A Message About Psalm 67

How many of you would like God to bless your life? Should you ask God to bless your life? Or is that selfish?

Bruce Wilkinson’s bestselling book, The Prayer of Jabez, elaborates on an obscure figure mentioned in 1 Chronicles, arguing that we should seek God’s blessing always. In 1 Chronicles 4:10 we read,

Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!" And God granted what he asked.

Why did God grant what Jabez asked? What is the reason for God’s blessing?

There are many ways we can answer that question with Scriptural support: He loves his people. He delights to do them good. He is good.

But there’s one fundamental reason that God blesses His people, and this reason is closely related to the missionary calling of the church. Today’s text, Psalm 67, gives us that reason.

During this morning’s message, we’ll consider three questions about the Psalm. Here is the first:

Why Should God Bless You?

This Psalm begins in a way that sounds similar to prayer of Jabez (actually, it more closely echoes the blessing that Aaron and his descendants said over the people of Israel, as recorded in Numbers 6) - but Psalm 67 goes deeper than the prayer of Jabez, telling us why God blesses his people. Let’s look at the first two verses of the Psalm:

God be gracious to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us -- Selah. 2 That Your way may be known on the earth, Your salvation among all nations.

The Psalmist asks for blessing so that God’s ways may be known on the earth. The Psalmist is saying, in effect, "Bless me, so that I might glorify you; bless me so that I might show your power, your love, your majesty, your goodness to all nations."

Note that the Psalmist is not saying:

· He is not saying, "Bless me so that I can be comfortable."

· He is not saying, "Bless me so that I don’t have to work hard to make a living."

· He is not saying, "Bless me so that others will be envious of me."

· He is not saying, "Bless me so that I can be successful in the eyes of the world."

· Now listen carefully: He is not even primarily saying, "Bless me so that I can bless others."

This last is a biblical reason for God’s blessing, as He makes explicit in His call to Abraham (Genesis 12). By all means, God blesses us and gifts us so that we might serve and bless others. But still, this is not the underlying, fundamental reason for God’s blessing. God blesses us first and foremost so that we can bring glory to His name.

Let’s look into this further first of all in this Psalm itself, then in other parts of Scripture.

Much Hebrew literature is structured with a central point in the middle, and ideas that parallel each other the further away you get from the center. This structure is sometimes subtle, but in Psalm 67 it is particularly obvious: note that verses 3 and 5 are not only parallel but identical. Verse 4 is thus the literary center of the Psalm, and as such is emphasized (for an important reason we will come back to). Moving further away from the center, we would then expect to find that verses 1 and 2 are in parallel with verses 6 and 7. Let’s read these last two verses:

6 Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. 7 God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.

The Psalm begins by asking that God will bless us, and ends by underlining that He will indeed bless - in part through an abundant harvest of food - then concludes by once again giving the reason for the blessing: That all the ends of the earth will fear Him, revere Him, hold Him in awe.

So this Psalm Begins and ends with the statement that God’s blessings lead to His glory. That is the reason God blesses us.

But this idea is not limited only to Psalm 67 - you can find it throughout the Scriptures. There are many passages we could cite, but this morning let us look briefly at only two.

The first is 1 Kings 8:60. The Israelites have just completed the building of the temple. King Solomon offers a lengthy prayer, in part asking that God would meet His people’s needs. He then gives the reason why God should bless His people in this way: "so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other."