Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Let's turn to second chronicles, chapter
six. Please remain standing if you're able
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and will here together God's word.
Second Chronicles, Chapter Six, verses one
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through eleven. Second Chronicles six,
verses one through eleven. Then Solomon said,
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the Lord has said that he would
dwell in thick darkness, but I
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have built you an Exalted House,
a place for you to dwell in forever.
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Then the king turned around and blessed
all the assembly of Israel, while
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all the assembly of Israel stood,
and he said, blessed be the Lord,
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the God of Israel, who,
with his hand, has fulfilled what
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he promised with his mouth to David, by of David my father saying,
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since the day that I brought my
people out of the land of Egypt,
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I chose no city out of all
the tribes of Israel in which to build
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a house, that my name might
be there, and I chose no man
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as prince over my people Israel.
But I have chosen Jerusalem that my name
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may be there, and I have
chosen David to be over my people Israel.
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Now it was in the heart of
David to bill what David my father
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to build a house for the name
of the Lord, the God of Israel.
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But the Lord said to David my
father, whereas it was your heart
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to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in
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your heart. Nevertheless, it is
not you who shall build the house,
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but your son, who shall be
born to you, shall build a house
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for my name. Now the Lord
has fulfilled his promise that he made,
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for I have risen in the place
of David my father and sit on the
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throne of Israel, as the Lord
promised, and I have built the house
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for the name of the Lord,
the God of Israel, and there I
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have set the arc in which is
the covenant of the Lord that he made
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with the people of Israel. You
may be seated well here in these verses,
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Solomon is gearing up for one of
the most significant and important prayers we
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have in all of scripture, a
long prayer, a beautiful prayer, a
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prayer which is a great model to
follow, a prayer which has so much
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good content for us to learn and
to meditate on. Tonight, however,
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I want to focus on the thing
that happens just before that prayer. It's
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kind of a prayer. You could
perhaps categories categorize it in that way,
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but all use the words the scripture
uses here, and that's blessing. HMM.
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Solomon stands, turns around and blesses
all the assembly of Israel and as
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he does so, he recounts what
we've heard many times throughout first and second
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chronicles, this thing that Israel wanted, that David wanted a king and a
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place. They wanted the Lord God
to dwell with them, and this was
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in David's heart and David intended to
do this thing, and God commends him
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here for that. He says that
is a good thing, that it was
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in your heart. Nevertheless, God
says, it will not be you who
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build the house, David, but
it will be your son. God makes
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this covenant with with him, what
we sometimes call the DIVIDIC covenant or the
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Covenant of David. So Solomon it
is recounting all of this, but I
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want you to notice, and this
is what I will focus on this evening,
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is the way that this history is
recounted. It's all wrapped in a
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blessing. He isn't just merely saying
I want you to Reme, I want
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to remind you of what has happened. He frames it in a blessing and
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that's how we understand what it is
Solomon says here. He makes this great
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confession that the things that God has
promised with his mouth he has done with
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his hands. This, by the
way, this ten dollar word, anthropomorphic
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language, this language which attributes sort
of human characteristics to God, will occur
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all throughout this long prayer. Mouth, hands, other things. It's one
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of the ways that God is bringing
to our minds this fact that he is
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dwelling in a very personal way with
his people, Israel. So you can
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pay attention for those as we go
along in the next several weeks. But
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here, as he says that that
God has fulfilled with his hands what he
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is done with his mouth, he
wraps it in a blessing. So let's
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consider what that is. What our
blessings? What does that mean? How
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do they connect with God? And
actually, if you notice, there's kind
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of a double blessing here. Pay
attention to this. Notice what happens verse
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three and Verse Four. Then the
king turned around and blessed all the assembly
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of Israel, while the is assembly
of Israel stood and he said blessed be
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the Lord. Isn't that interesting?
That his blessing on and to the people
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begins with the phrase blessed be the
Lord. Well, who are you blessing,
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Solomon? Are you blessing the people, or are you blessing God?
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You see what I mean? It's
kind of a double blessing. There's a
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blessing wrapped inside of a blessing.
So what's going on here? How is
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it that he's blessing his people by
Blessing God? Here's the main thing.
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I want to communicate that blessing God
for the blessings he gives is itself a
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blessing to others. So I'll say
that again. Blessing God for the blessings
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he gives is itself a blessing to
others. Well, let's start with just
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a simple definition, a simple definition
of what it does it mean to bless,
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and we'll go through a little bit
of scripture. To bless simply means
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to bestow a good, to give
a good. There as three different ways
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we see this in scripture. There's
God blessing man, a man blessing God,
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and then man blessing man, men
blessing each other. So here's three
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verses to highlight this. First one. How does God bless man? And
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in these each of these you will
see how God bestows good. So Genesis
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thirty five, the Lord has greatly
blessed my master and he has become great.
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He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male servants
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and female servants, camels and donkeys. You see what this servant says.
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He is Blake, greatly blessed my
master, of all these good things have
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been given to him. Here's another
one job for two twelve, and the
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Lord blessed the latter days of job
more than his beginning. And he had
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fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of Oxen and a
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thousand female donkeys. God bestowed good
on job or psalm forty five to you
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are the most handsome of the sons
of men. Grace is poured upon your
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lips. Therefore, God has blessed
you forever. So these are examples of
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God blessing man, and there are
hundreds of them. But there are many,
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many, I'm in which we see
this word being used in this way.
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What about examples where man blesses God? Psalm one hundred three, verse
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one blessed the Lord, Oh my
soul and all that is within me,
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bless his holy name, bless the
Lord, Oh my soul, and forget
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not all his benefits. That word
benefits. You could probably translate blessings bless
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the Lord, forget not his blessings. There's a relationship there, you see,
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between what God gives and how we
respond. Psalm one hundred forty five
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one. I will extol you,
my God and King, and bless your
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name forever and ever. Every day
I will bless you and praise your name
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forever and ever. And one more
from revelation thirteen and fourteen. John says,
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and I heard every creature in heaven
and on earth and under the Earth
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and in the sea and all that
is in them saying to him who sits
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on the throne, into the lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might
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forever and ever. And the four
living creatures said Amen, and the elders
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fell down and worshiped. Blessing is
a bestole of good, but there is
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a difference between the way God bestows
blessings on us and the way we bless
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God. Maybe, if you think
about it, you even feel a little
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bit uncomfortable saying that we bless God
or that we should bless God. This
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is one of those things that might
be a little hard to wrap your head
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around, but here's the truth of
it. In both cases, when man
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and his blessing God and when God
is blessing man, a good is being
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bestowed, like revelation hundred thirteen,
to God belongs blessing, honor, glory,
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might for and might forever and ever. The difference, however, is
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that this good is not something that
God needs. He's not dependent on that
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in the way that we are dependent
on him. When we are blessed,
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we receive life, we receive goodness, we receive everything from God. There's
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nothing that we don't receive that isn't
from him, and this is something we
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need. God, however, does
not have life from us. He doesn't
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have might or honor or power from
us. He's not dependent on us for
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these things, and yet we give
them to him. Why? Well,
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not because he needs them, not
because we need to provide for him somehow,
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but because of worship. Right,
that's what's going on there. We
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we give these things to God.
So, for example, we have offering.
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Paul talks about. This is a
worship. We collect money together to
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give it to God. Is it
because God needs our money? Is He
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dependent on it? Is he going
to go broke or not be able to
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pay the bills? Of course not, even do whatever he wants, but
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we give it to him as an
act of worship, as an act of
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praise, and amazingly, he uses
these things, he uses this praise to
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bless himself and or not to bless
himself, rather to bless us. It's
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there's this kind of cycle that we
begin to see in that God blesses us,
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we receive these benefits, we turn
around and bless him, which glorifies
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him, which in turn blesses us, which is a benefit, and so
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we praise him and bless him,
and so he blesses us. And it
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goes back and forth, not as
equals, not as people, sort of
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two friends patting each other on the
back, but as a create a creator
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giving to his creatures and his creatures
responding in praise. And when we respond
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in play, it praise. That
is a good thing, it is a
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blessing, something that we give to
God. So God blesses man, man
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blesses God and of course we bless
each other. This in God's strength,
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because nothing good comes to us except
through God. Even when he uses a
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friend to bring it to us.
So what are some examples of US blessing
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each other in God's strength? Well, one's right here in our text,
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second chronicles six, verse two,
when Solomon as king turns to his people
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in the name of the Lord and
blesses them. This kind of official blessing
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is what we receive at the end
of our worship services and at the beginning
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of our worship services, when God
greets us in the salutation and sends us
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off in the Benediction. This was
true of the Levites as well, and
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Deuteronomy ten eight, we read that
at that time the Lord set apart the
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tribe of Levi to carry the Ark
of the covenant of the Lord and to
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stand before the Lord to Minister to
him and to bless his name. What
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a great job God gave Levi,
the tribe of Levi, the job of
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blessing his name. It's a it's
a job we all share in now as
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a kingdom of priests. But here's
another win which we bless each other,
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not necessarily in this official capacity,
but in our everyday lives. I'm first
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Peter Chapter Three. I believe he
says in Verse Nine, Do Not Repay
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Evil for evil or reviling from reviling, but, on the contrary, bless,
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for to this you were called,
that you may obtain a blessing from
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that wonderful you bestow a good,
that you may obtain a good. And
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then he describes the what it means
to bless and verses ten through twelve.
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For whoever desires to love his life
and see good days, let him keep
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his tongue from evil and his lips
from speaking deceit. Let him turn away
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from evil and do good, let
him seek peace and pursue it. For
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the eyes of the Lord are on
the righteous and his ears are open to
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their prayer. But the face of
the Lord is against those who do evil.
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So this is how we bless one
another. We love one another,
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we do good, we seek peace, we speak rightly, we turn away
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from evil, we pursue a good
things, we pursue peace. So you
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get the idea. These are the
different ways that scripture talks about blessing man,
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blessing God, God blessing man,
and men blessing each other one another.
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I'm through God God using us to
bless us one to another. Now,
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from all of this it should be
very clear that blessing comes to us
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from God. We got a sense
from this already in Matthew, when we
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read Matthew Seven. Where do we
get the good things that we ask for
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from God? James says this to
every good and perfect gift comes from our
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father, and Solomon says that here
as well. By recounting this history,
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he's saying that everything that has happened
up to this point has happened because God
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has done it. These things aren't
automatic. Kings don't come to power a
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mass, vast quantities of wealth and
loyalty among their subjects and peace among the
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nations. They aren't able to receive
these great promises about a son and a
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temple and all the rest, except
from God. God says this about kings
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in particular because we're so prone to
see those who are the strongest as having
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a kind of self contained power.
But not so, God says it's the
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same with kings as it is with
animals wandering around in the fields. All
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are dependent on God, and Solomon
gets that. He doesn't stand like Nebuchadnezzar
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does, up on his balcony and
say, look at all these great things
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that I've done I built a house
and sure enough, God came down and
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dwelt in it. Check it out. No, he stands there and he
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blesses God. Right, he bends
himself, he bows himself before the Lord
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Almighty and he gives praise to God. You have done these things, you
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have spoken them, you have accomplished
them. Verse Ten. Now the Lord
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has fulfilled his promise that he made, for I have risen in the place
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of David, my father, and
sit on the throne of Israel, as
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the Lord promised, and I've built
the house for the name of the Lord.
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All of this has happened, he
says in Verse Eleven, because of
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the Covenant of the Lord that he
made with the people of Israel. And
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this isn't just the dividict covenant.
This goes all the way back to Egypt,
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he says, all the way back
to when God brought them out of
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Egypt and promised to establish them in
the promised land in Canaan. And even
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that promise goes all the way back
to Abraham, when he called Abraham out
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of Er and set and and promised
to a bless him with a great people
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and a land to dwell in.
And that promise goes all the way back
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to Adam and Eve, when God
promised to Adam and Eve that a son
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would come that would bring all things
together and make all things right. The
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providences of God depend on the promises
of God. That's how we come into
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contact with them, anyway. That's
the bedrock on which we are depending.
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We don't wait for God's providences to
work out and then say, well,
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okay, maybe I'm seeing this.
We trust in the words that he's given
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us, the promises that he's given
us, one because he said them,
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and too, because he keeps fulfilling
them again and again and again, and,
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as we know, it is his
character never to lie. So my
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point is simply this. It should
be clear from all of this, from
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the scripture, from our experience,
from second chronicle six, that blessing in
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our lives come from God. Now
making such a big deal about this because
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we are prone to forget it,
and I think in two different ways.
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First, we're prone to forget the
existence of blessing at all and second,
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we're prone to forget the gracious character
of blessing regarding its existence. How often
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have you caught yourself being forgetful about
being thankful or having such a hard time
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seeing how could there be even any
blessing in this? My life is a
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ruin, everything is over, everything
is wrong and terrible. Now, of
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course that sounds like an exaggeration.
You know who would say that? You
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know we're all sitting here and controlling
ourselves and not embarrassing ourselves, but we've
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all had these experiences where we've all
said these things, frustrated, angry,
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terrified, anxious, unable to see
the blessing in a situation. And yet
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it's there. Are Even in the
bad times. We won't even talk about
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forgetting the blessings in the good times, but just the even the bad times.
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This is true. There's a story
about Matthew Henry. I'm perhaps you've
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heard about his Bible commentaries. They're
really good, by the way. There's
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six volumes of them and goes through
the whole bibles all sorts of wonderful things
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to say. There's a time when
Matthew Henry Henry, was robbed and he
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wrote this in his diary. Let
me be thankful. First, because I
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was never robbed before. Second,
because although they took my wallet, they
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did not take my life. Third, because, although they took my all.
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It wasn't much and forth, because
it was I who was robbed,
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not I who robbed. This is
a thankful man, right. This is
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a thankful man. He doesn't tell
us this, but my guess is is
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that Matthew Henry took some time to
write this in his diary as an exercise
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in thankfulness. Now I also think
Matthew Henry was a holy enough man that
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he probably thought these things on the
spur of the moment, without much exercise
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either. But I also know that
those who are holy, those who are
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thankful, our practice in it.
They work at this. There are other
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people who do the opposite. They
work at discontentment, they work at being
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frustrated, they work at seeing the
wrong and all the right places. But
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we are called to look for our
blessings, to see the good things that
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God has done, and we are
prone to forget them. And then,
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even when we see them, we
forget the graciousness of them. We might
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be thankful or recognize my life is
pretty good, there's pretty decent, but
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how often do we remember that we
do not deserve these things, that they're
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given to us from God himself?
Solomon didn't deserve the Lord, God dwelling
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with him, supporting him, helping
him in his rule. Indeed, in
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many ways he would come to undeserve
this in his life. He would.
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There were ways in which we see
in his life that he wasn't the king
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he ought to be, and yet
God stayed with him, dwelled with him,
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helped him to rule. And when
you think about all the blessings that
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God gives you, the blessings that
you don't deserve and that I don't deserve,
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let us not forget the most important
one of all, that while we
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were ungodly. Paul says in Romans
Five, Christ died for us, while
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we were still sinners. Christ died
for the ungodly. We don't deserve it.
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The best and most important things that
God gives to us he gives to
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us even while we are still sinners. So, in considering these things and
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kind of pulling us back to our
main point, let me ask you a
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question. Is it not true,
then, that reminders of the blessings that
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we have are a blessing itself,
or that, I'll put it in the
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singular, that the reminder of the
blessings we have is a blessing itself?
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Have you not just experienced this?
Have you not just even now, been
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blessed by being reminded of the goodness
of the Lord to you and to me
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and to all of us together,
while we were yet sinners? And maybe
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you experience this in other places.
Maybe you've experienced a time when somebody helped
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you to remember the blessings that you
have, or even the Holy Spirit himself
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testifying into you that you are an
adopted child of God. You thought everything
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was bad, that you had nothing, you were discontent, you couldn't be
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happy, and then somebody comes and
pops that bubble and instead of being deflating,
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it's a release. There's a way
in which uncon discontentment and ungratefulness kind
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of wraps us up, you know. It binds us like Jonah being pulled
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down into the depths of the sea
by all the seaweed and whatnot. Discontentment
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does that. It makes us unhappy, it makes us frustrated and anxious.
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Somebody comes and pops that bubble and
reminds us of the blessings that we have
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in the Lord. Well, that's
good. We feel good, we feel
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healthy, we feel released, and
I think this is especially true when that
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reminder comes in the action of blessing
God himself. That's what Solomon does here
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and that's why I put it in
this way. In in other words,
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this is what Solomon does instead of
just going to his people and saying,
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brothers and sisters, Israel of God, look at what the Lord has done.
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And that would be wonderful right.
That would be a real blessing to
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be reminded of those things. But
Solomon, instead of just talking about blessing,
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jumps right to the praise itself.
He blesses by blessing God. He
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blesses his people by Blessing, say, the Lord. It's a blessing wrapped
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in a blessing. And you know
what, this is what we do together
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every Sunday when we gather together and
we celebrate the Lord who dwells with us
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in Christ we who are the Temple
of God and whom the spirit dwells.
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We come together each Lord's Day and
we consider God's promises fulfilled to us.
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I stand here like a Solomon reminding
you, telling you of the good things
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that God has done. He has
promised them with his mouth and he has
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done them with his hands. And
then in we do this not just in
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speaking about these things, but in
actual praise to God. There's a way
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in which we praise God, we
bless his name, and in doing so
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we not only bestow a good on
God, but is it not true that
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we also bestow a good on one
another? There's this kind of one another
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ring that happens even as we are
all simultaneously directed at God. This is
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the great spiritual unity that we have
one another, with one another in the
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spirit and in the Lord Jesus.
In worshiping God, in blessing him,
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we find that we ourselves are blessed, and so this is why I say,
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and I said at the beginning,
blessing God for the blessings he gives
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is itself a blessing for others.
We have an example of this in second
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chronicle six, and it's a good
reminder to us. It's a good reminder
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to us not only of what we
do, but it's a good reminder to
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us of how the Lord Works.
So I'll just finish with this. When
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I say blessing God for the blessings
he gives is itself a blessing to others,
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we can say that all of that
itself is, of course, a
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blessing of God, and around and
around and around it goes. That's why
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Jesus talks about the life that we
enter to into is a blessed life.
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It's a life that itself is categorized
in this way. It's not as though
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we just have this basket of blessings, even a whole room or a storehouse
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of blessings, but in Jesus Christ, our life itself is blessed, all
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of it, every part of it, from the Lord. So how do
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we respond? I'll let you guess. Let's pray.
