( The Danger Of Leaving Before The Benediction)

Numbers 6:22-27 (MSG)

22 GOD spoke to Moses:

23 "Tell Aaron and his sons, This is how you are to bless the People of Israel. Say to them,

24 GOD bless you and keep you,

25 GOD smile on you and gift you,

26 GOD look you full in the face and make you prosper.

27 In so doing, they will place my name on the People of Israel— I will confirm it by blessing them."

( The danger of leaving before the benediction)

My brothers and sisters

The word benediction comes out of the Latin word and the prefix is beneath

And Bene means Well or good

Diction means speech or words.

All a benediction is a good word spoken over your life.

And we all need a benediction.

Because if you're a church boy like me who was raised and reared in the church

You know, you couldn't even leave church without a benediction being spoken over your life.

Now there are some benedictions in the Bible,

That need not to be confused with doxologies,

Because the root word for doxology, is doxa, meaning glory, and it means to give God glory.

You see

Now unto him who's able to keep you from falling. ----- That's a doxology.

Now unto him who's able to do exceedingly abundantly. Above all, you can ask or a think.

That's a doxology.

But a benediction is a good word, a well word spoken over your life.

In the text before

We have a benediction that God tells Moses to tell the priest to speak this over the people.

Literally, God says, this is what I want you to say over my people.

Imma bless them and Imma keep them,

And I'm gonna smile at them

and I'm gonna grace them

and I'm gonna keep looking them in the face

and I'ma give them peace.

I just gave you`ll a reason to shout, and some of you missed it because you ready to leave before the benediction

But is it alright if I break it down what God tell Moses to tell Aaron to speak over the people.

Imma bless you

and Imma keep you,

and I'ma smile at you

and I'm gonna keep putting grace and favor on you.

Imma keep my eyes on you,

and I'ma keep hooking you up with some shalom,------ some peace.

And you do know you can't shout over content without context.

Well, The context of the Book of Numbers is that the Israelites are in liminal space.

They're in and between season.

They are a long way from the captivity and bondage of Egypt,

But they have not yet made it to the savory successes of the promised land.

And the questions we all have to ask ourselves is

What do you do when you are no longer where you used to be,

But you’re not quite where you're going to be?

And how do you live in the in between?

How do you manage living in the almost you?

You've been praying,

you've been fasting

you've been giving,

you've been sowing.

But it doesn't seem like you've made it to the fullness of the promised Land,

But you're not yet stuck in the same chains and bondage of Egypt.

In other words

How do you live in the wilderness seasons?

And I don't care how dressed up you are this morning/evening,

Because the person beside you can have their hair done,

nails done,

everything did.

I said nails done, --hair done,---- everything did.

Their edges can be laid,

their eyebrows can be on fleek,

their lip gloss can be popping,

their hairline can be neat,

their shoes can be shining,

their clothes can be ironed.

But underneath that layer of facade, there are some people in this sanctuary who know what it feels like to wander in a wilderness

And in spite of the wilderness that we're living in, 2025

God says,

I'm still gonna bless you

and I'mma keep you

and I'm a smile at you

and I'm gonna give you grace

and I'm gonna keep looking at you

and I'mma give you peace.

You see

This book was not just named numbers because they're wandering in the wilderness.

But it`s name numbers because of a census being taken in chapter one,

And In chapter twenty six, they're still counting how many people are still in the land.

And some of you are just like Moses and the leaders

You’ve been trying to take a census on who's in your life that you can still count on.

Because unfortunately, ------ everybody you count, you can't count on.

And I know some of y`all in here trying to look bougie and saved This morning/evening.

But some of y'all are still feeling some kind of way