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[0:00] Psalm 67. Psalm 67 and verse 1. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us,! That your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

[0:19] May the peoples praise you, O God. May all the peoples praise you. May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth.

[0:35] May the peoples praise you, O God. May all the peoples praise you. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us.

[0:46] God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him. Blessings. We've all been swimming in them, haven't we?

[0:58] Where do all of God's blessings to you come from? Our hymns echo the unanimous idea of Scripture when we sing, Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

[1:17] Or when we sing, Come thou fount of every blessing. Well, Psalm 67 teaches us how to pray for God's blessing.

[1:31] It's as if God is saying to us, You want my blessing? Here's how to pray for it. Psalm 67. And so this psalm will take us right into the prayer meeting of the people of God, and we get to hear them pray.

[1:48] And these things were written to teach us. So I've got five points this morning. First of all, the great petition.

[1:59] Now, these are not fickle children who don't know what they want. Have you seen children like that? They're really not sure what they want. These children of God know exactly what they want.

[2:12] They want God's blessing. And so they ask for it. Notice the petition in verse 1. May God be gracious to us and bless us.

[2:23] That's the great petition. May he bless us. That word bless is mentioned twice more at the end of the psalm. It's the great petition and theme of the psalm.

[2:35] And it's also the desire that is stamped upon all the children of God. They want and they seek blessing from God.

[2:47] Their God. Even as our father Jacob prayed, I will not let you go until you bless me. There's something of his spirit planted in all the Israel of God that seeks blessing from the Lord.

[3:03] Notice God bless us. The us is God's people. Here it's the old covenant people of God. The Jews, that one nation out of all the nations of the earth that God had chosen to be his own and entered into covenant with and said, I will be your God and you will be my people.

[3:23] And to that people he gave promises, he made covenants, he gave his word, and from them he promised to bring forth the Savior, our Messiah Christ.

[3:34] So we have God's people asking their own God to bless them. They acknowledge him as the fountain of all goodness and blessing in their lives and they want what he has to give.

[3:51] Now this word bless then refers to doing us good. Do us good, they're asking.

[4:02] Enrich us with your good gifts. Gifts both spiritual and temporal. Gifts both for our bodies and for our souls. And so we seek all blessing from the Lord.

[4:16] That's where the psalm begins and that's the heartbeat of this prayer. It's the petition for God's blessing. The second point is the nature of the blessing sought.

[4:30] The nature of the blessing. Here we have in verse one, May God be gracious to us and bless us. Here's the humble recognition that if ever God does bless us, it will be his grace.

[4:47] It will be him being gracious to us that all these blessings that we seek come to us totally undeserved, freely given in spite of our deserving the opposite.

[4:58] And may we never forget this, even when we're asking for the blessing. That by sin we have forfeited all claim on God's blessing and have rather drawn down upon our heads his curse.

[5:14] The covenant of works under which we are all born is clear. Blessing is for the obedient. Curses are for the disobedient.

[5:24] Galatians 3.10 says that covenant breakers like us deserve God's curses, not his blessing. All who rely on observing the law are under a curse.

[5:38] For it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. Enough to do it all, but to continue to do it all.

[5:52] And if you haven't, and if I haven't, then we're cursed by this holy God. We owe him continual, unbroken obedience to all his laws.

[6:06] So in prayer, we come renouncing any deservingness of our own for the blessings that we seek. We come not rehearsing our merits, but begging his grace.

[6:19] May God be gracious to us and bless us. And brothers and sisters, Galatians 3 goes on to tell us how it is that God can bless us instead of curse us.

[6:33] For it says in verse 13 and 14, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

[6:44] As it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. He redeemed us from the curse in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through faith, may come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

[7:09] He was cursed that we might be blessed. Jesus took the curses we deserve for breaking the law and he purchased the blessings for us that only he deserved.

[7:26] So why should I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer, but this I know with all my heart. His wounds have paid my ransom and they've paid for every other blessing that I have from his hand.

[7:40] And I need to remember that even as I am seeking blessing, I'm seeking it in the way of grace. You see, it changes forever how we ask God to bless us. We give up all hope of blessing due to our performances.

[7:53] Well, I had a good week this week, so Lord, come and bless me. No, we have to give that all up completely. We hang all our hope of blessing on the grace of God in Jesus Christ, what he has done for us cursed, deserving sinners who come unto God through him.

[8:14] And by the way, that's why we pray in Jesus' name, isn't it? He alone has merited the blessings that we seek. And so we ask, we say, God, do all of this, not because we are righteous, but do it for the sake of your Son.

[8:29] He is our righteousness. Bless us for Jesus' sake. Answer us because of your Son, Jesus our Savior. So we're glad to confess that every blessing taken away from the throne of grace is what?

[8:45] It's grace. What do you get from thrones of grace? You get grace. And so every blessing that we take away from this throne is grace. Graciously won for us by the Lord Jesus taking our curse and dying under that curse for our sins.

[9:02] That means that all God's blessings come to us dripped in blood, dipped in blood, the blood of Jesus, stamped grace to you in Jesus Christ.

[9:17] What a gracious God we have to give out his blessings, not on the basis of our merit, but on the basis of his grace. And such a God meets our need because we're sinners.

[9:29] So let us ever seek his blessing in the way of grace and not of merit. May God be gracious to us and bless us, is our prayer.

[9:41] So we've seen the great petition, bless us. We've seen the nature of the blessing, grace. Now we come to the pinnacle of blessing, the very high point of this blessedness that we seek.

[9:58] May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us. This speaks of a warm, close relationship with God himself that is the highest, the pinnacle of all his blessings.

[10:15] Intimacy with the giver in which we count him the greatest gift, the greatest blessing, to know him and to know his love and his favor shining upon us.

[10:28] From the best bliss this earth imparts, we turn unfilled to thee again. You are the greatest blessing, knowing you and the shining of your face upon us.

[10:40] Some time ago, we looked at Genesis, or Exodus 33, when Moses and the Israelites are told by God, after they had made the golden calf and God comes and chastens them for their sin, God says, okay, you can go on up now to the promised land, but I won't be going with you.

[10:59] You remember that? And Moses says, well, if you're not going up with us, we don't want to go. Don't send us up. All the blessings of a land flowing with milk and honey are nothing if you don't go with us.

[11:16] If we don't have you and the light of your face shining upon us, that's it. That's what we see here in Psalm 67, 1.

[11:28] We want you, O Lord. And so we pray for this assurance of God's pleasure upon us and his favor shining from his face.

[11:41] God, may you shine your face upon us. Now, a person's face often reveals their heart. Children, you know all about that, don't you?

[11:52] Maybe you were acting up in church, maybe misbehaving a bit, and yet you were sitting too far away from Dad to pinch the backside of your arm. He couldn't reach you from where you were sitting.

[12:04] And he couldn't talk to you or he'd disrupt everybody around you. So what does he do? He just looks at you. But oh, how he looks at you.

[12:15] It's a look that carries the whole speech with him. It reveals his heart. Maybe it's the furrowed brow.

[12:27] It's the clenched teeth, the red face, the beady eyes, whatever it is. But you get the message just by reading his face.

[12:37] Well, I trust you've also had other faces from your father when there hasn't been the frown and the furrowed brow, but his whole face is just lit up, twinkling in his eyes and smiling.

[12:56] And you sense at once, without a word, his favor, his love, his pleasure in you. This is the pinnacle of blessing for the children of God to look up and to sense that favor, that there's nothing between my soul and the Savior so that his blessed face may be seen.

[13:28] Nothing preventing the least of his favor. Keep the way clear. Let nothing between. No cherished sin, no unconfessed sin that I'm holding on to.

[13:40] Oh, that comes and clouds the face and the smile of God so that we do not enjoy. We want nothing between that we might enjoy the sweet warmth of his face shining upon us.

[13:55] That's the coveted blessing above all other blessings that gives such gladness and joy as this psalm will speak of and without which all the blessings even together are hollow and empty.

[14:11] May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us. Some of you may already recognize these words.

[14:25] You've heard them somewhere before. Well, they're part of the Aaronic blessing back in Numbers chapter 6 where God instructed his priests. This is how you're to bless the Israelites, his people.

[14:36] Say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. There we have all three of these words, don't we?

[14:48] In other words, these petitions in Psalm 67 are not groundless wishes of the people asking for something. rather they arise from the very heart of God to bless his people, from God's own promise to place his blessing upon them in these ways.

[15:11] And so they're laying hold of God's own promise to bless his people and when God's own word is the foundation of your petition, you are on praying ground as they used to say.

[15:24] As our Lord says, if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be given you. You're asking that which is in accordance with my will.

[15:36] So that's what they're asking. Blessing, the nature of which is grace and the pinnacle of which is the smiling face of God's warm pleasure shining upon them.

[15:50] Fourthly, the aim of blessing. When you think of aim, think of a gun and think of a target. What's the thing that's being aimed at in this prayer for blessing?

[16:02] It addresses the question, why do you want God's blessing? You go to your dad and you ask him for $10,000.

[16:15] He'll probably want to know what you want it for. And that's what's being dealt with here. When we ask God to bless us, he's saying, what do you want my blessings for?

[16:29] Why? Why do you want me to bless you? And that brings us to the very heart of the psalm. The main point that receives most of the words in this chapter.

[16:41] It's God's way of saying, don't miss this in all you're asking. This is important to me. Why you're asking? So verse says, verse 2 follows up, God, we want you to bless us that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

[17:01] That's why we want you to bless us. Now there's a two-fold aim running side by side throughout this statement and the rest of the psalm. There's a Godward aim.

[17:12] God, we want you to bless us because of reasons Godward, and there's a manward aim. We want you to bless us because of something that will happen toward men. So we want God's blessing so that men may be blessed and that God may be praised.

[17:30] And these two are not unrelated, are they? For God is praised when men are blessed with salvation blessings, aren't they? Isn't he? And that's what this psalm is crying for.

[17:41] Bless us that men might be blessed, savingly blessed, and you might be praised. Consider the manward aim of blessing here.

[17:53] Notice it again in verse two. God bless us that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

[18:07] See the aim? We want you to bless us, Lord, not that we might just sit back and selfishly enjoy our blessings, but so that the whole earth might share in them.

[18:18] Indeed, all nations might benefit from blessing us. So, brothers and sisters, why do you know about God and his works and his ways? You know, not everybody knows about God and his works and his ways.

[18:32] Why do you know? And why do you want to know him and his ways better? Why do you come hungering and thirsting to know him better? Why is that your prayer? God, I want to know you better today.

[18:46] So that his ways may be known all over the earth and that the knowledge of the Lord's glory might cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. So why have you been blessed to know God and his salvation?

[19:01] Not just to sit and count your blessings. Yes, that, but not just that, but that his salvation might be known among all the nations. You have been blessed to know God in order to make him known and so to know his salvation that others might know it through you.

[19:21] You see the manward aim of why we want God to bless us? Because we want others to be blessed. God blesses us in order that we might then be a blessing to others.

[19:33] We see this aim at the very beginning when God chose Abraham and his descendants to be his people, to enter into this covenant arrangement with them. Remember he said to Abraham in Genesis 12, 2 and 3, I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you and you will be a blessing and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

[19:59] You see the principle? I will bless you and you will be a blessing and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.

[20:11] Blessed to be a blessing. Now God did not reveal himself in his salvation to Israel just for them to keep it to themselves. He rather blessed them that they might bear the light of the gospel to the nations and might thereby bless the nations with the message of salvation and sadly Israel in large part failed in that mission to bless the nations but in Jesus Christ, the greater son of Abraham, salvation blessings are flowing to all the nations that a worldwide people might be saved and experience the blessing of salvation.

[20:52] Now that's the greatest need of the whole earth. It's the greatest need of every nation and of every individual in those nations is to know the Lord's salvation. And this was our greatest need wasn't it?

[21:08] And in blessing us God intends for us to be a blessing to others. Are you blessing others with the knowledge of God's ways and salvation? Is that why you pray God bless me help me to know you better and your salvation better?

[21:26] Notice again the manward name as it goes on in verse 3. May the peoples praise you, O God. May all the peoples praise you. We want to be blessed so that as a result all the peoples will be praising you for your great salvation.

[21:44] Child of God, isn't it a wonderful thing to be forgiven of all your sin? knowing God is for you, that he's with you, he's in you.

[21:57] We want others to know such blessing. Indeed, we want all the peoples to know such blessing. And if you'll compare and look at verse 3 and then look at verse 5, what do you find?

[22:10] You find they're the exact same words, aren't they? Verse 5 is a repetition of verse 3. May the peoples praise you, O God. May all the peoples praise you. Parents, is it not true that a child asks more than once when they really want something?

[22:28] They may ask more than twice even. And this is a key into the heart of the people of God. They really want this. Not just once, but again, just with a little verse in between.

[22:40] They're right back at it. God, we want you to bless us that all the peoples of the earth might praise you. They so enjoy God's blessing that they want it to flow completely around the world.

[22:59] And if Israel of old rejoiced in the thought of our inclusion, which is what is in view here, the Gentiles' inclusion, the nations being included in the saving purposes of God, how much more should we rejoice in this reality?

[23:13] We're talking about our salvation here. We're one of those nations that was shut out. And the old covenant people are praying, God, may this great salvation come to all peoples that they might praise you for their salvation in Jesus Christ.

[23:31] that brings us to the Godward aim of why we want to be blessed, not only so that all nations might praise you, but God bless us so that all the peoples may praise you.

[23:45] The same words, but look at it from the Godward perspective. You deserve to be praised by more than one nation, the nation of Israel. That's too small a thing for you.

[23:57] No, you are worthy of having the praise of all the peoples. So make your blessings to us to work toward all the different peoples of the earth, praising you, honoring you, rejoicing in you, fearing and worshiping you.

[24:15] God bless us in such a way that it might result in worldwide glory and praise given to you. Verse 4 carries further the aim of our blessing that as a result of blessing us, may the nations be glad and sing for joy for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth.

[24:33] We do want God's blessing to lead to his praise, not just from one nation, but from a universal choir of glad worshipers, nations made glad.

[24:46] Notice, gladness and joy is the result of living under the just rule of our king. We heard in the worship time time and song, didn't we, about the justice of God.

[25:02] And that's put forth as one of the reasons the nations should be glad when they come into the kingdom of God and they live under this just rule, this king who rules justly over all the peoples and all the nations of the earth.

[25:17] What could you want in a king that is not found in Jesus Christ? what a just king he is when there's so little justice in the governments of the world.

[25:29] Here's a just king and having him as your king makes you glad and actually makes you sing for joy. Where's the nation today that's singing for joy because of their leaders?

[25:43] You'll look in vain to find them. Maybe they're being paid to sing, maybe they're being forced to sing, but who's singing just out of the joy of their heart? The people of Zion are.

[25:54] They're being joyful in their king. Oh Lord, make all the people, all the nations glad and sing for joy.

[26:06] Bless us to that end that they might be made glad as you have made us glad. So that's the aim of the blessing. Man blessed with salvation worldwide and God praised worldwide because of it.

[26:25] We come lastly, number five, to the aim of the blessing realized. This aim realized, verses six and seven, then the land will yield its harvest and God, our God, will bless us.

[26:39] God will bless us and all the ends of the earth will fear him. Don't fear the word fear. Notice, there is no conflict at all between people fearing God and being glad in God and singing for joy in God and praising God.

[27:00] All are appropriate responses to all that God is. God will bless us and all the ends of the earth will fear him.

[27:10] Well, now we're not there yet. We don't see all the ends of the earth worshiping him in fear. So, this points forward to the day when the aim of God's blessing us will be fully realized, when the arrow of blessing will hit its final mark and then it will be that the whole earth will be worshiping him in reverent joy.

[27:33] So, there's a gathering of Jews in the Old Testament and they're singing Psalm 67. And what starts with a prayer for God to bless them, the one nation of God's people, ends with all the ends of the earth fearing him.

[27:51] You see the expansive nature of this song, the expansive nature of God's plan of salvation, beginning small, Abraham, his seed, and blessing all the nations.

[28:06] The happy result of God blessing us. a whole world yielding up the harvest of reverent praise and joyful worship to God.

[28:18] This is all the nations at last being blessed by the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ, and sharing in the blessings because he took the curses that we might have them freely.

[28:31] Now, that's where we're headed. God will bless us. It's certain. And that blessing us will affect the whole earth. And that's what we plead for in this prayer.

[28:44] Two applications and we're done. The first is just recognizing that this is a searching psalm, isn't it? A searching psalm. It searches us. The key lesson is plain.

[28:54] God blesses us in order that we might be a blessing to others. He never means for his blessings to terminate with you, dear child of God. No, you're to pass them on.

[29:06] Spurgeon says, rain falling on the mountain tops is meant to flow on down into the valleys. The blessing is not to terminate up there just on the ground on the mountain top, but is to flow on with refreshment to other places.

[29:22] And even so, it is by blessing the church that God means to bless the world. It is by blessing Abraham that he blesses all nations of the world.

[29:34] So which are you? A grave or a channel of his blessings? A grave or a channel?

[29:45] When God blesses you, is that the end of it? You just enjoy the blessing and full stop, end of blessing, that's a grave of God's blessing.

[29:57] A grave. Or, when God blesses you, does that blessing in some way flow out to others around you?

[30:08] That's a channel of God's blessing. Yes, you enjoy it. It's been given for you to richly enjoy what he's given you, but not to end there as a grave, but to be a channel of his blessing to others.

[30:22] Thou hast saved and cleansed and filled me, that I might thy channel be, channels only, blessed master. I wonder if you thought of all your blessings, just from this principle, blessed to be a blessing.

[30:38] What do you have that has not been received as a blessing from God? And if you have received it, how has that blessed others? Think with me just briefly, a few areas of your life, spiritual gifts.

[30:52] If you're in Christ, God has blessed you with a measure of his grace, a spiritual gift, ability, a talent, with which he means not only to bless you, but he means to edify others and to bless others through you, through that blessing.

[31:09] And so as you prepare your Sunday school lesson, you are praying, God, open my eyes that I might see the wonderful things in your word. Bless my sight, bless my heart, bless this time of study so that others who sit under my ministry might be blessed.

[31:27] blessed. Or as you go down to the nursery to serve out your hour there, God bless me today in this labor of working in the nursery, that that blessing might also flow to other mothers who can sit and undistractedly enter into the worship and the nurturing from your word.

[31:51] Bless me, but don't let it end with me. let my spiritual gifts and ministries bless others. God's blessed you with time on your hands, perhaps.

[32:03] Not all of you. I mean, some of you, you don't have time enough, but others have been blessed with time in a way that is peculiar to their situation and state in life.

[32:15] I heard it last night of a dear sister down in the Warsaw church, and she's a living dorkus, and she's going about doing good, and she's got time.

[32:26] She's an older lady, and she's serving the younger ladies, and the pastors are hearing, the pastor's hearing, oh, she's been to my house, she's done this, and he's seeing there's a trail of good works left behind.

[32:40] She's got time, and she's asking God in giving me time and blessing me with it. Let it be blessed to others. Or when God gives you time, are you the grave?

[32:51] And it's all spent on yourself. Or do you say, no, Lord, it's not going to be that way. There's somebody that I can invest time in, and serve, and call upon, and visit.

[33:06] That's the principle, blessed to bless others. Maybe it's influence, position, health, strength, your house, your cars, your possessions. Is anybody else being blessed with what you have?

[33:18] Maybe it's your money. You head out the door in the morning, off to work I go, with the prayer, God, bless me today, give me success in my work.

[33:31] And God wants to know why. Why? Why do you want me to bless the work of your hands? Is it just that you can spend what you get on your own pleasures?

[33:42] That's what James says. You ask what you don't receive. Why? Because you ask with wrong motives. that you may spend what you get on yourself, you see, your pleasures. Why is important to God in this matter of why you want his blessing?

[33:59] When you get that raise at work, when you get that tax return in the mail, when you get that windfall of blessing that falls in your lap, wasn't expecting that. There it is. What do you think of?

[34:11] All the things you can do with that money? Does it end there? a grave, a grave of blessing. Or, Lord, who else is there that's in need?

[34:26] That I can be just the channel of your kindness, your goodness, your blessing to them. You see, that's the principle. But let's not miss the predominant meaning of this psalm.

[34:40] I'm going to ask you what you're doing with the blessing of the gospel itself. The knowledge of God and his salvation. There is no blessing like that, is there? God has blessed you to know Christ.

[34:53] Are you blessing others with that knowledge? Someone has said, if you know enough to be saved, you know enough to bless others in telling them how to be saved. We have heard the joyful sound, Jesus saves, Jesus saves.

[35:07] Spread the tidings all around that Jesus saves. Jesus saves. Bless me, Lord, with boldness that your salvation may be known by others.

[35:21] Bless me with wisdom that when I open my mouth, words might be given me so that others might taste and see just how gracious you are. A channel, not a grave, for this rich blessing of the gospel out of the highways, out in the highways and byways of life.

[35:38] Many are weary and sad, carry the sunshine where darkness is rife, making the sorrowing glad. Tell the sweet story of Christ and his love.

[35:49] Tell of his power to forgive. Yes, make me a blessing, Lord, to someone today. Bless me that the world might be blessed through me.

[36:02] blessing. Well, if you're staying close to the Lord Jesus, you'll be learning that from him because he says it's more blessed to give than to receive.

[36:13] And if you have received, then go and bless others also. It's a searching song, and we have a gracious God to bring our sins to and to seek what?

[36:29] grace, the blessing of forgiveness, the blessing of cleansing, the blessing of power to go and do different, to come to this gracious Savior.

[36:41] Secondly, it's not only a searching psalm, it is a missionary psalm, isn't it? The saved people of God here longing to see all the peoples of the earth sharing in their salvation blessings and giving praise to their king.

[36:57] That was the missionary mandate given to Old Testament Israel, as given to their father Abraham. I'll bless you and you will be a blessing all the way on out to the ends of the earth.

[37:09] And you remember that by living under the gracious rule and righteous rule of this king, they were to demonstrate to the nations around just what a great God Jehovah is.

[37:23] And we heard last Sunday how that Israel failed in their assignment. but then there came one, the seed of Abraham and he's called in Revelation 1 verse 5 the faithful witness.

[37:37] Remember we heard it Sunday night? The faithful witness. Because he has faithfully carried out this task of not shutting in the light like Israel did.

[37:48] And by rebelling against God they brought the curses upon themselves rather than holding before the world this blessed and blessing God they defiled his name and they became a mocking a byword and disgraced God.

[38:04] Well Jesus came and in everything he did and said he honored the father. He's the faithful witness revealing the father. So now we we have been blessed because he has been cursed in our place.

[38:19] And having been blessed we now want to see the world blessed and saved and made glad but also want to see God praised by an ever expanding choir that sings for joy because of what he's done.

[38:37] This is why we simply cannot be a grave to his blessings. We want more and more people to enjoy him. We want more and more people to be praising him that God may enjoy the praises of all the nations that he is due.

[38:54] Both are impetuses to our prayer for God to bless us. So next Sunday afternoon your elders will be bringing to you the members of Grace Fellowship Church a rather aggressive proposed increase to our missions budget with two additional missionaries to support.

[39:11] The opportunities to advance the name and praise of Christ in the world are many and I'm asking you to consider if and how we might do more to spread the light and knowledge of Christ and his salvation.

[39:27] Ever praying in the spirit of Psalm 67, God bless us that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

[39:42] Dear unconverted friend, God's people are a blessed people. They have a blessing God, a blessed God.

[39:58] They're blessed to know Christ and his great salvation and right at the top of those blessings right up there is what David says and what Paul repeats in the New Testament.

[40:12] blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered, blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.

[40:23] We're talking about blessings. We're talking about a blessed people. Can you see why we say the people of God are blessed? Blessed to never have our sins counted against us.

[40:40] So there's that Christian and he's now at the day of judgment and he's standing to give an account before God and he's no better than any of you unconverted people.

[40:51] Maybe he was worse in his unconverted days. Maybe he was the thief on the cross who sinned all his life and only in his dying breath was converted. And there he is.

[41:03] He's standing before this holy God and from this throne there's two paths. One to eternal blessing and the other to eternal curses. And not a sin is brought up against him.

[41:18] Is that not blessed? Is that not what it means to be a people blessed by the Lord? Are they not to be envied for being in that position in Christ?

[41:29] Well God has placed many of you in this life among these blessed people. Maybe you're growing up in a family and there's others in that family that know Jesus Christ in this blessing of being forgiven.

[41:42] Maybe you live by them or work alongside of them. Maybe you've heard the gospel through them but God has placed you near them so that what they have been blessed with might come to you.

[41:58] It's no small thing to be blessed to know about the Savior. The only Savior sinners. A lot of people in the world that are born, live, die without ever hearing of Jesus Christ.

[42:11] But not you. No, God has brought you near a blessed people. And there is this kind heart in God that the blessing he has given to your parents and that work associate, that neighbor, that one who has taken an interest in you, that he's bringing that salvation near.

[42:31] Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he's near. Not enough to know about the way of salvation. Do you know the Savior? Have you, I mean, the gospel feast has been spread all around you.

[42:44] Here's all the blessings of never having your sins brought up against you again, of having the warmth of God smiling upon you, knowing there's nothing between him and me.

[42:55] Jesus has taken all the curse for me. But it's one thing to have the blessings spread around you. It's another thing to taste and to see that the Lord is gracious.

[43:05] This song is a gracious invitation to you. Taste and see that the Lord is gracious. Bless people.

[43:23] Do you treasure the blessing of justification, never having your sins brought up against you? Amen? Amen. You might have come guilty and under the burden of sin.

[43:39] You can leave glad singing for joy with the rest of us. My sins are gone, gone forever. Blessed be his name. This psalm is put to music for us in number 385.

[43:55] God, let's pray. Our ever blessing and blessed God, we thank you for all that we have received of your blessings of life and breath and everything else, that we are able to be here together for those spiritual graces that are infinite in Christ Jesus, that we even want to be here this morning and praise your name.

[44:21] We give you thanks for this great Savior and this great salvation. We thank you that you did not keep it to Abraham and to his physical seed, but that you from the beginning intended it to reach to this nation.

[44:34] The gospel has made its way all the way from Palestine to our land and to our hearts with salvation blessing. Now, don't let us be a grave and don't let it end with us, but go on blessing us.

[44:50] Lord, we don't have anything with which to bless others, but what you first must give to us. And so we ask you to bless us, to be gracious to us and bless us and make your face shine on us in such a way that our hearts would be opened up and flowing with living water to others who are thirsty and dying around us, all to the end that the nations might be made glad and that you might be praised.

[45:23]  We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.