Introduction
According to Jewish tradition, in the beginning only God could bless the people. He blessed Adam and Eve and told them to be fruitful and multiply. God blessed Noah and his family as they departed the ark with the same blessing to be fruitful. And then we come to in Genesis 12, a turning point because God did something incredible: God passed on to Abraham the ability to bless others. God tell Abraham, you shall be a blessing.
And the ability to bless continued to be passed down after Abraham. Isaac passed a blessing to Jacob in Genesis 12:30. And Jacob passes his blessing to Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 48 and 49.
And then we come to the Book of Numbers, and we now encounter another turning point. Let's read the Scripture and see that turning point.
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.”
And so, in the Torah (which was like the rabbis' rule book to interpret the Scriptures), the Jewish rabbis concluded that God passed down instructions to Moses that blessing will now flow through the priest. As they saw it, blessing will come from God to the priest who passes them to the people. Make no mistake it is God who blesses, but the priests were to be the channel of blessings.
The result is that the priest will now have a dual function. They will be mediators between God and man offering sacrifices to God on behalf of man and their second function was to be channels of blessings to the people. And so, the usual daily Jewish service was the sacrificing of animals up to God (that was their meditator role) and then upon the conclusion of the sacrificing, the blessing would be given (that was their channel of blessing role.)
Enter Jesus Christ into the world. He came and offered the perfect sacrifice of Himself on the cross. He was buried, rose the third, and ascended into heaven, and the Bible says sits at the right hand of God. And there, He is our High Priest who makes intercession to the Father on our behalf. So, Jesus' sacrifice once and for all does not have to repeated. So, the function of the priest shifts from meditator to channel of blessing. They no longer had to serve as meditators between God and the people; praise God, Jesus became that meditator.
Now listen to the words of Peter: 1 Peter 2:9 (NKJV) 9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
According to that Scripture, those who believe in Jesus Christ are now the priest of the New Testament. And what is the remaining role left for the priesthood. To be channels of blessings. God has blessed us and taken us out of darkness and placed us into light and we are to show the world how God blesses. We are to share the blessing.
Ephesians 1:3 (NKJV) 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, And that blessing we are to pass on to others in our role as priest.So, my question to you: Are you passing the blessing of God to others in your life? Today, I want to share with you three things that will hinder my role as a channel of blessing to other.
My First Point
If I am not living the way that I should be living, then the blessings that are to flow from me to others is hindered.
James 5:16
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
I must make sure you understand that you and I are not the one who blesses anybody. It is God who blesses. He says so clearly in Number 6:27. "I will bless them." I am just the channel, so I got to make sure that I am clean before God, so the blessing flows through me.
And James picks up that idea in James 5:16. But sometimes I am afraid that we miss it because we tend to quote the second half of the verse and not the first. You are not going to get a prayer that is powerful and effective without the confession. We must be right before God before the power of God flows through us.
And think about this: if you are right before God what will happen to the blessings that you pronounce over someone's life. Those blessings will also be powerful and effective.
Here is the scary thing to me: if I am not right with God, I might be holding up the blessing that God has for someone else's life. If I am not right before God, I might be holding up a needed answer to prayer in my life or someone else's life. I am not being the channel of blessing as a priest that I need to be.
If you go back to the Old Testament if the priest was not in the proper spiritual condition to give the blessing, he must leave after the sacrifices and prior to the blessing. So, it was particularly important to be a clean channel of blessing so that he could be that blessing to others.
My Second Point
When was the last time that you asked God to allow you to be a blessing in someone else's life?
Matthew 7:7-8
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
It makes perfect sense that when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment that He would say love God first and love your neighbor as yourself. God should be first in everything; He is an awesome God. But the second part "love your neighbor as yourself" makes perfect sense when you consider our roles as priest. As priest our role is to be that channel of blessing. Remember we just read Ephesians 1:3 where God says that He blesses us with every spiritual blessing. God will bless me so that I can be a blessing to others; so that, I can perform my priestly duty.
So, when I ask God to allow me to bless Greg. God's blessing is going to flow to me with such abundance that I have more than enough to bless Bro Greg and still there is an abundant amount of blessing left over for me. So, my blessing is tied to my neighbor. So, it would make perfect sense that Jesus would say love your neighbor as yourself.
I want you to try something. I want you to pick three people you want to bless. Choose one friend, one family member, and one church member. And then I want you to go to God to ask Him to allow you to bless each one of those three people. Tell God as a priest that you know that you are to be a channel of blessings and you want to be that in these three people's life's this week. I did this week in my life, and I was amazed, and if you do it you will be amazed. And then during the announcement time next Sunday, I am going to ask Bro Greg to take time to take testimonies of how God blessed them and you.
My Third Point
If you are thinking that God does not want to bless you, then you will be blocking someone else's blessing through your life.
Can I tell you today that it is God's desire to bless you and through that blessing allow you to be a blessing to someone else?
Paul while he is talking to the people of Athens in Acts 17:28 says this:28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.' Paul saw everything that God does in my life, i see as a blessing. And did he keep that for himself, or did he channel it to others. The obvious answer is that he channeled it to others.
But there are still people that will say that God does not want to bless me, or God has more important things than blessing me. or I have done things in my past, so terrible, that God would not want to bless me. Your problem is not that God does not want to bless you because He does, your problem is your lack of faith to believe that He will. James 1:6-7
6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
When you ask for God to allow you to bless a friend, a family member, and a church member, you got to believe that God wants to do that through your life. God loves when you excel as a priest. You are doing what He wants you to do in this life. He has called you as a priest; He has called you as a channel of blessing. But you need to understand in God allowing you to bless other, He is blessing you at the same time.
Conclusion
May we see ourselves as God's priest and always keep that channel of blessings open so that we might bless others realizing that in blessings others we are getting God's blessings upon our life. We don't need to disqualify ourselves from being that channel of blessing.
