How To Be Blessed Series

How to Be Blessed

Series: A Biblical Guide to Wilderness Survival

September 25, 2011

What does it mean to be blessed? Have you ever asked yourself that question?

• finances?

• health?

• lovely family?

• lots of friends?

• good looks?

• All the above?

And what happens if you don’t have any of these things? Does it mean you’re cursed?

The music video we watched during the offering was a song by Martina McBride, called, “Blessed”, and in it she describes the simple things in life that bring her joy…like the feeling of a hardwood floor under her feet, or the sound of her kids playing in the hallway. She looks around her and concludes…”I’m blessed!” Have you ever done that? I mean, have you ever just stopped for a moment and counted your blessings? There’s an old hymn that encourages us to do just that…”Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done”. Many times God has blessed us but we just don’t see it anymore.

You know, deep in everyone of our hearts we want to be able to feel like our lives have been blessed, but instead of blessing, many of us go through our lives feeling like we’ve been cursed! So how do we find that life of blessing? In this world, where we’re surrounded by the heartache or relational brokenness, the pain of loved ones suffering and the daily trials of living …where do we find true blessing? Well, that’s what the passage of scripture we’re going to read from Numbers this morning is going to tell us…what the life of blessing is… and how we can receive it. I want you to listen to Numbers 6:22-27, as it gives us 3 foundational truths about blessing…

1. What it is…

2. Where it comes from, and…

3. How we can receive it…

READ Numbers 6:22-27… 22 The LORD said to Moses, 23 “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: 24 “The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’ 27 “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

The 1st thing I want you to see from this passage is…

1. Where does blessing comes from?

Are you ready? According to this verse…Blessing comes from only one source…The Lord! It doesn’t come from how much money you have in the bank, or how big your house is…or from you own or want to own…it doesn’t even come anything from having hardwood floors. I’ve had them before and believe me… if you’ve ever tried to keep them clean…they’re actually more of a pain than a blessing! HA. No…when you boil it all down…blessing comes from the Lord! This is such a strong message, that the Lord reiterates it 3 x’s!!!”

1. The LORD bless you and keep you…

2. The LORD make his face shine on you and be

gracious to you…

3. The LORD turn his face toward you and give you

peace.”

That word in the Heb. for “LORD” is the personal name for God…”Jehovah”. It’s a personal blessing straight from God to His people. And then, just in case you missed it, the Lord sums it all up by saying to Moses in vs.27…”I MYSELF will bless them”…the Heb. is emphatic at that point! The reason that the Lord emphasizes so strongly where the “blessing” comes from, is because we have a natural tendency to look for “blessing” in all the wrong places. In Jer.2:13, the Lord points this out… 13 “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me— the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all! - NLT

Have you ever drunk water from a cistern? It’s nasty! Cisterns basically catch rain water and then just kind of sit there and stagnate. In the process, bugs, bacteria, and moss form. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather drink out of a fresh spring. God is saying that instead of seeking our blessings from Him (the spring of living water), we scratch around in stagnant, muddy pools of our own making. For Israel that meant looking to other countries for protection against their enemies, or going to other gods instead of the true and living God. We do that, don’t we? Have you ever tried to dig your own cistern? I have!

Some of us try to find blessing in our possessions …maybe a new computer or a new game system, a luxury car…an Ipad. We fool ourselves into thinking that if we just had that ‘thing’ or that ‘person’, or that ‘job’…that we would be blessed. Maybe you’ve looked for blessing from your friends, or from your work associates…if they would admire what you’ve done…then you’d be blessed. I’ve done that with pastors before…I figured that if I just pastored a mega-church then maybe they’d honor me! But they all just turn out to be “cracked cisterns”…over time the pleasure or the happiness we thought we’d gain…leaks out!