May Blessings Abound Feb. 28, 2016 Psalm 103King James Version (KJV) 103 Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; 5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. 6 The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. 7 He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. 8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. 9 He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. 10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. 11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. 12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. 13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. 14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. 16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. 17 But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; 18 To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. 19 The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth
over all. 20 Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. 21 Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. 22 Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul. I am not a young guy. At 59 I am grateful that I can still learn new tricks....but even more I keep finding myself surprised by how many things I thought I knew and suddenly realize that I had no idea at all that I didn't even know that I had no clue about. I like to think of this as the sin of cluelessness. (despiste) Cluelessness is prevalent in the human experience...and I have observed the process of it being formed. We have children and sometimes we talk with them. That would seem like a given but... At these times it is remarkable how often I hear a new word and ask What do you think that word means? The answers are sometimes on target but sometimes a bit hazy and sometimes an indicator of cluelessness. These are gateways to understanding. I find it fun to explore the meanings of words and I would guess that some of the joy of being a teacher is that of leading someone in the exploration of trails that you may know well but where you still find new discoveries. Human beings are mimics and a huge amount of what appears to be learning is simple mimicry. I'm not saying this is something wrong or bad...just that it is part of a process. We hear words, we repeat them, and as we are corrected we gradually use them with more and more accuracy and get a pretty good sense of what they mean. I as a child never read the dictionary... My dad, whenever I would ask him the definition of a word... So now in later life I sometimes notice words that I have heard and even sometimes used that I don't really know what they mean...
...but at last there is now Google......not what we generally think of when we hear the word.. So interesting here is that even for words we know their meanings get so redirected that the original meaning gets lost. -welfare- -Blessing- It is amazing how we can go along year after year, decade after decade, missing truth that is so plain and so simple that we don't notice it, nor does anyone stop to point it out. For a lot of people who have grown up in or around the Church and or religion their grasp of the gospel is just like our grasp of language....something they have heard and picked up along the way but never understood clearly. For some people religion is a form of mimicry as 2 Tim 3:5 says 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. For other people they suffer glancing blows or flat out attacks from religion in some form or another and make a decision against it. We went to the Malecon... Even within churches there is a surprising failure to remember and celebrate the basic gospel message: God is real and He loves you. All men are sinners and our sin separates us from God. God's word says that sin must be paid for. The good news is that Jesus Christ paid for our sins. We must repent of our sin, believe in Jesus Christ, and confess Him as Saviour and we will be saved. Recognize: God's nature Our sin God's penalty Christ's payment
and repent, believe, confess, be saved God gives mankind: - the blessing of His love the blessing of free will and the blessing of Jesus Christ and the blessing of Salvation an opportunity for a permanent and meaningful relationship with Him This is the core of what we are, what we believe, and what we speak. Everything else is just details. The reason it was decided to have an adult Sunday school was to create opportunity for anyone who needed to understand the basic gospel better. Like many opportunities this one seems to go out to often those who least need it although even those who need it the least still need it. I grew up or as I like to say refused to grow up in a church where the simple message of our sin redeemed through Christ's sacrifice if not absent was fairly lost in a lot of rhetoric. -rhetoric- The worst thing a Church can do is let the good news of Christ's sacrifice for our redemption get lost in a sea of words no matter how inspiring, comforting or entertaining. The blessing of Jesus sacrificed for our sin is a message I do not want to see lost in our church but it is not my only focus today. I want to focus on the word 'blessing'. Like 'love' and 'choice' and 'freedom' and 'welfare' and a lot of other important words its meaning gets lost or diluted in a sea of rhetoric. Dan, Bob, and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago and this idea of 'Blessing' came up. So, here's a word we hear and say thousands of times and I suddenly realized a problem with it. This is something we do to our food, our home, the fire trucks, police cars, this mess, a sneezer, (and in the South) the heart of someone we despise.
The first time the word 'Bless' appears in the Bible is in Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. From here in Genesis the word 'bless, blessed, or blessing' occur 463 times in the KJV. So, here was my dilemma. If a blessing is something that God can bestow on a person or nation, ( God says to Abraham in Gen. 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: ) or couple as with Adam and Eve... How can it be something that a father can only bestow on a single chosen son? Remember the kerfuffle between Esau and Jacob the sons of Issac when Rebekah prompted Jacob to trick his father into giving him the blessing intended for Esau. Anyway, spoiler alert if you haven't read it the blessing given to Jacob though fradulent could not be given to Esau. The real dilemma happens here: How can it be something that we can bestow upon God? Psalm 103 Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. What is a 'blessing' that it fits precisely all of these relationships? A word I've heard thousands of times for nearly 59 years and I finally feel like I have a grasp on it...again escaping cluelessness... A blessing is a covenant, a pledge or a commitment that says: I will love you and I will give all that I am and all of my authority and resources that you may prosper in the world and achieve all that you are meant to achieve. I will love you and I will give all that I am and all of my authority and
resources that you may prosper in the world and achieve all that you are meant to achieve. God is telling Adam and Eve I will love you and I will give all that I am and all of my authority and resources that you may prosper in the world and achieve all that you are meant to achieve. God is telling Abraham I will love you and I will give all that I am and all of my authority and resources that you may prosper in the world and achieve all that you are meant to achieve. Issac is telling Jacob I will love you and I will give all that I am and all of my authority and resources that you may prosper in the world and achieve all that you are meant to achieve. When we pray Psalm 103 we say Lord I will love you and I will give all that I am and all of my authority and resources that you may prosper in the world and achieve all that you are meant to achieve. Jesus when he died on the cross proved that God meant it when He said I will love you and I will give all that I am and all of my authority and resources that you may prosper in the world and achieve all that you are meant to achieve. So if this is correct what does it look like for us to to bless our wives, our children, our church, our community, to bless our Lord. Matt Redman - 10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord) Worship His Holy name The sun comes up It's a new day dawning It's time to sing Your song again Whatever may pass And whatever lies before me Let me be singing
When the evening comes Worship His Holy name You're rich in love And You're slow to anger Your name is great And Your heart is kind For all Your goodness I will keep on singing Ten thousand reasons For my heart to find Worship His Holy name Bless You Lord And on that day When my strength is failing The end draws near And my time has come Still my soul will Sing Your praise unending Ten thousand years And then forevermore Forevermore Worship His Holy name
Worship His Holy name Jesus I will worship Your Holy name I'll worship your holy name