Word of Salvation – Vol 49 No 29 – August 2004
The Lord Bless You
Sermon by Rev J Haverland on Numbers 6:22-27
Scripture Readings: Psalm 67; Ephesians 1:1-14
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The theme of this sermon is:
The Lord blesses His people with His grace and favour.
And the purpose of preaching this sermon is to encourage and comfort us with a knowledge of God’s blessing and favour on us in the year to come.
At the end of every worship service the person leading the service will pronounce the benediction. “Benediction” is an old word which comes from the Latin, and it means “blessing”. The benediction is the final blessing of the service. It is a great climax to our worship of God. We have blessed Him, now He blesses us.
As we go from the worship services Sunday by Sunday we go with God’s blessing. We go on our way with the assurance of the grace and favour of God. The words of blessing we use in our worship services as Reformed Churches are taken from various passages in the Bible – like this one in Numbers 6.
God gave these words to Israel while they were camped around Mt Sinai. They had been there for about a year. During that time they built the tabernacle and received God’s laws for their new life as a nation. Then they made preparations to move on towards the land of Canaan. As they prepared to travel, the Lord commanded Aaron and his sons to use these words to bless the people of Israel in their worship in the tabernacle. They prepared to travel with the assurance of God’s blessing.
There are three phrases to this blessing, each of which contains two parts. In the Hebrew each phrase is progressively longer: the first phrase has three words, the second five and the third has seven words. Or, if you count the Hebrew consonants, the first has 15, the second 20 and the third phrase has 25. By this structure God wanted to show that His blessing became progressively fuller and richer. He wanted to show Israel that He would amplify His blessings to them, extending His favour.
The idea of blessing and cursing is strange to us. In our society we aren’t used to these ideas. But this was familiar language in the Ancient Near East. The people then thought there was power in spoken words. That is why Balak hired Balaam to come and curse Israel when they were camped on his doorstep (Numbers 22-24).
But the people of Israel understood this differently. The power to bless or curse did not lie in the words themselves, but in God. This was not magical; there was no hocus-pocus; this wasn’t an incantation; nor was it merely a wish, or even a prayer. Rather it was an announcement, a pronouncement. When the priest raised his hands and announced these words at the end of worship at the tabernacle he was proclaiming God’s blessing on His people; he was bestowing God’s favour on Israel. The people were blessed because God had decided to bless them.
And God had decided to bless them because they were His people. He did not bless everyone in general, nor anyone regardless of who they were. He blessed His covenant people, those whom He had chosen. That is the significance of his “Name” in verse 27. God’s Name represented His person. When He put His Name on the Israelites, He was identifying them as being His people. They belonged to Him. They were His, bound to Him in a covenant relationship.
These words of blessing are often spoken by the minister at the close of worship in churches today. Now they are addressed to you because you are the New Testament people of God. You are His covenant people in this age, in these last days.
The minister today is not a priest because the Old Testament priesthood was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. He is now our High Priest. Rather, the minister announces the blessing that God will give to you because of Christ. The Old Testament priest proclaimed what Jesus would do; the New Testament pastor proclaims what Jesus has done.
Well, what has Jesus Christ done for us? What did the Old Testament blessing anticipate and what does this blessing announce to us as the New Testament church? It announces: “The Lord bless you and keep you.”
We use the word bless or blessing quite easily. Someone sneezes and we say, “bless you.” (Incidentally, that practice comes from one of the plagues of the Middle Ages. When someone sneezed it was a sign of the onset of the plague and others would wish the suffering one God’s blessing.) We sit down to a meal and ask God to “bless this food.” We pray in church and we hear someone ask for a “blessing on our country.” What do we mean?
“Bless” in Hebrew is derived from a word meaning “to kneel”. It means, to bend the knee, to show honour, reverence, and awe. We can bless God in praise and prayer and God blesses us in grace and favour. When the word for “bless” is used of us to God, the NIV translates it as “praise”. When “bless” is used of God to us, the NIV keeps the same word, “bless”.
So to bless someone is to value them, to honour them, to show them your favour, to be kind to them – it is to be good to them. “The blessing of God is the goodness of God”, writes Calvin.
In the Old Testament God promised that if His people obeyed Him, He would give them physical blessings. He promised them good health, a large family, abundant crops, wine and oil, a land of their own, an inheritance for their children.
In the New Testament the emphasis is more on the spiritual blessings God promises. He has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:3).
When Peter preached to the crowds on the day of Pentecost, he told them that God had sent His servant Jesus “to bless you” (Acts 3:26). That word sums up the work of the Lord Jesus and all its benefits to us – your sins are forgiven, you are adopted into God’s family, your guilt has been cleared, you have been declared righteous, you are given eternal life, you are promised a glorious future. So when these words are said at the end of the service, they are the assurance that God will give you his love and favour in Christ.
“The Lord bless you and keep you“.
The word “keep” can also be translated as guard or protect or watch over. The same word is used in Psalm 121. “The Lord will keep you from all harm, He will watch over your life” (vs 7).
This is not a guarantee that all will go smoothly in life or that there will be no sorrow or sadness or suffering. Many of us have experienced sickness in our lives, death in families, tension in marriages, unemployment, surgery, depression. Yet the Lord assures you that He will keep you in and through these times. He will keep you from discouragement in difficulty; from becoming cynical when disappointed; from bitterness in sickness; from anxiety in trouble; from fear when undergoing trial; from unbelief when Satan attacks you.
“The Lord bless you and keep you” means, “God will give you His love and favour and guard and protect you from evil.” You need to believe this blessing, remember it, and hold on to it. The Lord will do this for you.
The blessing continues: “The Lord make his face shine upon you”.
This reference to the ‘face’ of God is what we call an ‘anthropomorphism’. It is a description of God in human terms. God is a Spirit and He doesn’t have a human face, but it is described like this to help us understand God’s kindness and love to us.
God’s ‘face’ will “shine upon you”. Sunshine is associated with things that are bright and cheerful and joyful. When the day dawns after a long and difficult night we immediately feel better for it. When the sun breaks out after a few days of fog and rain we begin to feel brighter, more positive. This is the mood of this blessing. May God give you the light of His presence, the warmth of His love, the brightness of His life.
This thought is repeated in the psalms:
“The Lord is my light and my salvation” (27:1);
“In your light we see light” (36:9);
“Restore us O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved” (80:3);
“Let the light of your face shine upon us O Lord” (4:6).
All of this anticipated the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ who came as the Light of the world. He is the Light shining in the darkness. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, has made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). God has allowed us to feel the warmth of His love in and through His son Jesus. He announces this to us as the close of worship; and as He does so, He assures us of His grace.
“…and be gracious to you.”
God’s grace is His free favour. It is His kindness shown to people who do not deserve it and who have not earned it. It is His love given graciously, freely, simply out of His goodness.
This grace of God was pictured for those Old Testament people in the substitutionary sacrifices and the Passover lamb. But it is seen most fully in the birth and death of God’s Son, Jesus. There we see the “amazing grace” of God who loved us so much that He gave his one and only Son. It was this undeserved favour, this grace, that “saved a wretch like me.”
This “grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” “The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.”
That brings us to the third part of this blessing: “The Lord turn His face toward you, and give you peace.”
When someone turns away from you, they are choosing to ignore you, or snub you, or slight you. One of the great fears expressed in the psalms is that God would turn His face away. “Do not hide your face from your servant, answer me quickly for I am in trouble” (69:17). Or take the experience of Job: “Why do you hide your face from me and consider me your enemy” (13:24).
However, if you turn towards someone, then you are showing them that you are interested in them. You want to hear what they have to say. Think of times when you have seen a man and a woman sitting opposite each other at a coffee shop or restaurant, face to face, eagerly talking to each other. They face each other because they are intensely interested in each other.
Here God promises that He will turn His face toward you. He will take an interest in you. He will care for you. He will give you His comfort and compassion and consolation. He will look after you and look out for you. He is interested in you. He will turn His face toward you. Believe this. Take this home with you today.
And he will “give you peace.”
We live in a world at war: the Middle East, Ireland, Liberia, Iraq. Throughout the world there are millions of people who long for peace in their countries. There are also many people who are at war in their marriages and families and work places – their lives are full of conflict and arguments and disagreements with others.
In all this trouble the Lord promises peace. This is more than just the absence of war. Biblical peace, or “shalom”, to use the Hebrew word, is a condition of wholeness, goodness, rightness, of well-being – a well-being that is physical, emotional and spiritual. It is a peace with God, with others, and with ourselves. The peace of God is the sum total of all His gifts.
This peace comes about through the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave us peace; He is our peace; He made peace between us and God. He promised this to His disciples and to us when He said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
These are God’s words of blessing. Each time the people of Israel worshipped God at the tabernacle they would return to their tents with these words ringing in their ears: “The Lord bless you.”
Each time we come to the close of our worship service we hear words of blessing from the Lord. The benediction is not merely a sign that the service is over, or a chance to look up the last hymn, or to gather your books or put on your coat. No, it is a declaration of favour from the Lord. You can go forward into another week in your homes and schools and places of study and work with these words of comfort, hope and assurance: the Lord will bless you as His people.
This blessing was reinforced by this three-fold repetition. God would certainly bless them. He would certainly show them his favour. That three-fold repetition anticipates the trinitarian blessings of the New Testament where we are promised the blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:14).
As we prepare to leave worship Sunday by Sunday, we can look forward to the parting blessing of God. One of our hymns conveys that sense of anticipation:
Saviour, again to Thy dear name we raise,
with one accord, our parting hymn of praise;
we stand to bless Thee ere our worship cease,
and now departing, wait Thy word of peace.
Grant us thy peace throughout our earthly life,
our balm in sorrow, and our stay in strife;
then, when thy voice shall bid our conflict cease,
call us, O Lord, to thine eternal peace. (Hymn 326)
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you;
The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”
Amen.