4-12-26 The Lord's Shining Face (Numbers)

Join Pastor Ken as he kicks off the continuation of a series looking at the book of Numbers.

Transcript

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Good morning. We are starting a new series today as we're going back to the wilderness. You know, travel can be difficult, and it seems to get more and more difficult all the time, whether you travel by car and all the traffic things you have to deal with, or whether you fly in a plane. And whenever I fly in a plane, I find myself having to make these decisions. Do you do the carry-on or do you check a bag? You guys know that decision. And you know, if you do the carry-on, it's really quick when you get there. You don't have to wait for your bag. You don't have to take a risk that your bag gets lost on the way. You grab it and go. But if you don't check a bag, then you're limited on what you can take. And they have all those restrictions about liquids and stuff. And you know, this just doesn't happen on its own. I have to have some things to make it get to that point, right? I'm teasing because women say those kind of things, you know, so I thought I'd get in on it a little bit. So you have to decide what is an accessory and what is a necessity when it comes to making that decision. And life is a journey. And when we look at a spiritual aspect of that journey, sometimes I think we miss out on what's an essential because we think of it as just a nice thing to have, an accessory, an additional thing along the way. And today, our subject is one of those things that I believe spiritually is an absolute necessity for us to have. So please stand as you are able as I read from God's written word found in Numbers chapter 6, verses 22 to 27. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them. This is the word of God for the people of God. Please be seated. So we're going back to Israel in the wilderness. About a year ago, I did a series on Israel and the wilderness, and we looked at the chapters in Exodus that had all kinds of different things that happened to them between when they come out of slavery in Egypt and when they reach Mount Sinai and receive the law, and we left off with Exodus 32, the golden calf. And now we're going to pick up the story again. It starts with them still at the mountain. We're skipping over the book of Leviticus, although we're going to look at a little bit of that along the way. Leviticus is a lot of laws, and it's a lot more detailed than most of what we tend to need to know about the law. But when we go back to Mount Sinai, we pick up the people, and in the book of Numbers, they will journey all the way to the promised land. But it will not be a straight or easy journey across the wilderness. And we're going to look at some of the key chapters there. Now, Numbers starts with those first several chapters focused upon the holiness of the people, because a holy God is in their midst, and they need to be organized. They need to know how to treat that presence of God. They need to know how to be about being the people of God, and they are learning along the way. And so the camp is organized with the tabernacle, which they construct there at the mountain, in the center, and the holy of holies in the center of that, where God's presence is very strong. And then the twelve tribes are arranged, three in each of the compass directions, around the tabernacle, protecting it, providing for it. The Levites are the ones that pick it up, pack up things when they move, and then they follow that pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night, that is the presence of God among them. There are two dangers to Israel in the wilderness. The first is that they encounter human enemies, and we're going to see they start to encounter enemies along the way: Canaanites, Midianites, Ammonites, various groups that they have to deal with that are hostile, Amalekites, and so forth. So the people are numbered in a census that's really about fighting men, military age, numbering, organizing them into a military force to face their enemies. But there's an even bigger threat to them, one that they realize is more important finally along the way, and that is they have a holy God in their presence. And their tendency to rebel against God, to fight against God, to not trust God, to ignore God, to break God's laws ends up being very destructive to them. The priests play a very important role, Aaron and his sons that are consecrated as priests, because the priest helps to teach them between the holy and the profane, the clean and the unclean. The priests are there when they mess up to offer sacrifices so that they are forgiven, so that they are not punished. The priest is also there to bless them, and that's what we're going to look at today. I grew up with both of my parents, at least for my teen years, working at the police department. They were dispatchers, a little town where you had one policeman on duty at all times, and they would come home and tell about what happened. And I quickly learned that police officers, law enforcement people, learn about the dark side of society, right? They learn about people that do things that they don't want the rest of the town to know about, about people at their worst often, in conflicts, in breaking the law, and so forth. And it can get a little heavy when you're constantly hearing about people's failures. Well, think about this, folks. Then I went into religious law. And ministers are kind of like priests. They, you know, hear a little bit about things that are going on that nobody else wants to know about, maybe, or that people don't want anybody else to know about. The priest, when somebody comes with a sin offering, gets to hear about the sin that they've committed, gets to offer the sacrifice, ends up being the person that hears about all the negativity in the community and all that goes into that. And so it's kind of nice that they also get that aspect of blessing, which is the very positive side of the priest's job. And it's a very important one. They are called to bless. It's a job aspect that I'm sure they enjoyed. So let's look at the details of the priestly blessing. This, we are told, is to be spoken by Aaron and his descendants, his son, the priest, to the people. And God is the one who will act through that. It's not a magic formula just by saying the words doesn't make it happen. It's more a prayer than a command. It's asking God to bless people. God has the power here. The priest just is the spokesman, if you will, the one who tells the prayer that says it, but it shows the wishes of God to bless his people. And hopefully it shows the wishes of the priests and the people to be about blessing as well. There's a three-part blessing that's a part of this with an action and a result on God's part. So let's look again at those central verses, 6, 24 to 26 of Numbers. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. There's almost a one leads to the other. God blesses and then it makes these three things happen. So let's take a look at those. God blesses and we are kept. God blesses and we get grace. God blesses and we get peace. God's blessing is what keeps us in existence. It sustains us. That first part, keep you, can mean just the very fact that your very existence depends upon the blessing and the presence of God in your life. It keeps you around, so to speak, and doing well. One of the earliest archaeological finds in the Holy Land, a place called Ketaph Henom, just outside of Jerusalem, was a little roll of silver inscribed with this blessing upon it, and some other prayers from Deuteronomy. They figure it's at least 6th century, late 5th century BC, much earlier than expected, and it has been preserved because it's on silver, on metal, rather than just on paper or a pot shirt or something that would be destroyed. And it seems to be something that people literally wore on their body. It was like a jewelry piece, an amulet that you wore that reminded you God's blessing was upon you. Reminded you that God is the one that keeps us, that gets us going. It talks also about that God's face towards us, may it shine upon you, and He be gracious to you. We know all about the grace of God if we know Jesus Christ, right? And as Wesleans, we know all about John Wesley's teaching that that grace came before we were saved, and when we were saved, and after we were saved, and it kind of covers our entire existence. It talks about God's smiling face. God lift up his countenance. You know, we have that expression. Why are you so down today? Your face is all down. A smile is down, or I'm sorry, a frown is down. A smile is lifting up your face. It's God looking happily at you, God smiling at you, and it brings peace. And of course, the Hebrew word shalom or peace is much more than not fighting, a cessation of warfare. It's about wholeness, it's about completeness. It's when your life is going so well that you think, man, I hope this lasts because I'm not sure what I've done for everything to be so well. It's when the birds are singing and you're easily walking through life and everything is clicking and everything is wonderful. Our life, our salvation, our wholeness comes from God, from his blessing. You know, I hear people say, Well, I don't believe in God. As if that made a difference for reality. Because whether you believe in God or not, the fact is you wouldn't be around if it wasn't for God's blessing. You would not exist if it wasn't for the presence and the grace and the love of God. God, in whom we live and move and have our being, if it wasn't for God's presence, you would not have any life whatsoever. The reality is without God, we wouldn't be here because life itself depends on God. Now, life sometimes is tough and it's hard and it's difficult and we have to struggle, but believe me, it would be a whole lot worse if God wasn't already blessing us and providing for us and walking beside us and being there to us. This prayer calls for God to notice us, to smile upon us, to take care of us. You know, the opposite of God's face shining upon you is when God hides his face from you. That means, you know, he's not focused on you because you've turned away from him. He hides his face when they sin, when they rebel, when they do things, or he sets his face against people, which is even worse. That means you're fighting against God. You are made him into an enemy, and he is responding to that against you. The opposite of bless is to curse. See, God can be there for good, or God can fight against your plans if you are fighting against him. And Leviticus 26 kind of lays those side by side. And I want to give you some sense of what it means, at least in an Old Testament daily sense, to be blessed and what it means to be under the curse of God. So look with me at Leviticus 26, 3 through 13 first, and listen to the kind of blessings it talks about. If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you your reins in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall overlap the vintage, and the vintage shall overlap the sowing. You shall eat your bread to the full and live securely in your land. And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword shall go through your land. You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred of you shall give chase to ten thousand. Your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look with favor upon you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and I will maintain my covenant with you. You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new. I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I shall not abhor you. I will be your God, and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no more. I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect. The blessings are very manifest. The blessings are very present. They bring security, they bring plenty, they bring safety, they bring success in life. How about the curses? Well, it goes on, 26, 14, and following. So let's take a look at some of those. But if you will not obey me and do not observe all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes and abhor my ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments, and you break my covenant, I in turn will do this to you. I will bring terror on you, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause your life to pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down by your enemies, your foes shall rule over you, and you shall flee, though no one pursues you. And if in spite of this you will not obey me, I will continue to punish you sevenfold for your sins. I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper. Your strength shall be spent to no purpose, your land shall not yield its produce, and the fruit of the trees shall not yield their fruit. Very contrasting different pictures. And actually the curses kind of go on and on and on, but I figure you got the point by that place, right? A lack of security, a lack of what you need for life, a fear of others, a fear of conditions, a sense where the more you work and the more you put things into life, the less you get out of it. Receiving God's blessing is a whole different category from being under the curse. Abraham Lincoln once had a minister visit him when he was in the White House, and it was, of course, during the Civil War, and the minister assured him, without a doubt, God is on the Union side. And Lincoln said, Well, I think it's probably better that we be on God's side. That we be experiencing that blessing. Notice in this blessing, it also talks about God putting his name on us. God putting his name. There's a claim there. And how I like to imagine that is that we are being accused by the devil of all kinds of bad things. We're being accused of awful things that we have done, things that we know we've done. And the fact is, we can't argue because we know we're guilty. And yet Christ steps in between and says, Leave this one alone. This one is mine. I have put my name upon him or her. This one belongs to me, which means they belong to life, to blessing, to the family of God. He has put his name upon us in blessing. Blessing is to be a way of life for us as Christians. I mean, we are the ones that Christ has put his name on, right? We are the ones who have experienced the ultimate blessing of Christ dying for us, and our life is to be characterized by blessing rather than by curse. Matthew tells us, Luke tells us that Jesus spoke the Beatitudes. Blessed is the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the me. He's describing himself and those who follow him. The ones who deal in blessing, the ones that are characterized by blessing. I love the little book of Ruth. Ruth tells a story way back in the time of the judges of a family. It's a mom and a dad and two sons, and they go to Moab because there's a famine, and the two sons get married, and then the dad dies, and both of the adult sons die, leaving Naomi the widow, and her two daughter-in-laws. And it looks like the curse has won completely. There's no hope for life, there's no hope to go forward. There's no hope for children. There's no hope for blessing. They have no land to work, they have no opportunity even to make a living. And then the story follows Naomi and Ruth as they go back to Judah and struggle to make it. And how God provides blessing, first of all, providing for them. And then, secondly, of a husband for Ruth, and then a future of children. How God takes the cursed situation of a family and moves it to being blessed. And the thing I like about it is Boaz, who is the guy that marries Ruth, he and others in the story are always doing blessings. Every chapter there's a blessing. And he says, May God bless you to provide for you. And then he works to provide for her. And then he says, May God bless you with children. And then he marries her and has children with her. See, that's what we're supposed to be like with Christians. We pray God's blessing upon people, and then we do what God calls us to do to make that blessing happen. We are agents of blessing. And we find then that God takes those blessings and makes incredible things happen. We are people who have been blessed. And people who have been blessed are equipped to bless other people. Let's go to the New Testament. There's lots of places in the New Testament talk about blessing. 1 Peter 3, 8 to 12. Let's look at that. Peter writes, Finally, all of you have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse, but on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called that you might inherit a blessing. For those who desire to have to love life and to see good deeds, days, let them keep their tongues from evil and keep their lips from speaking deceit. Let them turn away from evil and do good. Let them seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Blessing even for those who curse. Blessing even for those who are persecuting, focused on doing that fundamental difference of shining God's face and reaching out and caring for others and focusing upon his ability to use blessing to overcome curse, love to overcome hatred. A whole different approach to life. Or your mama's so big, when she goes to the theater, everybody sits next to her. It was an attempt to outdo others in cursing, basically. Well, now I get on Facebook and there are all these videos of people as adults doing that with one another. People, I think. Attacking one another and violence to one another. You saw the young woman was killed in St. Louis over an argument over onion rings when she was trying to work at steak and shake with somebody in the drive-thru line. There's cursing everywhere in our society. There's anger everywhere in our society. There's fighting. Sometimes it's not on the videos we see it. Sometimes when we're out in public, we see it. We see people falling apart, people attacking. I was in Mattoon when Charleston had the great Walmart riot. And there was a huge battle in the middle of Walmart. And people are trying to walk by with their groceries and stuff while it's going on. People screaming and hollering and cursing and fighting. We are called to be a royal priesthood. That's what Jesus says. That's what the scripture says. A peculiar people, those who have experienced the ultimate blessing. That God sent his son to die for us. That God's face shines towards us more than anybody else. That God gives us the opportunity to be a part of his kingdom. That God has so many great things for us. And we are called to bless others as those who have been blessed the most. My kids, when they were teenagers, went through those usual struggles that they go through. And as a parent, you know, sometimes it was difficult, and sometimes I failed. But I read a book about blessing, about how important it was to put your blessing upon your kids. And so I started quoting to them this blessing when I would drop them off to school. The Lord bless you and keep you. The God cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance and give you peace and know that I love you. There was groaning, there was rolling of eyes. There was, come on, dad, I got to go now. There was all kinds of angst and anger about this. And then one day I forgot. Bethany said, Aren't you going to give us our blessing? It's vital that we bless our children. That we bless our grandchildren. Some people go through a whole life trying to get a parent's blessing that that parent will never give them. But that's not what we're called to be and to do. We are called to be the people who bless, who experience the fullness of God's blessing and act like Jesus did. Act like the apostles did. And so every day the fact is we get choices. Will we obey God or will we rebel against God? Will we show gratitude or will we play the victim and whine about how mistreated we are and the world and how others are so terrible to us? Will we curse others? Will we curse the world? Will we curse God? Or will we bless in the name of God? The choice is there. Will you take the path of blessing? Because it's the path of Jesus, the path of the Heavenly Father, the path of the Holy Spirit, the path that leads to the ultimate blessing. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank you for your incredible love. Thank you for all the ways you show it, all the ways you bless us. And Lord, help us to be transformed into your spirit, into people who are people of the blessing, who know what it's like to be loved despite who we are, what we've done, who know what it's like to be claimed by you and have your name placed upon us, who are able from the richness of all that you give us and all that you've promised to us to turn around and bless others with that attitude of grace and bounty, of peace and love that comes from you. Thank you for your many blessings. May they continue in our lives and may we pass them on to others in Jesus' name. Amen.