Psalm 67 - The Fruit of Blessing

I'm going to invite you this morning to Psalm 67, where we're going to be together. Psalm 67. We're going to look at this psalm for a couple of reasons. One, because if you're an adult, this now makes you cool that you're in 67. Okay, that's — I'm just kidding. Actually, we should use this with some reverse psychology. We're going to pretend like we're cool now and talking about 67, your kids will no longer think it's cool, and then we'll be done with 67 forever. Right? So that'll be great. So there's double bonus here. You get to learn about the Lord. And in 67, you get to destroy all that. I'm just kidding. I shouldn't get that negative. But 67 is a beautiful psalm. Psalm 67 for us. And what it represents.

It's a rather unique psalm in that when you ask someone, what's in Psalm 67, the general consensus you'll get is this: I don't know. I have no idea. This is not one of the most popular psalms in the book of Psalms, but this is a critical psalm because it's a very simple psalm, and it's very foundational to understanding what it means to be a believer because the focus of the psalm — if you didn't catch the drift from the music that was picked today — is related to the idea of blessing. What does it mean for you and for me to be blessed? And sometimes we hear people say that vernacular. I am blessed. Right. And when people say that, it can mean a gamut of things. Like as Christians, this is a term that we should be using in our faith, right? This word is used some 500 times in the Bible, both Old and New Testament. So what does it mean for us when we say that word blessing? And then sometimes I'll find other people might say this word that don't even believe in a God. They might be atheist or agnostic. They might say that phrase, I am blessed. Like, what in the world does that mean when it's a term that is certainly painted within Scripture for God's people? Do they mean the same thing? When I say I am blessed as a Christian, what do I mean by that?

And so the goal for today, as we look at this particular psalm, is to understand what it means to be blessed, to have a true belief and a conviction when we say it, that we were using it in a way that God intended it. And we can say it with such a depth that we believe it and we mean it. And when you look at Psalm 67, starting in verse one, and even to verse six and seven, the end of the psalm, you'll see that phrase used in the beginning of the psalm and the end of the psalm, and then everything in between that really will explain to us what it means to live in light of it.

I would say it's going to work like this for us. When you look at verse one and verse seven, I'll read it here. It says, May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face to shine upon us. Selah. Which is like a resting place. This is a psalm that's a song. So they would sing and pause in that thought in the midst of this song, to reflect on this idea of blessing. And then in verse seven, God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him. And even in verse six, the idea of blessing is used again.

So what does it mean for us as God's people to truly be blessed? And when I use it, am I using it the right way? You know, if I were to say to you this morning — if you've ever used that phrase, I am blessed — what do you mean by that? Typically, we might find people saying things like this. Well, I'm a blessed individual. I'm a blessed man or a blessed woman because, well, I've got — and then you go on to describe things that you've got, like these possessions in life. I've got a nice car, I've got a nice house, I've got a degree, I've got a possession, I've got a fat bank account, I've got good looks, whatever. I've got a lot of power. I work out, things like that. We might think about blessing and completely say it in that particular way. And I'm not telling you that it's wrong, but it is. I'm just kidding. I think that can be a form of which we experience blessing in life, but to just simply leave it there is a problem for God's people because it's devoid of really the fullness of what blessing is.

Now, God can certainly bless you through things that you might have in life, but to only see it that way is to miss what the picture of blessing is all about. It's to focus on the blessing itself, but not the blesser. So that's something someone from an atheistic background can completely do. I'm a blessed person. All they describe is the physical sustenance of life, right? But then we can also go the other extreme with that. And people in church history have even done this, where they'll look at the things of life and think, well, people have used those things for bad things. And so I'm just going to completely forsake myself of all that stuff and just come and look at life from just a spiritual perspective.

When I was a teenager, I had this kind of thought where when you go through those teenage years of life you're not evolving, you're kind of devolving, right? I used to joke when I would do middle school camp at Grace Haven — I would be the middle school camp director. We had separate camps for teenagers and middle school camp. And that's like the devolving part of your life where you don't even know what you are anymore. You're just kind of becoming this creature. And I don't say that just to put down teenagers. I think being a teenager is a very difficult place in life, especially teenagers in this generation. Like I think about my life growing up as a teenager and what teenagers go through today with social media and everything being recorded and pictures constantly being taken — that's a whole different pressure to life, right?

But there was this time where when I grew up as a teenager, sun would come up, I'd go outside, I wouldn't come back till it was way past dark — just lived out there. But then there were other times where as a teenager, I felt like I just could never get enough sleep. Maybe all the changes going through my body, I don't know, but there were times where I could sleep for 12 hours and I thought to myself, I could do another 12 right now. Just going through this rapid change in life. And every once in a while, my mom would say to me, stop being a hermit and go outside. Of which that's where I lived 90% of my time anyway. So not a problem, but just some days I was more tired than others.

Then when I became a Christian, I actually studied church history. I realized hermits were actually real people. Like, I didn't know where my mom was grabbing that phrase. I don't even know if she knew where that came from. But there was a time in early Christianity where people looked at the things of this world, and they saw the temptations that came with it, and they actually forsook it all, and they would go out into the wilderness, into the woods, and they would live like hermits. They would call them hermits, and they would build poles, and they would live on the top of these poles like birds in a nest. And the thought was, if they could get away from everything else, even elevate themselves so high above the earth, there would be no temptation that they would face because they would be away from it all. But the problem that they discovered is that the brokenness doesn't exist beyond them. The brokenness starts within them. I mean, they got so arrogant with it that they started to believe that whoever could create the highest pole was the holiest. So the hermits got into competitions over whose telephone pole was bigger. And that meant you were godlier. And so they would climb these poles and live on top of it. It's a terrible idea. Right.

But we have this tendency of being extremist people where we could divorce the idea of blessing from God completely and refer to ourselves as blessed simply because we have things. Or we could try to get rid of everything and then try to pursue a life like a hermit or a monk, and think that that's really where blessing is found. And I want you to know, neither of those things are accurate, and especially in the sense of just simply owning things — and that means you're a blessed person — because there are plenty of people in life that own a lot of things and they are absolutely miserable on the inside. And it begs the question, is that really blessing? What does it mean for us to be blessed?

You know, Mother Teresa has talked about this topic extensively, and she said it like this once in a book that she wrote. It was, there are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty. It is not only a poverty of loneliness, but also of spirituality. There is a hunger for love as there is a hunger for God. In fact, there are many quotes of Mother Teresa actually lamenting for the West more than where she was living in India, saying yes, she deals with physical poverty, but she sees far more brokenness in people whose spirits are empty. And I would even argue that that is the worst kind of poverty, where your soul is just depleted.

And we think in terms of the idea of blessing — I think it's critical for us to consider it this way. In fact, this is what the psalmist is reflecting on when you look at the book of Numbers in chapter six, when it talks about the priestly blessing. The priestly blessing given to us in Numbers chapter six is peppered in the idea of blessing in Psalm 67. In fact, in Numbers chapter six, dealing with the tribe of Aaron and giving them this priestly blessing, it says, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, thus you shall bless the people of Israel.

Let me say this real quick. When you start in the Old Testament, you realize in the very beginning with Adam and Eve, that they were called to be priests of God in this world. They were to be the connection between heaven and earth and wherever they went, they were to represent the Lord. And so they were a people called to bless. It's why God says to them in Genesis one, be fruitful, multiply, and subdue — wherever they went, whatever they touched, it was intended to be blessed because they were connected to the Lord and reflecting him in the way that they lived their lives.

When you get to the Old Testament through the tribe of Israel, there is a particular group of people that were referred to as the priests, and they received the priestly blessing. But then again, when you get to the New Testament, it tells you in First Peter chapter two that we are all royal priests, men and women. We represent the Lord in the way that we live our lives. And so wherever we go, we're to be a blessing to those that we encounter.

But you see this blessing listed in the Old Testament in Numbers six. If I go to verse 24, it says to the priest, 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. We'll actually be singing this as a song at the end of our service together. But in verse 27, so they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.

So you see in Psalm 67, verse one, the reflection of those thoughts carried in this particular psalm. And it helps us to begin to understand when we say, I am blessed, what exactly that should mean as God's people. It's not certainly separated from the things we might have in life, but sometimes we look to the things to sustain us rather than the sustainer himself. We look to the blessing of stuff rather than to the blesser who is God.

And when you look at this priestly blessing, you realize the focus of blessing is not about the possession of things, but really the presence of the Lord made known in our lives. Because if we get God's presence, we realize we have what we need to sustain us in all circumstances because we have a God who walks with us, who sees us in everything that we go through, and he cares about us. That's what's reflected in this word of grace. It's saying, look, you have God's presence, but a particular aspect of his presence — his favor towards you. And the idea of saying grace is saying this isn't something you earned, but something God is lavishing on you by having his presence with you. And it goes on and says that his face will shine upon us. This idea of shining again is the idea of favor. And the thought of God's face is saying his relationship to you, that you're with God face to face, that it's not God turning his back on you. It's not the judgment of the Lord, but it's gracious favor upon you all of your days.

So when we think in terms of blessing, yes, it could equate to things in this world, but there's something far deeper in the thought of blessing that matters above all things. Because if we just simply focus on the sustenance of stuff, those things can run out. But it's the presence of the Lord that allows us to sustain forever.

And so Ephesians chapter one, verse three — I don't have it up here on the screen, but if you were to look at Ephesians chapter one, verse three, and read all the way to verse 14, it's the longest sentence in all of the Bible. It gives grammar teachers nightmares because it's a run-on sentence. But what's listed for us from verse three to verse 14 is everything that you have in Jesus. And in fact, in verse three, it starts off with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. That is what God has lavished on you — the presence of God made known in your life and in mine.

In fact, I listened to Tim Keller once talk about the idea of blessing, and he compared it to the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness and learning to handle the manna that God gave them. If you remember in Deuteronomy chapter eight, the children of Israel are going into the wilderness. They're going to wander for 40 years, but when they get there, they complain to God that they're going to starve to death and die, and God makes provision for them. God produces this substance called manna. No one knows what this is — at least today it ended with the children in the wilderness — but God provided for them manna. And when God gave it to them, he tells them the reason why he's doing it. In chapter eight, verse three, he says, he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but rather man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

In fact, God goes on and makes a law in light of this, and the law he says this: when you go forth to gather manna, only gather enough for the day, because if you gather more than that, it will rot. And Tim Keller has the idea of comparing their understanding of manna to what it means for us in blessing today, and saying we have this tendency of looking so much to the things we have as to what sustains us, that we start to look to it as if it's the substance and therefore forget about the Lord. And when we do this, the same thing happens to us that happened to the children of Israel. Our souls start to rot. The lesson for the children of Israel was to remind them that it wasn't trusting in the manna that was going to sustain them — that's why they needed to not collect beyond the day — but rather trust in the Lord who would carry them, to start to build your life on this kind of foundation rather than the things of this world. Because just simply looking to those things, you will find your soul empty.

And so for us, the thought of blessing and where it ultimately comes from is critical for us. Yes, there are possessions in life that the Lord might allow to pass through our hands, but the true blessing that we receive is found in what we have in the Lord and our identity in him.

In 2005, there was an article written by two doctors, Suniya Luthar and Lucia Latendresse. They published an article in Psychological Science that was called this: Children of the Affluent: Challenges to Well-Being. And their research repeatedly found that adolescents from affluent families often showed unexpectedly high rates of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, perfectionism, and emotional distress, compared with national averages. And in the article, the doctors state this: they say complete financial security, excessive freedom to learn and explore, and the provision of a very wide range of interesting opportunities for entertainment, recreation, and education often lead to apathy, laziness, inability to commit to goals, entitlement, indecisiveness, moodiness, inability without provocation, low self-confidence and insecurity.

Now, looking at an article like that, I don't want us to think, okay, then the logical conclusion is I will live in the luxury of what I have and give my children rags. I don't think that's what this encouragement in the article is about. Rather, I think the answer is, if children receive blessing without ever being called into sacrificial service for something, then they start to see the blessing as the substance itself rather than the Lord. And it becomes corrosive to their growth and well-being as a human being.

And I think this is exactly why Jesus says to us in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. How interesting, isn't it? Those that feel weak — and look, this kind of statement can happen for people that have a lot of stuff in life or a lot of nothing in life. Jesus says, those that are blessed are not those that have or have not. Blessed are the poor in spirit because it's that soul that begins to look beyond themselves or the things of this world. It's that soul that recognizes where true blessing really comes from. It's of the Lord. It's those that stop believing, well, if I just get this one more thing. If I just owned this, if I could just force this person in my relationship to do this thing, then I'll be happy. If I could just get the next new iPhone, then I'll be happy. The new car, I need it, then I'll be happy. But to start to perpetuate that kind of life is what Deuteronomy eight was teaching us as rot to the soul. It's not bad to have things, but it is terrible to define your worth in those things, because you've been defined by something far greater. And it's not until you're connected to the one that you discover what true blessing is all about.

I am a blessed man with or without the things of this world, because I have what ultimately matters in him. Which is really where true contentment is discovered. Blessing is not about the things that we have, but what we get in the Lord himself. It's experienced in him, the true blesser. And then it's demonstrated through this supernatural outflow.

And so let's do this. I know I've given this long introduction. So with the rest of the time that we have, here's what we want to talk about together. What does the fruit of real blessing look like in my life? Because I can use that vernacular even as a Christian and be fooled in what I think it means. I can say I am blessed, but is there an evidence in my life that truly demonstrates that I understand this at the depth of my being? That I am a blessed individual. I am a blessed man. I am a blessed woman. What does that look like? And that's what we're going to talk about. Just four aspects quickly through just six verses here. What does this look like in my life? If I truly believe that I am blessed, what is the evidence of that?

Let me give you number one in your notes — the first fruit that you find is the fruit of worship. And your blank is that word worship. You see, as this psalm starts to unfold in verse two and three, the psalmist talks about this idea of worship. And let me just say, when you read about worship throughout the Old and New Testament, there are different words for worship in the Bible. There's a word for reverence — we'll look at that at the end in verse seven, again it's the word for fear, this reverence towards God. So that's an idea of worship. There's one of giving to God as an offering. That's an idea of worship. There's one of serving, using your talents to honor the Lord in the way that you serve. There's one in the New Testament — one of my favorites is in John chapter four, when Jesus is dialoging with the woman at the well, and when he tells us that the time is coming when we must worship in spirit and truth. The idea of worship that Jesus uses there is a word for to kiss towards. It's a word for intimacy. What Jesus is telling the woman at the well is God is inviting you into an intimate relationship with him, regardless of where you've been, and he's helping her recognize the importance of the moment to connect to him in that way.

And so when we see the blessing of God in our life, it invites us into this place of worship. And in this psalm, in verse two and three, it talks about the idea of praising God, which is another type of worship. It says that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among the nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. So there becomes this stirring of our soul when we realize what we have in the Lord, that we're blessed to even be able to have a relationship with him, and it compels our heart to this place of worship. And the evidence of that should be made known, right? We should be able to look back in our life and say, I've got this longing to know this God who has blessed me so much that I just want to connect to him. And so we see that by opening up his word to know him more deeply. We see that by lifting up our voices to sing to him in praise, the welling up within us, the desire to just lift our voices because of who he is. We see this in the way that we share it with other people. We even see it in our participation on Sunday morning by showing up on time. I don't say that to guilt anybody — I get it when you got kids, it's not always easy to get through the doors. But look, worship is not something we just do. It's who we are. And because it's who we are as God's people, when we think about gathering as his people together, we should long to see the community encouraged. And so that means I might show up on time or even early, just because I might get the opportunity to hear what's going on in somebody's life and encourage them as God's people. Collectively, every aspect of my being becomes this. When I understand what it means to truly be blessed, I am a worshiper.

Not only do I worship, but at the same time, number two, a second fruit in our life is one of mission. Mission is not just something we do as a program as God's people, though we support missions. And if you're part of Alpine Bible Church, we make it a goal every year to see 10% of our budget go to mission around the world, whether it's here local or international. We just want to be a part of God's grander story throughout the world. And that's what you see in verse two, that your way may be known through all the nations.

Even for us as a church, we look to tribal places to be involved in mission. We do that here locally in Utah, supporting churches throughout our state. We took our youth on a trip to Mexico. We went recently on a trip to — I'll say Asia, this one's recorded, I can't be specific. We even go to Africa, right? We support missions around the world. We get regularly contacted by one of our missionaries who is a catalyst between us and some missionaries in some of the most persecuted places in the world. And he is more than weekly now sending us updates of missionaries that we are a part of supporting that are regularly getting beaten and persecuted. One of those groups has grown so large that they needed a piece of land in order to build a church building on. And so just a few weeks ago, we sent money to one of those groups in order to purchase land so they could build their church building.

But the idea of what God's people are about when we understand the blessing of the Lord is we realize this is not intended to just stay with us, that the richness of who God is should be made known in our lives. And I'm not doing it because I feel guilty. Like, well, someone told me I should live on mission, someone told me I should say these things, but rather when I see the depth of God's love towards me and I realize that God's love is this way for others, this isn't something I just want to hold back. And if I really love the Lord, I'm going to share what I love with people. And so if you're around me very long, you hear me talk about things that I care about, and the Lord is a part of that, right? If I really love the Lord, I'm going to live on mission naturally. I'll just share what I love, and what I love above all is the Lord. And so I want people to know that.

And so the fruit of our life — if I want to know, do I understand when I say I am blessed what this really means? — it's connection to God above all else. The response of my life is worship. The response of my life is mission.

And then number three in your notes is this: the fruit of it is also security. You'll hear through this psalm — I read one of these verses to you — but you'll see this again in verse six and seven, he talks about the idea of peace. But one of the reasons we can have peace is because of what it says in verse four and five. When I understand blessing, I walk secure. And the reason I walk secure is, yes, you can take things of this world away from me, but what really makes who I am as a person can never be taken away from me, because what I have in Jesus endures forever.

And we see that displayed in the way God's hand is described to us here in verse four and five. It says, let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. This idea of Selah — you'll see this in the Psalms. Most people, truth be told, we don't fully understand what Selah means, but most people think that it's a pause in the sense that a lot of these songs are sung as songs. And so the children of Israel, when they would sing verse four, they would pause in that moment to reflect on what this verse really means, that he will judge the peoples, he's going to judge over the nations.

And this is critical for all of us to consider, especially in our Western mentality, because it's interesting when you look at people groups around the world, we have this tendency to gravitate towards theological ideas of God and then kind of divorce ourselves from other parts. And I think it's critical for all of us to know that God is all of his attributes all of the time, right? Sometimes there's a people group that really loves the love of God. And then if you go to other parts of the world, you'll find there are people groups that really like the justice of God, the judgment of God. Here in our Western world, we really like the love of God to the point where we'll say things like, I like loving God, I don't like judgment God. Loving God's New Testament God, judging God's Old Testament God. So I like to read the New Testament, I pretend like the Old Testament God doesn't exist. Of which I would just encourage you, you should probably read the whole Bible, because if you get to Revelation, you discover there's a pretty judgy, wrathful God in Revelation. And that's all of the Bible. That's all of God in his nature.

But we like to think of it like this: I like loving God because he's more like Grandpa God sitting in his rocking chair on the front porch, and he kind of pats your head and says, good job, right? I like loving God. But can I tell you, you can't really have loving God without a just God? Both of those attributes become critical. For his justice to be executed properly, he needs to be a loving God. And for you to really experience the full extent of his love, he needs to be able to pour out justice. You need both of those things.

And in fact, there are brothers and sisters in Christ around the world that — if I could tell you this morning one truth they want to cling to — it is a God who is just. Even this past week I was talking to one of the missionaries that we help in Africa, and they had mentioned they have a school and they had sent the kids away for holiday. And this school serves kids elementary to middle school age. And this missionary was lamenting when the kids returned back from their break because they said three of their students returned back pregnant. Middle school age. Happened because they were taken advantage of. And they're in an environment in life where we take for granted that if something happens in an emergency in our society, all you have to do is pick up a phone, dial a three-digit number, and within five minutes you're going to have everybody there. In fact, too many people there sometimes.

There are places in the world where if an injustice happens to you, there is no one to call. And if you have the opportunity to call someone, if you're in a position in life where you just don't have a lot of things, you can't really get the police officers there, even though your country might have police officers, because you're expected to pay for everything. And so there's no one coming to your aid. And so the one truth that you cling to above all others is the idea of a just God. And it's the justice of God that invites you into the love of this God who cares about you. And when you see God in this way, you find yourself secure.

Now, I want you to know that when it comes to God's justice, it doesn't mean for us as God's people, if something bad has happened to us, that you can't call the law. We have laws for a reason. You should use those things. But what it does mean is that you don't have to carry the burden of vengeance. That's why Romans chapter 12, the second half of Romans, reminds you: vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Because if you walk in life trying to carry your own vengeance, you find that it does more destruction to your soul than anything beneficial it's going to produce. It's important for us to remember that God is a great God and he will reconcile all things in him. He will bring retributive justice and restorative justice. He will restore what's broken and he'll bring his wrath on those that broke it. Both of those things are important to understand in light of God's justice. He sees what you're going through and what he's going to do is far greater than anything you're ever going to do in your own strength anyway. So don't carry the vengeance. Rather rest in his presence. Secure, because you're blessed. God loves you. He sees everything that you're going through. His face shines upon you. He walks with you. The security of God is critical for us to understand. It is the fruit of what blessing is about. When I make that statement, it's saying I understand what it means to be a follower of God in this way.

Fourth is this: reverence. The fruit of reverence. Verse six and seven: the earth has yielded its increase. God, our God shall bless us. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him. Notice he's not saying, I hope God does this, but he's saying God will do this. This is who God is. He is a God that blesses. So because of that, revere him. It's this invitation of surrendering your life to him, to understanding the greatness of who he is. And when you recognize God as the God who blesses, the fruit of our life is one of reverence towards him. What greater place could you turn than what endures forever, which is to know him all of your days.

And when you think about the idea of blessing in our life, and if we feel like we're struggling and we just want the reminder of how do I know that God will be this way towards me — for us as believers, the answer is always the cross. The cross is the evidence of his gracious hand in your life. It's what Jesus did for you that you might know him. It's where his face shines upon you, where you discover forgiveness and walk in a beautiful relationship with the Lord because you have been freed by the cross. As Jesus has paid your price, the price of your sin, that you might know him. This is the reason why we're able to surrender, why we're called to surrender. This is the reason why we can feel secure. We see the wrath of God poured out on Christ at the cross. This is the reason we worship as God's people. This is the reason we live on mission. This is where we find the fruit of our lives made known in the richness of who he is.

When I think about the beauty of blessing, there's a quote that I probably hold dear more than any other in all of Christian history. There's a specific missionary in the 1700s named David Brainerd, who died from tuberculosis at 27. He was a missionary to the Native Americans, and his life was so given over to the Lord that it inspired people like Jonathan Edwards during his day. David Brainerd lived — or people like William Carey, or even the missionaries like Nate Saint who died serving in South America. But David Brainerd said this with his life. He said, Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am.

That kind of statement is the kind of statement that you make when you understand Matthew 5:3 — blessed are the poor in spirit. David Brainerd knew that in and of himself he was not an impressive individual, but with the blessing of God in his life, he would see the Lord do incredible things if he would but surrender. And so he gives this prayer in his own life: Lord, let me make a difference in this way that's disproportionate to who I am, because he understood the richness of what it means to know the Lord and be surrendered to him fully.