a couple have to do with miracles or healing. I've always wanted those gifts. I'd love to be able to walk on water and turn water to wine and just put out my hands and someone's instantly healed. But it seems most of the gifts, the blessings that God gives us, are about what goes on in our mind and how we communicate with each other.

And I think, I'm not sure there's lessons in that. I guess maybe we're enjoying spiritual gifts in ways we don't always appreciate. I'm sure many of you have these words of wisdom and of faith and understanding and discernment. And I pray that God will grant me those.

But again, one of the things I noticed is even as there's differences in those particular things, I think we could say the ultimate blessing is available to each of us equally. If the greatest blessing is entrance into the kingdom of God as a member of the family, that's something none of us can land behind. We all can share that.

I love the way, in some ways, that can be seen back when God first called Abram in chapter 12 of Genesis.

Genesis chapter 12, he talks about his blessings being not just for him, in a sense.

This is God's first calling. It says, It says, That alone is plenty.

That's interesting. Abraham was promised one blessing that we're not.

That he would become a blessing, and in him all families of the earth would be blessed.

Almost everybody who studies the Bible and speaks on it says the greatest fulfillment of that was when Jesus Christ was born from a descendant of Abraham. That Jesus Christ made possible the greatest blessing of all by taking on him the guilt for our sins and paying that penalty.

That's a fabulous thing.

I think having the ability to have our sins forgiven and enter God's family is the greatest blessing of all. It's a blessing to be forgiven of sin.

As a matter of fact, if I could skip over.

Oh, yeah. I was thinking of Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2.

You can make a note of this. Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2 is where it says, It might sound more familiar if you think, What a fabulous blessing to be able to be forgiven.

God promised that first through Abraham. Now it was, of course, Jesus Christ that made it possible.

I would say there's a far secondary blessing where Abraham would be a blessing to all the people on the earth.

But it is worth mentioning that the descendants of Abraham, who are recognized now primarily in what we call the English-speaking peoples, or in older days we'd say the United States and British Commonwealth, through what we've given to the world, through the use, the sharing of our wealth, through exercising our power to try to help the helpless, we've been a blessing to the world, or our nation has.

I hesitate to say we because I was sitting at home when others did that, but it's still been a great blessing.

And God fulfilled that in a very powerful way.

I want to turn to Psalm 115.

Because I'm talking about how everyone can receive that blessing, there's a statement of that in Psalm 115.

Psalm 115, beginning in verse 12.

Here it says, Here it says, Everyone, both small and great, can be blessed by God.

They can enjoy the greatest blessings from God.

Because God does it. According to his plan, he focused on Israel first.

He chose out a specific people and worked through them.

But I think his intent was always for that blessing to be passed on to all those who would turn to God.

And I would say God knowing that that would be in what we call the second resurrection.

When Satan is put away and people will have a chance to know him.

And that was he represented in what we call the Great White Throne Judgment.

But to receive that blessing, the people will need to humble themselves.

And symbolically, if not, in fact kneel before God.

As we do. And to choose to obtain that blessing by obeying God.

As I said, those two things come through again and again.

To receive blessing and to have blessings we can share.

We humble ourselves before God and we obey him.

Obey his commandments.

And I pause because, it's funny, I sung this up after I'd gone through it.

I said, there's a lot to this blessing business.

That's a lot more than something you say as a reflex after someone sneezes.

And we do that casually.

But even though I don't think it's wrong to say those things or to count our blessings and use them those terms.

Because they're so plentiful.

We don't want to lose sight of the real meaning, how deep it is.

True blessings, the greatest blessings in this life are gifts from God. Things that we could never fully repay.

But it's not wrong to purposely seek those blessings.

Jacob set us an example, not in his early life, of trying using deceit and trickery, but by hanging on to God and refusing to let go.

And in doing that we can strive to be a blessing to other people, to share those blessings.

Knowing, still, the greatest blessing of all is one that God holds out for us. That we can be born and part of the family of God.