“Three Babies, Three Blessings, Two Nations, One Savior”
Genesis 16:1-12, 17:1-8, 15-22 and I Corinthians 11:23-26
“…an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’” (Matthew 1:20-21)
(Sermon preached by Rev. Larry A. Langer, First Presbyterian Church, Jasper, IN, September 11, 2011)
As we begin today, there are a few things we have to know as our foundations. The first and most important thing to always and forever remember is that God is “Sovereign.” God always has been, God is, and God will always be “in charge.” As such, God is always in control.
Even when it seems that there is no God, or that God has left us, or that we are being treated badly or even punished by God, God is sovereign. God is always in control. This is the bedrock foundation on which all else is built.
The second thing that we must know as we build on God’s foundation is that God has a plan for each individual life, and that God has known this plan since before we were even conceived, since before we were even “in the womb.” And, even though many, many human beings don’t act like it, Psalm 8:5 and 6 tells us, “Yet, God, you have made them a little lower than the angels, and have crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet…”
The third thing we need to know and believe is that, on the one hand, God desires that all people come to love God and live up to their fullest potential as a Child of God by “glorifying God and enjoying God forever.” On the other hand, however, in God’s sovereignty, in God’s plan for each person, God has given what the Bible calls “a Blessing.” And, this “blessing” is pretty much the guide as to what a person will be and do in life.
We will see three specific blessings from Scripture in a moment, but we first want to know of what a Scriptural blessing consisted. I have used and shared this resource before. It behooves us to be reminded of the parts of a Biblical blessing as we talk to our children, no matter their ages and as we talk to our friends and our co-workers.
We often say “we want the best for someone.” If we follow five simple steps, we will go a long way to helping a person be the best they can be, and if we are wanting God’s best for the person, what we say using the five steps from Scripture will help a person be the best Godly person he or she can be.
Gary Smalley and John Trent have summarized from Scripture in their book The Blessing[1] these five steps:
One, give “a meaningful touch.” For a child, this is usually a hug. For an adult, it can be a hug, a held hand, a warm hand shake, a joyful pat on the back, just almost any kind of warm, appropriate, physical contact.
Two, a blessing consists of “a spoken message.” These can be just chit-chats with each other. These can be the “Hi, how are you” kinds. These can be the “How was your trip” kind of message. Smalley and Trent advise, “To see the blessing bloom and grow in the life of a child, spouse, or friend, we need to verbalize our message. Good intentions aside, good works are necessary to provide genuine acceptance.”
Three, a blessing consists of “attaching a ‘high valley’ to the one being blessed.” Says Smalley and Trent,
In Hebrew, the word bless literally means ‘to bow the knee’…words of blessing should carry with them the recognition that this person is valuable and has redeeming qualities. In the Scriptures, recognition is based on who they are, not simply on their performance.
Four, a blessing pictures “a special future” for the one being blessed. I think this begins for us with our children by saying, “You can become anything you want to become!”
Five, is to have “an active commitment” to help fulfill the blessing. When we say, “You can become anything you want to become,” out of caring and love we add, “And I will help you achieve it.” With children, we see to their education and moral upbringing. With employees, we see to training and mentoring. With faith matters, we help teach the Word of God and its applications.
So, five steps to a biblical blessing: A meaningful touch; a spoken message; attaching a high value; picturing a special future; and, helping to reach that future.
Now, let’s think about these steps in relation to our relationship to God. But with God, we may receive these steps in reverse order.
First, God says, “Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.”
Second, God pictures a very special future for us; God says, “I want you to live with me, in a house not made with human hands, eternal in heaven.
Third, God attaches a very high value to us by giving us the words, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For your life is more than food, the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: They neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouses nor barns, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more values are you than the birds! (Luke 12:22)
Fourth, God’s spoken message to us is, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have ever lasting life.”
And, fifth, God does touch us in many meaningful ways. God touches us in sensory ways through touch, sight, sound, taste, and smell. God touches us in emotional ways: With human love between two people; with the bonds of love between parents and children; with the joy and companionship between friends. God even touches us with God’s still, small voice through our prayers.
God’s greatest desire for our lives is that we be blessed. But we must also remember that God is sovereign, and God’s ways are often mysterious, and we are not necessarily supposed to spend our time trying to figure God out, but are supposed to spend our time making sure our “names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
Specifically, today on this September 11th “Day of Remembrance” of what happened 10 years ago, I want us to consider these blessings that our Bible records. I think they shed light on why the tragedy occurred.
The first blessing is the blessing given to Ishmael. Ishmael, the first son of Abraham and Sarah’s mistress Hagar. Ishmael, the first born of what would become the Ishmaelites, of what would become the religion of Islam.
Listen to what the “messenger,’ the angel of the Lord said to Hagar, after she ran away because Sarah was mistreating her:
Return to your mistress, and submit to her. I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for the multitude…Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael, for the Lord has given heed to your affliction. He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin.
Remember what we said at the beginning. God is sovereign; God has known us even before we were in the womb; God knows the design of our life before we live it out.
Ishmael was a blessing to Hagar because of the name, “The Lord has Given Heed.” But the future part of the blessing did not picture a very positive one: “A wild ass of a man; against everyone and everyone against him, including his kin.” As we know, this is the truth today.
The second is the blessing given to Isaac. Isaac, also the son of Abraham, but the first born of Sarah his wife. First, came the blessing to Abraham and Sarah:
Then the Lord said, “I will bless Sarah, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and he shall give rise to nations; kings of people shall come from her…You shall name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.
Included in this word to Abraham also comes an additional word about Abraham's first son, Ishmael:
God says, “I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But (and this is a huge “but”), but, my covenant I will establish with Isaac.
Ishmael received – and I say – only a blessing from God for his life. Isaac received the promise of interaction with God for his life. In a covenant from God, God is bound for life to do what God promises, and in this covenant, the one called throughout Scripture as the “Abrahamic Covenant,” is the model for all other covenants God made with biblical characters; for example, Moses, Noah, David, and others.
But if I can be so bold and simplistic, the difference between what Ishmael and Isaac received is that Ishmael was blessed and turned loose in and on the world. Isaac was not only blessed by God, but God promised to be with him throughout his life. In a covenant, God promises the future and walks with the recipient into it.
True to the two blessings of God, both have come to fruition with the nation of Islam and the Jewish nation. Can't we see this? Do we believe this?
Then, comes the last blessing and the last covenant we want to be reminded of, that in this day and age would make all the difference in and for the world.
The blessing came in the form of the foretelling of the birth of Jesus to Joseph and Mary. First, the angel said to Joseph,
Mary will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been said by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means. “God is with us.”
Then the angel said to Mary,
Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
And then - and then - comes Christ’s covenant with us, and we will listen to the Matthew version:
While Jesus and the disciples were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, ‘Take eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from this all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
And we add from I Corinthians, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
So, on this 10th year anniversary of when Muslims acted on what they insisted was their faith, I think we can understand some of what was going on in their souls. They were living up to what God said they would be. It is in the DNA of their faith.
The Hebrew nation, in many ways, is living up to their DNA blessing. They are being faithful to the promise of the Messiah. They are claiming the land of Israel
And we, we Christians, what about us? Are we living up to Christ’s covenant with us? Are we remembering him until he comes again? Do we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, all our souls and with all our mind…and our neighbors as our selves? Are we going out into all the world and making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them everything God has commanded?
Herein lies the difference! We, as the song says,
…Serve a risen Savior; He’s in the world today.
We know that He is living, whatever men may say.
We see His hand of mercy; we hear His voice of cheer.
And just the time we need Him, He’s always near.
So…
Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian. Lift up your voice and sing –
Eternal hallelujahs to Jesus Christ, the King!
The hope of all who seek Him, the Help of all who find,
None other is so loving, so good and kind.
He lives, he lives, Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
He lives, he lives, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know he lives.
He lives within my heart![2]
And this has made, does make and will make, all the difference.
Amen.
