You may have heard the story of North Carolina Pastor Jack Hinton, while on a short-term missions trip in 1996, was leading worship at a leper colony on the island of Tobago. A woman who had been facing away from the pulpit finally turned around to request a song. “She had the most hideous face I had ever seen,” Hinton said. “The woman's nose and ears were entirely gone. But she lifted a fingerless hand in the air and asked, 'Can we sing Count Your Many Blessings?' Overcome with emotion, Pastor Hinton left the service. He was followed out by a team member who said, “I guess you'll never be able to sing that song again.” “Oh yes I will,” Pastor Hinton replied, “but I'll never again sing it the same way.” Indeed!This morning we join together both to count and beg for blessing. But we don’t do so in the same old way. Today isn’t about Pollyanna pronouncements that ignore the leprosies of our lives. Today isn’t about singing familiar songs in familiar ways. Today isn’t about blessings as mostly meaningless phrases we shout out to our friends after a sneeze. This day is more than that. On this very special, very different Elim Sunday, we gather to bless and to be blessed.
But what is blessing? What are we really asking God to do here today?
The Bible has much to say about blessing. As a matter of fact, blessing is quite lavishly and wonderfully smeared all over the book. The idea appears hundreds of times, in many different forms. And if we study these appearances, there are common themes that emerge.
Blessing As Fruitfulness
We learn that blessing is about fruitfulness. When Almighty God created life in the first chapter of Genesis, he stepped back from his creation and blessed it. God blessed it and said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Blessing is a very materialistic thing – both now and for all eternity. This theme continues throughout the Bible. And so when we bless each other here today, we are asking God for material fruitfulness and meaningful prosperity both in this life and the next.
Blessing As Holiness
But blessing is also about holiness. In Genesis 2, after six days of creation, the Bible says God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy. And so in a strange and mysterious way, blessing is about setting something aside and declaring it special. We’re doing that as we pray God’s blessing over each other. LORD, we recognize this person as holy and unique!
Blessing As Praise
One of the most neglected aspects of biblical blessing is praise. We must not fail to notice the number of times the Bible calls us to bless God himself. The book of Psalms is filled with encouragement to bless God – to fully recognize the innate praiseworthiness of God. And we’re doing the very same thing as we pray God’s blessing on others. We are fully recognizing and praising their innate value to us and to God himself. Blessing is about praising people.
Blessing As Favor
A fourth biblical aspect of blessing we must include in our thinking is favor. When Jacob and Esau were struggling to obtain their father’s blessing, they were seeking their dear father’s favor on their lives. In the Bible, blessing was all about favor of some sort. In many ways, it still is. When we gather around each other and pray for God’s blessing, we are begging for our Father’s favor on a person. Recognizing the full sovereignty of God, we are asking for what we know only He can give to the people we love. Blessing is about begging the favor of God.
Blessing As Happiness
And yet when Jesus came on the scene with his Beatitude teaching at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, he made one thing abundantly clear. Blessing is absolutely about all these other things, but at its deepest core, blessing is about happiness. Happiness is the very pure essence of God’s blessing. The very words the Bible uses for blessing are quite often best translated as “happiness.” When we pray God’s blessing on those we love, we are longing for true happiness in their lives. Not some superficial happiness depending on superficial things; but a deeply transcendent happiness able to endure all things. Blessing is about happiness.
Blessing As Realignment
And yet in the very same breath, we need to listen closely to what Jesus was actually proclaiming in those pretty Beatitudes. Those happy blessings offered us were dependent on a healthy, holy realignment in our thinking. It is important for each of us to remember that God’s best blessings are always contingent on our valuing them. If I’m not hungry and thirsty for righteousness, I will not be happy and blessed when I find it. I will only find and fully enjoy my happy Beatitude blessings when I am willing to properly align myself with Kingdom values of Jesus. And so when we pray God’s happy blessings on your life today, we are also praying you will more deeply understand how to receive those blessings. We are praying Almighty God will properly realign your values with his own so you will value the happiness he constantly offers.
This morning, as we place a prayer shawl around your shoulders and pray for God’s blessing on you, we are praying all these things. We are praying God’s very best for you and that you would have the supernatural ability to recognize what God’s very best for you truly is.
We believe you matter. We really do! We believe God wants your life to be fruitful, fully set apart as holy, praiseworthy and favored. We believe God wants you to be really and truly happy and to fully and firmly understand where all true happiness is found.
So please come forward and let us bless you today! Let us count Almighty God’s very best blessings on you!
Amen.
