Name Brand - The Blessing God Gives

What is the real blessing that God gives us?

24 “‘“The Lord bless you and keep you;

25 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

26 the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’

27 “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:24-27)

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Transcript

Good morning. I want to start this  summon with a question. If God is everywhere, is he in hell? If God is everywhere, is he in hell? And while you think about that question, let's turn to our passage for this sermon, which is numbers chapter six, verses 22 to 27. Numbers up to six 22 to 27, and I will read the passage for us.
The Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord, make his face, shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord, turn his face toward you and give you peace. So they will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them.
This is a wide ranging blessing from beginning to end.  The poles themes from the Abrahamic blessing of Genesis chapter 12, and then continues throughout the old Testament of grace and peace and continues in the new Testament with Paul's greeting of grace and peace. And then to the description of heaven in the book of revelation.
I've broken this priestly blessing into five points. And I hope in a sermon entitled "name brand" to skim the surface of these grand themes that are written in this blessing . In the first part, we will look at the Lord. Bless you. Then the Lord keep you, then the Lord be gracious to you and the Lord give you peace.
And finally, we will look at a summary phrase that is mentioned at the very end. First, let's look at the Lord. Bless you back to my question from earlier. If God is everywhere, is he in hell? And the answer is if God is everywhere, which he is, then he is in hell. He can't not be in hell. So how do we explain the difference of the presence of God in heaven and the presence of God in hell?
Well, even though God is everywhere, God acts differently in different places. So there are two main ways that God acts in different places. One, he is present to bless. Most of the time when the Bible talks about the presence of God, it talks about the presence of God to bless. And so in second Corinthians three verse 17, it reads "now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom". 
Now in this passage, it talks about the face of God. Obviously, it is symbolic language because if God is spirit, he doesn't have a face. This is talking in anthropomorphic terms, using human language and  the phrase - the face of God or the favor of God or the blessing of God are all synonymous - they all mean the same thing. It means that the presence of God is there to bless. So in this priestly blessing, the first phrase of each of those three sentences can be changed to mean the Lord blesses. 
So we can read this to say the Lord, bless you and keep you the Lord bless you, and be gracious to you. The Lord bless you and give you peace. 
Psalm chapter 30, verse seven reads Lord, when you favored me, you made my Royal mountain stand firm, but when you hit your face, I was dismayed. So you see the face of God turned toward his blessing and the face of God turned away from his not blessing and his dismay.
So life with the favor of God, life with the face of God, turn toward us. An example of it is seen in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve had fellowship with God. 
And secondly, God is present to punish. His present, to bless. And at other times in certain other situations God is present to punish. Let's read a few verses from Amos chapter nine and verses one through four. Emails, chapter nine, verses one through four.
I saw the Lord standing by the alter and he said not one will get away. None will escape. Though they dig down to the depths below from there. My hand will take them though. They are driven by exile by their enemies. There I will command the sword to slay them. I will keep my eye on them for harm and not forget.
Do you see the presence of God to punish? And it is so different than the presence of God to bless. Life without the favor of God; life with the face of God, turned away is seen in the life of Adam and Eve. Once they were banished from the garden of Eden. And you see the curse that came upon them in the book of Genesis and there was porns and thistles and suffering and pain and agony.
So heaven and hell show completely opposite aspects of the presence of God. Heaven is where the face of God is fully turned to word with his presence to bless, and hell is where the face of God is fully turned away with his presence to punish. 
based on this, the presence of God can be comforting or terrifying depending on the circumstances. When I come back home from work, I find that my six year old son opens the door to the garage. And as soon as he sees me come in, he stands there waiting at the door, calling me and waving out to me and excited for me to be there. But there are certain other situations when I come back home from work and the garage door is not open and he's not standing there waiting and waving at me. In those instances more often than not, I know that he was up to some mischief and he will get in trouble when I come home. And so my presence is not exciting to him, but troubling to him. Similarly, the presence of God is a wonderful blessing, but if we are rebelling against God, then the presence of God can be very damning. And this is what the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 verse 31 implies when it says - it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living god
what makes hell terrifying is not just the absence of the Lord to bless, but the presence of the Lord to punish. But, for a disciple of Jesus, the Lord is present to bless. 
Secondly, the Lord keep you, what does it mean when it says the Lord keep you? When we talk of keeping a person, it means to hold a person in a previously planned position.
And so on Jude chapter one, verse 24 reads - to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. 
It is better to let the Lord keep us then us trying to keep ourselves. So in Luke chapter 17, verse 33, it reads, whoever tries to keep their life will lose it. And whoever loses their life will preserve it. 
In Luke chapter 15, there are three stories about lost things. There is a story of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son, and each of these represent three stages of lostness. But this morning, I want to look at the first parable, the first story of the lost sheep.
Turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 15, verse four, five, and six. Luke 15 verses four, five, and six. Let me read for us. Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it. And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says rejoice with me. I have found my lost sheep. 
In that culture, part of the wealth of the culture was having animals. And so a flock of sheep was owned by the village and the village would hire two or three shepherds to watch this flock of sheep.
So they would take out the flock of sheep out in the morning and bring it back at night. So if there was a sheep that was missing, the shepherd had to come back with a fleece to show the village that owns this flock, that the sheep was eaten by a wild animal. And so these shepherds were adept at tracking animals for miles so that they could find the sheep and bring the sheep back home.
So in this story, as Jesus says the story, there are a hundred sheep. One of them wandered away, got lost. And so the remaining two shepherds would take the remaining 99 sheep back home. And this one shepherd that was responsible for this sheep would track the lost sheep. The remaining two shepherds would go back to the village and tell the village people that there is one lost sheep.
And when this shepherd comes back after finding the sheep, he would find the village people waiting for him. And as they saw the silhouette of the shepherd with the lost sheep on his shoulders coming back home, they would be rejoicing and celebration in that village. 
Christ the good shepherd is able to keep all that are his, no one who belongs to Christ will suffer eternal loss.
And so in John chapter six, verse 37 to 40 Jesus says this. All those, the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. And this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my father's will, is that everyone who looks to the son and believes in him shall have eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jesus keeps us in that position of blessing. In spite of attacks from outside and doubts on the inside, he will bring everyone that he is keeping safely home. unlike any human can ever promise the Lord will keep you and bring you safely home to eternal life. 
Thirdly, the Lord be gracious to you. God's grace is an important theme in the Bible, both in the old Testament and in the new Testament, divine grace is a voluntary undeserved and unaffordable goodness shown by a superior being to an inferior be.
When God promises us eternal life through the death of Jesus Christ, it is a voluntary act. God did it out of his own free will. Nobody forced. So an Exodus chapter 33 verse 19, it reads, and the Lord said I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. It is a completely voluntary act.
Secondly, it is an undeserved that. It is not because of anything we have done. In fact, it is in spite of what we have done against God. So in Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and nine it reads - for it is by grace. You have been saved through faith and this not from yourselves. It is a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.
It is also an unaffordable act. We can never pay it back. The grace that we receive from God, we can never pay back. 
25 year old, Michigan native Stan Larkin was just like any other 25 year old, except that he always carried a bag around. He suffered from a condition called familial cardiomyopathy with a rare subtype that caused both sides of his heart to fail.
And so his doctors told him that he needed a heart transplant, but there were 4,000 people waiting on the waiting list before he could get the heart transplant. And so, as he was waiting for an appropriate donor, he was given a machine with tubes running into him. And this machine was his heart, which pumped on the outside.
And this machine he carried around all the time in a bag and he would wear this bag for 555 days until he was able to get the heart which he did in June, 2016. 
Money cannot buy a new heart. It is  unaffordable because you see someone needs to die for stand Larkin to get a new heart. That is what God did when he gave us new life.
It could happen only through the death of Jesus Christ and therefore it is completely unaffordable. The grace that God offers us flows from his love for us. 
When do we need grace the most? Is it when we succeed? No. When we succeed, we want justice. 
Let me give you an example. Let's assume you're in a class with 50 people.
It is a very important class and you all are taking an exam. It is a very important exam that you absolutely have to get a good score. After you take this exam, the instructor comes to the class and says, all of you that took this exam. Everybody failed except one person who got 98 out of 100. And then this teacher asks, do you want to retest. Obviously, that's a trick question.
Do you want to read this? Well, the answer is not yes or no. The answer is it depends. Who is the person that got 98 out of a hundred. If you are that person that got 98 out of a hundred, then you don't want to retest. You want justice. You don't want grace. You want justice because you earned it and you succeeded.
But if you're the person that failed, then yes, you don't want justice. Instead you want grace and you want to retest. God, knowing that humans failed the test of holiness offers the free gift of grace to us. And so in Romans chapter five, verse eight, it says, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
The Lord be gracious to you. 
Fourthly the Lord give you peace. Every generation, I feel goes through certain periods when peace is more needed than at other times. In our generation. I wonder if this is the time when we need and a longing for peace, then at any other time. 
I want to take us to a story of Jesus proclaiming peace with his disciples. Turn your Bibles, if you will, to Mark chapter four and verse 35, following Mark chapter four, verse 35. Following that day, when evening came, he said to his disciples, let's go over to the other side, leaving the crowd behind. They took him along just as he was in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up. And the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, teacher, don't you care if we drown? He got up rebuked the wind and said to the waves, quiet, be still. Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? They were terrified and asked each other, who is this? Even the wind and the waves, obey him. 
Let me ask you a question. Why was Jesus upset? 
Was he upset because as seasoned fishermen, they could not predict the upcoming storm and they got blindsided and caught up in the storm. No. As bad as the storm on the outside was there was another storm that was raging inside. This is the problem. The inner storm reflected the outer store. Jesus wanted their inner peace to remain in spite of outer storms.
In my office, I put patients to sleep and I started an IV in the hand. I give them some drugs and they go to sleep. Just before I stopped the Ivy. Some of them are scared and worried. So I tell them to relax, take a couple of deep breaths, breathe the oxygen that I'm giving them and calm down, and the IB will go smooth.
But peace is not just taking a couple of deep breaths and it is not just a temporary calmness. Let me describe a scene of peace. You wake up in the morning around seven o'clock or seven 30, and you drink your favorite cup of tea or coffee, whatever the case may be. And you catch up on your sports news or whatever other news, but there is no news at all that is disturbing to you.
Around nine or 10, you had to work. Traffic is easy and smooth. At your work your coworkers are friendly and the customers are understanding your work is more like a hobby. You absolutely love your work and you can't believe that you're getting paid to do something that you really, really like. You have zero outstanding depths and working is an absolute pleasure.
Around 3:00 PM. You come home and you play with your kids. There are a couple of families in your neighborhood that you meet with and they feel more like family to you. You do a little bit of gardening, you play a little guitar and you just spend the rest of the time that evening with your family, doing the things you love to do.
With no concerns whatsoever you go to sleep that night as early as you want, and you can sleep as long as you want. And you repeat this every day and the situation is similar for everybody around the world. Your heart is satisfied and you are at peace. 
You see peace is not just a temporary calmness. It is complete unity, wellbeing, prosperity, health, security, and wellness. 
Now let me paint another picture. instead, suppose you wake up in the morning and you find that you're in the middle of a pandemic that a skilled more than 450,000 people all over the world, people are dying in your country.
People are dying in your neighborhood. Maybe some family members have also died and new infection has now broken out that is worse than the previous one. Numerous people that you know have lost their jobs. You know that at any point you can lose your job. The economy worldwide has collapsed. And you're lost all the money that you have invested in different areas in stocks and bonds and your retirement fund has completely collapsed and you've lost everything.
Large amounts of your loans remain. You have mortgages on your house and your car. You have student loans, you have business loans. And then after a long day at work, you come home and you find that your son has fallen down from the roof and has broken several bones and you spend that night at the emergency room.
Is your heart satisfied? Are you at peace?
Real inner peace is not when there is serenity outside, but one that exists in the midst of a raging storm.
And that is a kind of peace that Jesus wants to give you. 
In John chapter 16, verse 33 reads. I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace in this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. 
John 14, 27 reads peace I leave with you. My peace. I give you. I do not give you as the world gift.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. The Lord give you mace
unread the blessing again, and come to that last phrase. The Lord bless you and keep you the Lord. Make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord, turn his face toward you and give you peace. So they will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them.
Fifth flee his name on you. The entire blessing is summarized in this phrase. His name is on us. His name on us is the actual blessing. Everything else is just a repercussion of his name being on us. 
Livestock branding is a technique for marking livestock so as to identify the owner. It's a technique that is about 5,000 years old, presumably started by the ancient Egyptians to identify animals or livestock by their owners. And so they would brand these animals with fire, a pattern on iron that was heated up and pressed into the animal's body. Obviously, now there are much easier and painless methods to make this happen, but in those days it was branding on the animal's body.
And the idea was to place the name  or a specific pattern of the owner on this animal, so that when they grazed together; at the end of the grazing period, you knew whose animal belong to whom. Open grazing is much less common today, but still branding is done to prove ownership. There is actually a mural in Colorado city, Texas that shows the different kinds of cattle brands that were used in West Texas over the several previous decades. 
Branding shows belonging. So in Isaiah chapter 44, verse five, it reads some will say, I belong to the Lord. Others will call themselves by the name of Jacob. Still others will write on their hand. The Lord. And we'll take the name. Israel. 
When the person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ, he is branded with the name of God. He's got a name brand and he's branded with the Holy spirit. So in Ephesians chapter one, verse 13, it reads and you also were included in Christ. When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy spirit. 
Branding brings blessing. If we are branded with the name of God, it shows that we are in the family of God and his favor is on us. 
The voice is a reality show from 2010, that came out of the Netherlands. In this show, contestants would audition first and then come onto the main stage. And they would do then a blind auditioning and the coaches would have their backs turned toward the contestants. The contestants would sing and  the coaches based on what they hear would press a button and their chair would turn around to see the contestant for the first time. And when a coach pressed the button and turned to see the contestant, they, at that point was choosing the contestant. And from that point on, they will do everything within their power to make sure that the contestants succeeds for the rest of the competition.
Once God has turned and put his name brand on us. He will do everything within his infinite power to keep us, to be gracious to us and to give us peace. In the final blessing. His face is turned in favor to those who have his name. So in revelation, chapter 22, verse four, it reads, they will see his face. And his name will be on their foreheads. The ultimate blessing is to be part of the family of God, having his name, branded on us and the blessing of protection, grace and peace will follow, but to enable this blessing to be fulfilled, something else needed to happen. And what I'm about to say, I don't fully understand.
And likely I will never, ever fully understand. The inseparable Trinity of God, the father, God, the son and God, the Holy spirit have co-existed together in perfect unity, love and harmony. And yet 2000 years ago, when Jesus died on the cross caring your sin and mine, he uttered the sentence that reflected his agony.
He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It reflects a turn in that eternal relationship that I cannot fully grasp. On the cross there is no separation of the unity of the Trinity, but for a brief moment as Jesus carry the sin of the entire world, the face of God was turned away. The face of God that was turned to where Jesus to bless was turned away and now it became the presence of God to punish. And for that brief moment in time, the complete raft of God fell upon Jesus as he carried the sin of the whole world and experienced the penalty of sin. And because of that, anyone who believes in him does not need to take the penalty of sin. 
Let me end with a story. Irish blue grew up in Houston, Texas. She lived a rebellious life and got involved in drugs, alcohol and prostitution when she was a teenager. She was arrested and spent seven years in prison. But when she got out, she went back to her life on the street. But this time she was also part of the band toasts motorcycle gang as she continued her previous profession. Then one of her former clients became a Christian. He was transformed and started talking about Jesus. He would call her up and say, God loves you, but she would hang up the phone. He would go to the bar where she worked at and would say that you need Jesus and would tell her friends that they needed Jesus, but she would cuss him out.
Then one day he called her up and asked her to meet him outside the bar. That night he told her that he could not see her anymore because he had made a commitment to God that he wasn't going to hang around with trumps anymore. And let me read the rest of the story in her own words in her book -  Iris: trophy of grace. When he called me a tramp, I wanted to hurt him. I thought - all this week you've been calling me and telling me how precious I am to God. And that I was valuable. And now in one word, I was garbage. But before I could say anything, he said, Jesus can turn you into a lady. When he said the word lady, it was like, something exploded inside me.
And I thought - all I've ever wanted to be was a lady. He said, you see, it's really like a marriage. It's not just believing, but it's commitment of your life to him. Jesus gets all of you and you get all of him. Are you ready? I said, I'm ready. And he said, okay, I'm going to lead you in a prayer. Kind of like a wedding.
And he said, Jesus, do you want her? I didn't hear anything, but he said, Jesus said, I do. And then he said, Iris, do you want Jesus? And I said, I do. We knelt there on the sidewalk. Nobody was playing "just as I am", but it was like, I could feel the music on my knees. He said, pray with me. Then he took my hand and led me in that prayer.
It was like, God pulled back a curtain on my heart. And on March 31st out to the front of an old bar, I knelt down a tramp, a loser, a zero, and I stood up a lady - clean pure forgiven, innocent blameless, cherished, and brand new. My life was different.
Ladies and gentlemen, the reason why we can experience the blessing of God, the reason why we can experience the presence of God to bless. Is because the Lord Jesus himself took upon the presence of God to punish, and he offers grace, peace and the promise to keep us to the end. I'm going to give the opportunity for two groups of people to respond to the summit.
If there's anyone here who's never experienced the forgiveness of sins and come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You can pray a prayer after me, just like Iris blue prayed. Yeah. Or if there's anybody who's not experiencing peace, God's face is turned toward you and he wants to give you blessing and peace, but you don't experience that peace. The storms on the inside reflect the storms on the outside. Okay. You can also pray with me. 
If there is somebody here who's never invited Jesus into your life. Jesus is calling you into a relationship with him and he wants to put his name brand on you. And to call you his. You can pray something like this.
Dear Lord Jesus. I am a sinner and I need you. I deserve your presence to punish. I deserve your face turned away from me and I deserve hell. Thank you for the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I asked Jesus to come into my life and make me complete. Thank you that you will turn your face toward me.
Thank you for your promise of blessing. Thank you for the promise to keep me to the end. Thank you for your grace and your peace. Help me to live a life that is worthy of you. 
Heavenly father. I pray for anybody who does not experience the grace and peace that you want to give. I pray that in spite of our circumstances, in spite of the raging storm outside, that you would keep our hearts in perfect peace. Thank you, Lord God. In Jesus' name. I pray. Amen.