Why should God bless you
God be merciful to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You. Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For You shall judge the people righteously and govern the nations on earth. Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You. Then the earth shall yield her increase; God, our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him. - Psalm 67
How many of you would like God to bless your life? Should you ask God to bless your life? In 1 Chronicles, it says that we should always seek God’s blessing. In 1 Chronicles 4:10 we read that Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.
Why did God grant what Jabez asked? What is the reason for God’s blessing?
God loves his people. He delights in doing good things for them. He is a good God. But there’s one fundamental reason that God blesses His people, and this reason is closely related to today’s text, Psalm 67. There are two basic questions from Psalm 67. Here is the first:
I. Why Should God Bless You? - To Glorify Him
There is another beautiful prayer mentioned in Numbers 6: 24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” ’- but Psalm 67 goes in more depth in 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. 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, "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: "Bless me so that I can be comfortable." He is not saying, "Bless me so that I don’t have to go to work." He is not saying, "Bless me so that I can be successful in the world."
This Psalm Begins and ends with the statement that God’s blessings lead to His glory. That is the reason God blesses us.
The first is 1 Kings 8:60. The Israelites have just completed the building of the temple. King Solomon offers a lengthy prayer, 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."
Solomon asks for blessings, so that all people everywhere might know that there is one God, that all other so-called gods are false, and that Yahweh, the God of Israel is that God. He asks for blessing so that the true God might be glorified.
The second passage concerns Jesus Himself. On the night before the crucifixion, Jesus is faced with a dilemma. All of His humanity rebels at the thought of the spiritual and physical suffering of the cross. How should He pray to God? What should He ask for? Does He say, "Father God, bless me! Save me from this dreadful death!"? John 12:27-28 records for us Jesus’ thoughts and prayer at this time: 27 "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ’Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it and will glorify it again."
Jesus does not ask for physical safety or comfort; He does not ask for worldly success or status in the eyes of others. He instead asks for what? For God’s glory. And God responds: "I have glorified my name in your life, and will glorify it even more in your death"
Jesus rejected the blessing of a longer life on earth and being kept safe from oppression, for He knew that those blessings would not lead to God’s greatest glory. We need to say with Jesus, "Lord God, if this blessing is not going to lead to your glory, don’t give it to me!"
So Psalm 67 and indeed all the Bible emphasizes that God blesses His people for the glory of His own name, so that His goodness, mercy, and love would be recognized and praised by men and angels.
But God is at the center of everything. It is His glory that drives his purposes.
This shows the deep Biblical understanding of those ministers of the gospel who met at Westminster in England 350 years ago to develop a common confession and catechism. The first question of the Westminster Small Catechism is, "What is the chief end of man?" And the answer is: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."
This is a wonderful summary of Biblical teaching. God does not exist to meet our needs; rather, we exist to glorify Him. So why should God bless you? God blesses you so that you might fulfill your chief end: to glorify Him.
II. Glorify His Name Among Whom? – Among all peoples
Let’s move to our second question: God blesses us so that we might glorify His name among whom? Among those who are already believers? Among those who call themselves Christians. Among other Americans or Indians? Among those who are similar to yourself?
The second part of verse 2 and verse 3 tells us that your salvation may be known among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God let all the peoples praise you.
God aims to glorify Himself not only among those already identified as His people, not only among those who are similar to His people, but among all nations, among all the peoples.
Revelation 7:9-10. The Apostle John here has a vision of the eternal state, where God’s people are around His throne praising Him. Note the types of people found here:
9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10 and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."
In this vision of the vast multitude around the throne of God, John sees those from every tribe and tongue and people and nations praising God. No group of people is left out; every cultural group, every language group is represented before the throne of God. Why is it important for God to bring to Himself those from every people group? Think: if any group was left out, then someone might say, "The cultural barriers between Christianity and my people group were too strong; it was too difficult for me to believe in Jesus. Indeed, God doesn’t care about my people, about my race, about my nation.
Thus, God gives us the mandate, and He promises to bring to empower us to fulfill that mandate, so that believers will come to Him from all the nations:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesians. 2:10
There is a church in Rome with a statue of Christ without arms. When asked why, you're told that, it shows how God relies on us. We are his human partners to do his work for him. Without us God has no eyes, without us God has no ears, without us God has no arms. God waits upon us and relies on us.
The ELCA church motto is God’s work. Our hands. So, Psalm 67 tells us that God blesses us so that all the peoples will praise His name. So, we’ve asked two main questions and seen two answers: What is the purpose of God blessing His people? To bring glory to His own name.
Second, God desires to be glorified among whom? Among ALL peoples. Let’s turn now to our final question:
III. What is the Impact on the Peoples?
Verse 3 and 4 says, Let the peoples praise Him, O God; let all the peoples praise Him. Oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
When the people praise God, when God is glorified in their lives, what happens to them? What happens to the people? Praising Him leads to gladness and joy!
The rest of verse 4 explains, in second part, why this is the case: for you shall judge the peoples righteously, and govern the nations on earth.
No other ruler, no other god, will be just, straight, upright in his dealings; no other ruler, no other God will guide them in the paths of righteousness. Psalm 23:3 says, "He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
For if God is at the center of all things, if He is the most beautiful, most loving, most powerful of all beings, recognizing who He is, being in a relationship with Him, being led and guided and governed by Him, is the source of the greatest joy imaginable.
There is no conflict between glorifying God and the gladness of the people. The people have joy as they glorify God. Indeed, the more they glorify Him, the more joy they have in Him. The Westminster Small Catechism asked, "What is the chief end of man?" "A: The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever."
Roland Allen tells about his missionary work, "I was a medical missionary for many years in India. And I served in a region where there was progressive, increasing blindness. Normally people are born with healthy vision, but there was something in that area that caused people to lose their sight as they grew older."
But this missionary had developed a treatment which would stop the progressive blindness. So, people came to him & he performed his treatment, & they would leave realizing that they would have become completely blind, but because of him their sight had been saved. And the people praised God and gave thanks to the missionary. God leads the people to gladness and joy.
And that is what the Psalmist is saying, God be merciful to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.
Conclusion:
Those of you who do know Him, who recognize Him as your Lord and Savior: Do you seek God’s blessings? Be like Jabez, knowing that unless God blesses you, you have nothing of value at all.
But why do you seek God’s blessings? Do you acknowledge that your chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever? Ask God to bless you in such a way that you can bring great glory to Him.
Ask God not to give you any temporary blessing that won’t give Him glory.
Ask God to enable you to witness boldly and lovingly to the thousands you encounter every month who are children of wrath by nature, who are walking in darkness, who are without hope, without God in the world.
Ask God, I will go, Lord, wherever You lead me." Ask God to help you and send you to support others.
Ask Him for all this, so that God might be recognized and proclaimed as supreme in every language on this planet, to the great joy of all the peoples.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Be satisfied with God's perfect will and not settle down God’s perceived will. We all pray to the Father in the name of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Enlarge your heart and enclose as many as possible.
Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. 1 Timothy 2:1
Call to supplications for them, Call to pray for them, call to intercede for them, call to give thanks for them, Pray for others ...Plead for others ...Praise God for others.
Whoever offers praise glorifies me. - Psalm 50:23
God shall bless us to all the ends of the earth, so let us praise and give glory to His name. Amen.
