May God Be Gracious To Us Series

INTRO.- 1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, 2 that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

Warren Wiersbe wrote: “The author this Psalm is unknown, but it was someone who had a vision for the whole world.”

ILL.- T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) once said, "All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to the day to find it was all vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for the many act out their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible..."

Do you dream at night? Probably. Good dreams, bad dreams or strange dreams? Probably all of the above. The best and greatest dreams involve not just ourselves, but all people of the world. We don’t think only of ourselves, but rather the whole world. This is God’s kind of thinking since Jesus died for all mankind and God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Are you a visionary kind of dreamer? Do you have a vision or a dream for your life, your children’s lives and the whole world? We should and it should involve God’s will because that’s the best and only way to live. It’s the only way to be blessed by God and experience the best kind of life on earth.

ILL.- It started like so many evenings. Mom and Dad at home and Jimmy playing after dinner. Mom and Dad were absorbed with jobs and didn’t notice the time. It was a full moon and some of the light seeped through the windows. Then Mom glanced at the clock. "Jimmy, it's time to go to bed. Go up now and I'll come and settle you later."

Jimmy went straight upstairs to his room. An hour or so later his mother came up to check if all was well, and to her astonishment found that her son was staring quietly out of his window at the moonlit scenery. "What are you doing, Jimmy?" "I'm looking at the moon, Mommy." "Well, it's time to go to bed now." As that reluctant boy settled down, he said, "Mommy, you know one day I'm going to walk on the moon."

Who could have known that the boy in whom the dream was planted that night would survive a near fatal motorbike crash which broke almost every bone in his body, and would bring to fruition this dream 32 years later when James Irwin stepped on the moon's surface, just one of the 12 representatives of the human race to have done so? TALK ABOUT DREAMS AND A DREAMER! Few of us could dream such a great dream and then work to fulfill it.

But please remember than any good and great dream can never be without the grace of God! Every good and perfect gift comes from above!

James Irwin had quite a dream. I don’t know if it was a spiritual thing or not. Perhaps he thought that by walking on the moon he could bless all mankind. Perhaps so. I think all our dreams should include the idea of blessing mankind. This is why God put us on earth; not to serve ourselves but to serve and bless others.

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us.

PROP.- Consider what will happen when God is gracious to us.

1- His face will shine on us

2- His ways will be made known on earth

I. HIS FACE WILL SHINE ON US

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us.

ILL.- It is said that when Abraham Lincoln was President of the U.S. he was advised to include a certain man in his cabinet. When he refused he was asked why he would not accept him. "I don't like his face," the President replied. "But the poor man isn't responsible for his face," responded his advocate. Lincoln replied, "Every man over forty is responsible for his face.”

I don’t know about that but I do believe that we are somewhat responsible for how we look or perhaps how we look at others. Lincoln himself was not a good looking man, not in my book. In all the pictures I have seen of him he appeared to be a very stern, serious-looking man and not jovial. And I think a smile goes a long way to enhance a person’s appearance and personality.

People who smile and laugh a lot are attractive. People who appear serious all the time are not so attractive.

ILL.- It was said that when Holiday Inn was looking for 500 people to fill positions for a new facility they interviewed 5,000 candidates. The hotel managers interviewing these people excluded all candidates who smiled fewer than four times during the interview. This applied to people competing for jobs in all categories.