God’s Desire to Bless You
God’s Desire to Bless You (Numbers 6:22-27)
I want to give you three ways God desires to bless you:
1. God desires to bless you giving you protection (v.22-24)
22 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, 24 The Lord bless you and keep you
The first thing we need to see is that God is the originator or blessings.
God told Moses to tell Aaron what to say.
The Lord is the one who blesses, even though Aaron is speaking the blessing.
What does it mean to bless?
In English, to bless someone means to do something to enhance their happiness or welfare.
So you bless people when you serve them in some way.
Or you you bless people when you do something that makes their life easier or better.
That is a blessing.
That’s why so many Christians who happiness or good welfare often say God has blessed them because, indeed he has.
And they realize this truth.
In the Bible, a blessing is a desire for God to give His favor on others.
For the Jews, this blessing was somewhat contingent on their obedience.
God’s desire was to bless them and keep them, to protect them.
2 Thes. 3:3: But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
The fact that God is faithful in who He is and what He does and what He says should help our trust in Him.
His nature props us up and guards us against Satan.
As a believer, there are many ways and times where God simply won’t let Him near you.
1 Cor. 10:13: No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may able to endure it.
We are tempted ONLY in ways we can be successful in escaping with the power of the Lord.
“The devil made me do it” is not an excuse.
Now, if you’re lost and don’t have the Holy Spirit in you, yes, that’s right.
You have NO spiritual power to resist Satan.
But if you are a born-again, blood-bought believer in Jesus Christ, no temptation is too much for you.
And God always gives you a path to escape the temptation.
Why? Because God’s desire is to protect his people.
Psalm 91:9-13: 9 Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place - the Most High, who is my refuge 10 no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you all your ways. 12 On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.
When you make God your dwelling place…when you are trusting in Him…God protects you from the problems of the world.
He sends angels to guard you.
They pick you up when you fall.
The things that typically befall others: sickness, violent animals, etc., will not be effective against you.
This doesn’t mean that we are invincible to these things.
We can always put ourselves in harm’s way.
But generally speaking, God’s desire is to protect His people.
Think about it.
You are going to protect your children.
Now, part of parenting is to prepare them for life.
But, when they’re young, you will protect your children.
In fact, it doesn’t matter which child is guilty, if one of them hurts another, the offending child bears the wrath of their father while I protect the one that is innocent.
And it depends on the day which one is innocent or guilty!
But I’m going to protect the one that is in danger of being hurt.
God desires to bless us and protect his children.
The protection of God is a blessing.
We touched on this last week that we are God’s possession.
He protects his possession.
If you are a believer, there is countless ways God has protected you from things of the world that you don’t even realize!
And when you obey His commandments, there is even more blessing and more protection.
Because his commandments are what is best for you.
2. God desires to bless you by giving you grace (v.25)
25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you
God also give us grace.
Protection is one thing.
Grace is giving us good things that we haven’t earned.
We get saving grace when we receive Jesus Christ and Lord and Savior.
But we still get enabling grace throughout our life.
He brings his favor into our lives.
Psalm 30:5: For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime.
God’s anger, his discipline is rare.
But his favor he gives us forever.
2 Cor. 9:8: And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
God gives us enabling grace so that we may be successful in eery good work of the Lord.
2 Tim. 1:9: who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began
Before time began, God had a purpose for our lives.
He called us to himself because of his own purpose.
Yes, you’re saved because God loves you.
But you’re also saved because God has a purpose for your life.
It’s not your purpose…it’s His purpose.
When we are living in his purpose, we find more grace.
Think about it like this.
You are $1 million dollars in debt.
You didn’t know you were in debt.
You have no idea how you got that much debt.
But one day you realized, “wow, I owe all this money. And if I can’t pay it back I’m going to jail for the rest of my life.”
Then, a person comes into your life and says, “You don’t remember how you got into this position?” Then they reveal to you all the poor money decisions you made over the years.
Then, all of a sudden you realize, “Oh I remember now. Yeah, I borrowed all that money. And it got worse and out of hand.”
Then the person says, “Even though you are responsible for this debt you and brought this on yourself, I’m willing to pay for it.”
This doesn’t make sense to you, but you take the money.
The man says, “now, pay off all these debts with this money.”
So you do.
But it doesn’t stop there.
The man keeps sending you checks for the rest of your life.
Now why does he do that?
So you can squander it and spend it on yourself?
No. He keeps giving them to you so you can use it for His purpose and His glory.
He uses those checks he give you the rest of your life to help others who also are in debt.
That’s God’s purpose for your life.
God desires to bless you by giving you grace…and then you in turn can give grace to others.
3. God desires to bless you by giving you peace (v.26-27)
26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’ 27 So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
When God lifts up his countenance up on you, it means his face.
He has turned his face toward you.
Before, when you were in sin, his face was turned away from you.
But now in Jesus, He’s staring right at you.
With that, you have peace.
Knowing that God is constantly looking out for you.
This may seem creepy, but sometimes when she doesn’t realize it, I’ll just stare at my wife’s face.
She’s my wife, I’m allowed to do that.
I look at all of her features because I love her.
Now…if I had some deep resentment against her or hate, I wouldn’t want to look at her.
I would avoid her.
But because I love her and want to be with her I enjoy looking at her.
And because we have a good relationship, there is peace in our marriage and in our life.
God love us.
His face it turned toward us.
Because he loves us.
He’s interested in us.
This should give us an overwhelming feeling of peace.
Psalm 54:4: Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.
He’s helping us!
He holds our life together.
Hebrews 13:6: So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
When God helps us and gives us peace, who do we have to fear?
We have God looking us and blessing us.
And He is the author of the universe:
Psalm 121:2: My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
