The Blessing
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At age 16 Andor Foldes was already a skilled pianist, but he was experiencing a troubled year. In the midst of the young Hungarian's personal struggles, one of the most renowned pianists of the day came to Budapest. Emil von Sauer was famous not only for his abilities; he was also the last surviving pupil of the great Franz Liszt. Von Sauer requested that Foldes play for him. Foldes obliged with some of the most difficult works of Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann.
When he finished, von Sauer walked over to him and kissed him on the forehead. "My son," he said, "when I was your age I became a student of Liszt. He kissed me on the forehead after my first lesson, saying, 'Take good care of this kiss--it comes from Beethoven, who gave it to me after hearing me play.' I have waited for years to pass on this sacred heritage, but now I feel you deserve it."
The amazing nature of the blessing. It has been a practice in my household to bless my children every night before bed. With Aaronic blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. One day it was asked of me why I do that. My response was simply… how awesome is life if God does this for you? James makes it clear that we have not because we ask not! I wonder are we even seeking the blessing of God? Do we seek it anymore?
I remember one response. I do seek it everyday, but I never get it. So whats the point. And lets be really honest even if I do get it, not sure that is what I’m really needing right now. How is God looking at me, His grace, keeping me from sin, protecting me from enemies when I aint got none, and His presence. But what does it matter, I never get them anyway. Could this be why many of us are not seeking the Lord. Does anybody really love the Lord anymore?
If there is one that that seems so necessary in our world today. Its not more money, popularity, pleasure, or power… it is for lack of better term… validation. But how are we supposed to be validated in our current state? That is what we will uncover today.
Turn to me and be gracious to me,
as is your way with those who love your name.
Keep steady my steps according to your promise,
and let no iniquity get dominion over me.
Redeem me from man’s oppression,
that I may keep your precepts.
Make your face shine upon your servant,
and teach me your statutes.
The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.
Turn to Me
Keep Me
Redeem Me
Shine Upon Me
The first thing we will look at today is the grace filled action of the Lord when He turns to us. Second, we pray continually for the Lord to keep us from sin. Third, we ask the Lord to save us from our many enemies in this world. And Finally, we will see how the Light of the World shines upon us in His death and resurrection.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to become indifferent to the blessing of God, it is the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that will cause us to see the blessing of God to be much to be desired and has been wonderfully given in Christ and Christ alone.
I. Turn to Me
- Pay attention to me.
A. Watch me daddy. Our children do this right. It carries the same kinda idea… just like a child wants their parent to pay attention to them. The affirming and caring character of attention. Dad your not watching me. We want the Lord’s regard. We want the Lords attention. We want the daily observance of the Lord. This is in essence a tremendous blessing.
B. And with this look our psalmist desires the grace of the Lord. Turn towards me and ho non… show mercy or more literally a gracious kindness. To illustrate even further… would it be a blessing to ask the Lord to turn to us and give us what we truly deserve? Turn toward me and give me justice. He is asking the Lord to bring not what we deserve… mercy, but to also bring what we do not deserve. And that is grace.
Spurgeon - If He looked on us with stern justice, His eyes would not tolerate us; but looking in mercy, He spares and blesses us.
C. Grace and mercy is the wonderful gifts that the Lord brings that is vital and unfailing in the life of a Christian. We want the attention from our heavenly Father but we also want it with grace and mercy. We see in the scriptures the gravity of what it means when the Lord turns away from us.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
D. And the reason for such a request is also illuminating. For this is what you do for those who love You. And for you Christian today this is our disposition is it not?
I love you, Lord;
you are my strength.
E. And we are under no disillusionment that this is possible only because the Lord has worked in us and showed us an amazing love.
We love because he first loved us.
F. And because we love… there is a confidence that we should have. God will look upon us with grace and mercy. This is what He does for those who love Him.
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
II. Keep me
- Keep us from sin.
A. Sin that thing to so easily besets us. We pray for God to protect us from sin. The psalmist ask the lord to keep Him on the right path.
“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones,
but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness,
for not by might shall a man prevail.
B. And negative of this passage. Keep us from getting sidetracked by distractions and sin. Sin is that big distraction. And as a believe it is important for us to realize how dangerous is sin and seductive is sin and how pervasive is sin. It is serious enough that we need to stop it and take it serious. How serious is sin? It took the death of the Son of God to atone for it. How seductive it is. It is so seductive that we are doing it even when we don’t know we are doing it.
How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
C. And how pervasive is it?
I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
D. Example of this?
If one turns away his ear from hearing the law,
even his prayer is an abomination.
E. We need the power and strength of God to overcome sin. We seek after the Lord to keep us from iniquity. Puritan Thomas Manton talks about small and big sins taking turns on the throne of our lives. Professor Curtis.
F. And let us get this straight here. There is no reason for us to think at any moment that this is gonna happen if we do not take the serious the Word of God as our guide and director. We would live our lives according to our desires, plans, fancies, ideologies, delusions and when we will be kept from sin. God is not mocked. This is His first way… this is a powerful way.
There is a path before each person that seems right,
but it ends in death.
And…
They are a warning to your servant,
a great reward for those who obey them.
G. Disregarding His Word and then blaming Him for not helping us to not sin is like when my kids who should know better by now ask me or Jeanine to carry them cause they don’t wanna walk anymore. Unthinkable. I told you in my Word that it is wrong. But I did not know it was in there. HELLO??? Ignorance will not be an excuse.
III. Redeem Me
- To save us from those who oppress us to sin against you.
A. This is what the Lord is driving us to. We enertain the world and have friendship with the world. We desire a place at the table with the world. The reality is… there is no neutrality. The thing they want is to live in rebellion against God and celebrate when other people do the same.
They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
Charles Spurgeon - “It is said that oppression makes a wise man insane, and no doubt it has made many a righteous man sinful. Oppression is in itself wicked, and it drives men to wickedness. We little know how much of our virtue is due to our liberty. If we had been in bonds under arrogant tyrants, we might have given in to them. Instead of being confessors of the faith, we might now have been apostates and have denied the faith.”
B. We pray and pray to be relieved by our oppressors and enemies. Many of us can be under the yoke of oppression and not know it. Many of us are under the oppression of enemies and we do know it. But we just cant seem to get free. We need the Lord to help us through it. Especially… addictions. There is no way around it. No way to get out of it. Without the Lord. The addiction cycle is a real thing, but like all psychological principles they do a good job of describing the problem, but have no way to fix it.
C. The only way to fix it … the power of the Holy Spirit. I once spent some time with DA Carson in Hawaii. He was discussing addictions. He said getting into addictions is disobeying God to satisfy the desire of our real God. We worshipped our way into it, we need to worship our way out of it. We have to come to the place where we love Jesus more than our addictions. This is by the power of the Holy Spirit.
D. We pray that God delivers us… stop hurling rocks at you Goliath. Pray that the Holy Spirit will smite the cheek of our enemies and that He will shatter the teeth of the wicked. Arise O lord in our lives and in our church Overcome our enemies today. Overcome those who try to hold us down. Overcome those who try to cause our hands to sin against you. Give us victory over our enemies. Deliver us from evil.
III. Shine Upon Me
-The Light of the World shines upon us.
A. And what a wonderful thing it is to also pray for light to shine down upon us. And when the light come the Lord will teach us. He teaches us to pray for grace and mercy, he teaches us to pray to be delivered from sin, he teaches us to be delivered from our enemies, and he teaches us to pray for the Lord to shine down upon us.
B. And we should see that all of this has come to us now even more than we know. The reality is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous no not one. There is no one on earth who always does good and never sins. And because of this we were by nature children of wrath. Our destiny in light of the justice of God is Hell. We are destined for condemnation. We are destined for the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. We are destined for the place reserved for the devil and his angels.
C. But God did not forsake us and turn from us. He gave us grace in the form of His Son Jesus… who came to seek and to save that which was lost. It is by grace that we have been saved by grace through faith. We received deliverence from sin because Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And he will deliver us from the enemy. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. And the face of Christ did shine upon us. Walking in the light as He is in the light. So much has been give to us in the coming of Christ.
D. So much that is needed so much has been supplied. He provides all our needs according to his riches in glory. And so much of this is given in Christ. And the wonders will never cease when we truly come to realize the truth… what truth. His grace is sufficient for us. When we are weak then we are strong.