May the Lord Bless You
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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.
What a beautiful blessing - a blessing that over the thousands of years, Jewish priests and Christian clergy have pronounced over God’s people.
This is God’s blessing for you as well.
The Lord bless you and keep you…
Sadly today, in this culture, so many people do not look to God as the source of the best things in life. But the Bible makes it very clear - God is the source of all that is good, all that is satisfying, all that fulfills us. May the Lord bless you. and May the Lord keep you - which is the same as saying may he look after you, protect you, be your defender. It is very similar to another promises God makes - as heard in Hebrews 13:5 - I will never leave you or forsake you. You can rest assured, right now, that God is with you and he is looking over you.
The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you…
Do you remember a time when someone was extremely happy for you and proud of you - maybe a parent or a grandparent? Their face beamed with pleasure over you, they smiled ear to ear and it made you feel so good inside? For those of you with grandchildren, you may have shined your face upon them. Now imagine meeting God face to face and seeing him beam over you! Looking upon you with great pleasure and approval.
How can God look at us with great approval? - why would his face shine upon us? It is because of His amazing grace. He is gracious to us because while we are lost in our sin, He sent his son to take our sin upon himself and to pay the price so that we may be free. If we confess our sin, and place our faith in Jesus, then when God looks at us, he does not see our sin, he sees his precious child and that makes His face shine.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace…
Another way of saying that is:
The Lord lift up his face to you and grant you peace.
What does it mean for the Lord to lift up his face to you?
Well, let us consider the opposite. What if it said, the Lord turn his face away from you? That gives us a sense of doom doesn’t it? God can’t even look at me? That will be the state of those who refuse to turn from sins and live in rebellion.
But for those who believe in Jesus, May the Lord lift up his face to you!
And finally, The Lord give you peace.
In the Hebrew, the word for peace is Shalom and theologian Raymond Brown describes Shalom this way:
The Message of Numbers: Journey to the Promised Land His Innumerable Blessings Include Deep Inward Fulfilment
not only health and prosperity but also well-being and inner tranquillity, the serenity that comes from the assurance that God knows and supplies all that is necessary for life’s journey
And so this is God’s blessing that I pronounce over you this morning. His promise to you. It is not something I can bestow on you, I am simply a messenger, a mouthpiece, speaking words that the Lord himself has commanded be spoken over his people. A promise from the Creator of the All Things to you - his precious child.
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.
Amen.
