Matthew 5:1-37; Deuteronomy 7:12-16

America, Bless God!

Preached at Sycamore RPC

Kokomo, IN

September 30, 2001

Scripture Text

12 “Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers.  13 “He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you.  14 “You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle.  15 “The LORD will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you.  16 “You shall consume all the peoples whom the LORD your God will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that  would be a snare to you.

Could it possibly be that all the signs have it backwards? Perhaps only second to the flags you see flying everywhere are the signs containing the same message that have popped up since the terrible day of September 11 th. It is not surprising that churches have it on their signs, but certainly you have been impressed that schools, businesses, even public buildings have put up on their signs the message “God Bless America.” Now granted, some of these have been a little peculiar in nature.

• One sign has “God Bless America” right underneath an advertisement for the lottery.
• Another one in front of a bar says “God bless and keep America proud” (Proud? Is that what we need to be asking God to do?).
• One sign just cries out “God bless America AGAIN.”

We can appreciate this desire to see the Lord’s blessing on our land. Yet could it be, given the times in which we live, that we have the message on these signs backwards? Might it be the time to instead be saying to our fellow citizens, “ America, bless God!”? (NOTE: Shortly after preaching this message I did see a sign with this message on it. It was in front of a gas station.) For will the true God bless a land that asks Him for it even as they turn from Him and His ways?

Perhaps the idea of “ America blessing God” sounds strange to your ears, for we are used to speaking of God blessing us. What does it mean for us to bless God? How can we bless Him? Consider a few psalms, which are filled with statements that encourage us to give blessing to the Lord.

• In Psalm 103 we sing, “Bless the Lord, my soul my whole heart; ever bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, my soul forget not, all His mercies to proclaim”
• Psalm 16 says, “I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; indeed, my mind instructs me in the night”
• Likewise, Psalm 34, “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth”

Praising and thanking God for what He has granted us is what it means to bless God. Could it be that the signs are showing that we have failed to recognize all the blessings we already have been given? Has not God already blessed us richly, even exceedingly? Why is there this growing sense that perhaps He is taking the blessing away?

Psalm 134 drives right to the heart of what it means to bless God. Let’s read it in its entirety – it is only a few verses.

“Behold, bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord, who serve by night in the house of the Lord! Lift up your hands to the sanctuary and bless the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, He who made heaven and earth.”

This psalm teaches us that to serve God is to bless Him. It reminds us that it is those who serve Him that have the Christ-granted right to ask for His blessings. If we really want His blessings, which is what this passage before us promises, then we need to overcome the miscomprehensions that exist out there and understand how blessings are granted. First we see that…

I. Blessings come not haphazardly, but through obedience.

The pagan religions of the earth see God as a manipulative, someone who will bless us if we’ll just do the right thing. If we build an altar, offer a sacrifice, recite a rosary, kiss a prayer wall, send a “love offering” to a certain ministry, bow in certain direction, or practice any other number of certain superstitions hopefully we will get the blessing of God. You cannot be sure if and when the blessings will come, and if the blessings don’t come, you must not be doing something right. You have to find the right button to push. In view of this, I believe the whole fascination with The Prayer of Jabez phenomenon has more to do with pagan superstition than godliness. With all the faith of buying a lottery ticket, people believe that saying the “right” prayer will enable them to qualify so that they too “CAN BE THE NEXT WINNER OF GOD’S BLESSINGS” (Read that with a TV commercial voice!). The prevailing idea in our culture is that blessings come haphazardly, falling upon the lucky.

But it is not only out there in the culture. Though not as popular (because there just are not enough reformed folk living in this world!), a false view of God’s blessings exists in the reformed community as well. This view has something in common with this haphazard idea. Girded with the teaching of election, some reformed Christians think that because they are chosen this is their “ticket” to receiving the blessings of God. They reason that “God has blessed me by electing me to salvation; so I will be blessed.” Rather than practicing fatalism (“God’s sovereign so it doesn’t matter what I do”), these folks believe in and practice a form of what the French would deem “naiveté,” or what we might call “Christian gullibility.” “God’s elected me so I’m blessed no matter what I do or how I live.” Oh, they rarely express it out loud, but by their lifestyle they show that what they believe is that the blessings will come even if they live a haphazard, inconsistent, Christian life. Let us not be so fooled.

God’s Word clearly teaches that blessings come through obedience, through active faith in the word of God. Read verses 12-13a again. God says we “must listen to His judgments, then keep and do them.” Again this week I remind you that Moses reiterated the covenant of the Ten Commandments with Israel in chapter 5, and now in the following chapters he is exhorting them to remain faithful. He uses many motivations to this end– reminders of God’s faithfulness; warnings of God’s judgments; and now promises of God’s blessings. The message we hear is clear. “People of God, it does matter how you live.” The blessings of God are conditioned upon your faithfulness and obedience.

In miniature form we have a foreshadowing of some instructions that come later in Deuteronomy, a particular act the Israelites were to carry out upon entering the Promised Land. We read in Joshua that they did perform this act. Upon entering in triumph into the land, the Israelites were to go to a particular valley that had a mountain on either side. On the one side stood Mt. Ebal and upon the other Mt. Gerizim. The people were to be divided into two, half the tribes standing on one of these mountains and the other half upon the other one. Those upon Mt. Ebal were to chant out the curses that would come upon them if they failed to keep covenant with God. Those upon Mt. Gerizim were to call out the blessings they would receive in the land. Let me read the first part of that to you:

1 “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God:

3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. 4“Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 5“Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6“Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.” –Deuteronomy 28:1-6

Notice these blessings are conditioned upon “diligent obedience,” “careful observance, “obeying His voice.” Under the covenant of God, we clearly reap what we sow. Blessings come not haphazardly, but to those who live as if they truly desire the blessing of the true God.

Much of the evangelical world, preaching about God’s unconditional love, has fallen under the mistaken notion that God will love us no matter what we do. Though the gospel does teach that He saves many no matter what they have done (Notice the past tense), that same gospel does not teach He loves us so much it does not matter what we now do. That’s the false gospel of lawlessness, and it is detestable to God. Yes, by the wondrous grace of God we have been brought unconditionally into covenant with God. But it is a covenant that’s blessings and joys are conditioned upon our faithfulness; those who fail to keep it, those who live haphazardly, demonstrate they are not worthy of it.

How will the world come to believe in the true covenant gospel we believe in? Certainly we cannot win them with our showiness. Unlike the Gospelfest concert taking place in the nearby park whose sounds you probably hear floating through our windows right now, we will not win the world with our flashiness, our rock-n-roll bands and fancy light show. No, the world will believe in the covenant gospel as they see God’s blessing upon your home and our church. When they have finally come to the point where they realize the lack of blessing in their own lives, may they come and seek the source for the blessing in ours. How important they see God’s hand upon us! So how important it is that you live in such a way that they may see your light, your good works, and know that your Father in heaven has given the blessings to you.

One final note here before we move on. These blessings are not to be so individualized that we see someone as “cursed” who may be having trouble bearing children or struggling at their job. These promises are given to the covenant community, and certainly God is free not to bless everyone the same way. God is mysterious, and as we read in Matthew 5 He can even use pain to bring blessing into the life of a believer. How wondrous is the grace of God in Christ! But hearing that, hear this and examine your life. If you are not experiencing God’s blessing in some area of your life, before you run off into naiveté, examine your life. Are you being obedient to God in that area?

Now another important aspect concerning blessings that we learn here…

II. Blessings are not just spiritual, but are redemptive.

Did you notice the nature of the blessings here in verses 13-15? Listen to what God promises:

• He will multiply you. We are to increase in numbers, as we see the Lord bring forth the “fruit of the womb.” Spell that “babies.” Remember Eve was cursed in her childbearing, but the Lord says His people will see blessing now in it.
• He will also bless our work, overturning in increasing measure the curse pronounced on Adam. He says we shall see plenty fruit from the ground. He shall grant food and productivity. The ability to care for our households will be plenteous and overflowing.
• He will bless us regarding our health, again striking in part at the pronouncement of sickness and death spoken to Adam following the Fall. Not only will sickness be removed, but God says it actually will be placed upon your enemies!

Notice these blessings are physical. Is this tangible nature of the blessings spoken of here what I mean when I say they are not “just spiritual?” Well, yes and no.

Yes, for certainly they are not just spiritual because they are tangible. You see, many theological views see the blessings that we are to have in the age of the New Testament as only spiritual by their definition of spiritual. For instance, in this familiar verse, we hear blessings called spiritual:

Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

So armed with this verse and others like it, many theologies relegate blessings to the spiritual realm. What do I mean? For instance, fundamentalism, which surrounds us here in this community, has reacted against the social and liberal gospel by concentrating on just saving souls. For them, the salvation that Christ accomplished is spiritual in the sense that it is confined only to the spiritual realm. The world out there will have to wait until a later time when Christ returns to experience blessing. For now, blessing is seen in abstaining from worldliness. If you do not smoke, dance, drink, or watch movies then you are blessed, or perhaps have even received the “Second Blessing.”

Other forms of thought closer to us suffer from a similar idea. In Lutheran theology, one finds a dichotomy there when it comes to this issue. If you read much Lutheran theology, very soon you will hear them employ the term “law and gospel.” In a very real sense, they set the law and gospel against one another. That’s the dichotomy to which I refer. The real purpose of the law, according to Lutherans, is to drive you to the gospel, but that law really has little in common with the gospel. So in their teachings two kingdoms emerge that are close but not quite what the Bible means when it speaks of the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world. They see the one kingdom pertaining to salvation, and the other kingdom pertaining to society and the world. They talk of faith and grace in the one kingdom, but that has little to do with “politics or societal matters” in the other kingdom. So the blessings of God are only or at least mainly just spiritual in nature.

Classical amillenial reformed believers also suffer from a similar sense of the idea of blessing. As they look ahead to what will happen in world history, they see the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan both prospering until the end, with the latter ultimately dominating until Jesus comes and rescues us at the end. In most of their theological constructs, salvation does not influence culture and countries, it just saves you and helps you endure all the evil out there in the world.

But remember that here in God’s Word these blessings do touch the world we see!

To understand the blessings of God, we have to comprehend that even more is meant here when we say that the blessings are not “only” spiritual. Something more is meant. The blessings are spiritual, but instead of viewing them as CONFINED TO the spirit world, we need to understand instead they FLOW FROM the Spirit world into very tangible realities. The blessings are redemptive!

Of course the blessings are spiritual. I did not mention the first blessing in verse 13. Moses tells us that God “will love us.” Our obedience touches His heart even as He has touched ours. He communicates love to our souls. But He is like a good husband. A good husband not only says he loves his wife, but gives her candy and flowers (candy and flowers by the way that God has made!). So God gives good, tangible and REDEMPTIVE gifts to His children. For God is redeeming not only souls, but the whole creation – be it a womb, a workplace, or a body.

Does not Christ show us this?

When Jesus blessed people, He did not just shout it down from heaven, but He took on human flesh, came, and laid His carpenter hands on squirmy little children. And yes, when we sing of Him opening the eyes of the blind, we can praise Him for opening spiritual eyes. But remember He also came to eyes that were filled with cataracts or staring off into space, and He grabbed some dirt, spit on it, rubbed it in His hands, smeared this mud on those eyes, and then had them wash them with water from Siloam so they could see trees, grass, and the family members around them God had made. When He prayed and asked God to bless food, it was not only for food to feed souls but to fill hungry tummies.

Beloved of God, every area of your life God wants to touch, to bless, to redeem. His grace is not confined only to your heart, but is to touch your body, your workplace, your children. Our land has grown barren (1.8 children per family; abuse is prevalent), the business world is in turmoil and fear, diseases are more widespread because we have forsaken the God from whom all blessings flow.

Be aware of that, and then realize this important aspect of blessings…

III. Blessings are not for collecting, but for using.

Remember the parable Jesus told about the man who was a farmer? He planted a crop, and his soil was so rich that the harvest it brought forth was so large he had to build a bigger barn to keep it all. The next year, this was repeated and so he built an even bigger barn. The following year he built the biggest barn yet with the dream that he would even fill it. Yet before he could bring in that final harvest, his soul was required of him. He died, and the harvest went to rot. Remember what Jesus said at the end of the parable? This man was “not rich toward God.” He did not bless God with what he had been blessed by. He viewed blessings as things to be collected, not used.

God does not want us to collect blessings, but to use them. For if He

blesses a womb, a workplace, our productivity, our health, why does He bless them? If He gives us children, it is not just so you can count noses and strut along with your chest puffed out because you have so many children (I have sadly seen folk like that.). No, He has given you these children so they can learn to serve Him, be it helping you care for your house or care for the poor. If He has blessed your work, it is not so you can brag about your salary or build even bigger houses. It is to use, to provide a home for your family, to minister to people, to redeem others. If He has given you good health, it is not just only so you can play more sports. He wants you to use your health by bending your back, offering your hands, and helping your neighbor. How are you using your blessings?

America has been blessed, more than any nation in the history of the world. But we are not using these blessings unto God’s glory, but for our own pleasure and degradation. So we need to end by hearing this. The state of blessedness can rot. It can be lost. That’s the warning in verse 16 – don’t allow the wickedness of the peoples to become a snare, and you forget Who is the source of all this blessedness. America, bless God!