The Lord Bless You and Keep You [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. You don't have a time in your life in which you're not watched by your Heavenly Father. It means that there's no problem so great that God is not caring for you, watching over you.

It means you can sleep at night knowing that your Father never slumbers and He keeps watch over you. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear today's message in a series titled, The Power of Blessing as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Interestingly, the word for pool in Hebrew is again from the same root as bless and kneel. Bless and kneel and pool, all related. And the image is that when a camel who was really an animal that was a beast of burden in a sense of being able to carry goods, you could load up 500 to 1,000 pounds of goods on a camel and carry it for a long distance. And so if you're going to load that camel up with goods, then the camel had to kneel down and then get loaded with the goods and then it'd get back up and off it would go. And so probably this is the image, is that to bless is to have the camel kneel down and get loaded up with goods so it can rise up and carry them somewhere. So in a real sense, when I lift my hands up and say, Lord bless you and keep you, the posture of your heart is you're a camel and you get submitted and kneeled down like this before the Lord because it's your time to be loaded up. That's why sometimes just figuratively, I think it's a good thing if someone's speaking of blessing, I just hold my hands up like this.

Why is this? Like I'm getting ready to receive, just letting your whole spirit know my body's agreeing with this. I'm ready to receive. I'm just load me up, Lord.

And so that's what it means. Load me up. And it's like one of the brothers was saying last night as we were praying over this, load me up. I'm going to carry it somewhere else. I'm going to come back.

I'm going to get loaded up again. That's the picture of bless. And the idea that we have been demonstrating is that blessing is not complicated because it really is when you want good for somebody and you, everything within you speaks it and believes it, having invoked the word of God in agreement. I was reading a quote from Dallas Willard, who I think this is a good definition. He said, blessing is the projection of good into the life of another.

It isn't just words. It's the actual putting forth of your will for the good of another person. It always involves God because when you will the good of another person, you realize only God is capable of bringing that. You bless someone when you will their good under the invocation of God.

You invoke God on their behalf to support the good that you will for them. That's good. See, I just, I want good for you. I want things to go well for you. I want you to prosper. I want you to be at peace. I want you to be healthy.

I want good things to come in your life. See, that's what's in the heart of somebody that blesses, and you're invoking the word of God as you do so. The Lord bless you. The Lord bless you.

In the Hebrew it's in the singular. It's not all y'all. It's you. The blessing of God is for you. It's not just for somebody else. It's for you because you have been qualified for your share of the inheritance and the saints by the blood of Christ.

It's for you. So much in life changes when you hear the word of God for you. It's one thing to hear God loves everybody. It's another to hear God say, I love you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The word for keep, it means watch, protect, care for, keep in that sense.

It's kind of a silly example, but I don't know. This is what came to my mind when I was thinking of the definition of this word keep is to watch something. It's not watch like watch TV. It's watch like when my wife says, I'm going to the ladies room, watch my pocket book. Now this means that your assignment is to make sure that this pocket book doesn't get touched by anybody else and to not let it out of your eyesight because that pocket book, I'm nervous about leaving it here, but I'm going to trust you that you're going to watch it the whole time. Watch my pocket book.

And this is something, by the way, ladies, that we hate doing. We lose masculinity chips every time we, and if you have to hold a pocket book, that's far worse than having to watch a pocket book. It's one thing to watch a pocket book on a seat in a restaurant. It's another to hold it. But that doesn't have anything to do with this actual metaphor at the moment except to say that to watch, this Hebrew word for watch or keep means to watch intently so as not to let anything happen to it, no one to take it and no one to harm it.

To keep means that you are worth keeping. You don't diligently watch something and keep something unless it is very important and very valuable. Have you ever lost something valuable, I mean really valuable, and then found it? And after you've found it, you're like, there's no way I'm ever going to let this out of my sight now.

This will never happen again. I'm going to make sure I don't lose this again. The Bible describes our lives as having been lost and then been found. We are found by God. And we once were lost to God, but we have been found by God. And when He has found us, He keeps us because He treasures us. You know, the parables about lost things, those things that were lost and then found, a coin that's lost and then found, a son that was lost and then found.

You see, what was lost was represented as the person that was lost. And then they're found by the owner who is God. And so this bears light upon Matthew 13, 44, where Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. And for much of my life, and many people interpret this to mean that we found the kingdom of God and then we need to sell everything we have, you know, give up and relinquish everything we have in order to make sure that we have the kingdom.

But I don't think that's what this is about because the context of the other parables show that when Jesus is speaking of the earth, He uses this kind of imagery and that what really He's talking about is something that was found by God in the earth, which is you. And you and I are the treasure and God goes and He sells the ultimate price, the most precious thing imaginable, the gift of His own Son and buys you back. And He buys you back so that you will never be lost from Him. And so for God to keep you means that He's holding onto you because you were the lost treasure and you've been found by Him through Jesus Christ. To be watched, to be kept, it means that He wants you, that ahead of time, He's decided that you're that valuable. And His affection is for you like a parent's affection for a child who comes home from the hospital with a little baby and just because on the first night the baby cries and keeps him up all night, the parent doesn't say, well, I don't want you anymore because you're a lot of trouble and you're not as good as I thought because there's something else that's taken place.

You're mine. And because you're mine, everything within me wants to protect you, wants to care for you, wants to cover you, wants to watch you, wants to make sure that none of harm comes upon you. The Lord bless you and keep you. It means that you don't have a time in your life in which you're not watched by your Heavenly Father. It means that there's no problem so great that God is not caring for you, watching over you. He's asleep at night knowing that your Father never slumbers and He keeps watch over you diligently.

He loves you like that. The Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Wouldn't it be nice to set your mind on God's blessing instead of the curses of the world? This month's special offer from Alan Wright Ministries will help. Coinciding with the release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless, we have created a flip-style devotional for your desk or kitchen counter. The beautiful spiral-bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration utilizing some of the most moving excerpts from the new book. Use it day by day for four weeks so you'll keep the promises and assurance of God's blessing right in front of you. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, whatever is true, noble, right, and pure, think on these things. So make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and we'll send you the inspirational flip-style devotional as our thank you for your partnership.

Each spiral-bound devotional comes with a convenient easel-style stand so you can keep the day's inspiration in front of you and fill your heart with God's blessing. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you. This month, call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. Counselor Leanne Payne calls the smile of a mother towards her baby the umbilical cord of the soul. What a beautiful image. And this is consistent with numerous studies about the power of the gaze of a parent upon a newborn child. The smiling face, the shining face is interpreted even by newborn babies as an affirmation. This is an astounding fact that a little baby they have proven through studies who does not have words and cannot consciously process all of this has some kind of connection that they think is directly to the right brain in which the baby sees her mother smile at her and the baby translates that into affirmation. And along with this, when a parent mirrors the child's expressions, if the child smiles and the parent smiles, the child learns something from that. And if the child has an upset face and the parent mirrors that, it is an expression of compassion that I understand what's going on. They say children that get a lot of mirroring of their expressions learn to be in touch with their own emotions. This is all going on unconsciously because the face not only reveals who you are, the face reveals how you feel. And it doesn't just reveal how you feel in general, but when you look at somebody, it reveals how you feel about them. That's what the face means.

This is how you feel. You know, there's a study that shows that in premature babies, the oxygen saturation increases when someone pleasantly looks at the baby. I'm just saying it's in the natural if a little baby is changed just by seeing someone's face shine, how much more so when you see in the Spirit the way that God looks at you. I want you to know how God looks at you because His face reveals how He feels towards you. See the shining face means I'm happy to see you and I'm happy with you and I'm happy about who you are.

I'm happy about that. Your face shines, it smiles, and thus it makes a lot of sense that the Psalmist says, Is your face, Lord, that I seek? Like a little toddler that's in a big crowd and all of a sudden can't see his daddy's face and then he, oh, there's his face.

Okay, I'm confident again. I can see your face. He's saying, Lord, I want you to know that he's there, that he wants you to know that his face is shining, is radiant, is smiling, is happy upon you. Lord, make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you because grace is what? Being given good things that you don't deserve.

It means gift. How are you going to ever believe that you're going to receive a gift from God when you see his face and his face is smiling? That's the disposition of someone who is benevolent towards you, who is propitious towards you, who is favorable towards you. If you come into a king's presence and he smiled at you, okay, I can relax here.

Something good is going to happen. And then the Lord lift up his countenance upon you. And this is to say not only does his face smile, but he lifts up his face. It's the Chinese who in ancient times became the phrase losing face. And we know what that means, that if you lose face, what an interesting statement, right?

But it's seen, you can understand it in two ways. One is that if you come into the presence of someone that you want to be proud of you, but you come into their presence and they do this, that's a way of saying, I'm ashamed of you. My face goes down. I'm ashamed of you.

I'm not proud of you. It is a way of saying, I don't really want to look at you. So if you come into someone's presence and their face goes down, then you could say, I've lost face. But you also could communicate it this way, that of your own expression, that how you feel about something is demonstrated with what you do with your face. Not just the expression on your face, which is the shining of the face, but whether the face comes up. When the face comes up, it says infinite things.

It says, ah, I like the look of that and I feel good about that and I want to see it. So golfers, golfers, this is what we do. This is why golfers lose golf balls, is because the shots that are good ones, we lift up our face and watch it and hold our pose for as long as possible as we watch it go down the middle of the fairway. But ironically, those are the ones you don't have to watch, because you know they're going to be in the fairway, but it's the ball that you hook over into the woods and you just, your face goes.

It's so hard to make even, you just, I don't even want to, I don't even want to, I don't want to even acknowledge that that came forth from me, you know. You lose face. What it means is that when you come into the presence of God, that God has done something so thorough and so rich and so wonderful in the person of Jesus Christ, that not only does His face shine upon you, I like who you are, but His countenance lifts up to you. One Hebrew scholar said that it really is the image of a father taking the little toddler and lifting her up above his head and then lifting his face up to look into her eyes. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace, because if His face shines upon you, you know that grace is coming. And if He lifts up His face, then you know you have not lost face in the presence of God, but instead you can relax. He is well pleased with you.

How in the world can you believe this? How in the world can you receive this? You receive this by believing the gospel. You receive the blessing of God by thinking much of what God has done for you, of thinking much of what Christ has accomplished on the cross, of every single day, all throughout the day, at every moment, at the highest moments of pinnacle and the lowest valley moments of your life, you remind yourself of what God has done for you in Jesus Christ, that it is so thorough that once you have accepted Christ, your sin is cast as far as the east is from the west, and God doesn't see it anymore. He doesn't hold it against you, because He has thrown it into a sea of forgetfulness so that when I raise my hands and say, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you, and something inside of you goes, how could He be shining His face upon me, the sinner that I am? You must understand that to God, you have been made holy.

You are His forevermore. And what this means in the gospel is that He has not only forgiven you, but He has become perfectly favorable towards you, because He is credited to your account all of the merit of Jesus Christ. What this means, it beggars our belief, but it is the gospel. God looks upon you in the same way He looks upon His Son, the Lord Jesus, and you are a co-heir with Him. This is why God says, identify My people, let them know who they are, and put My name on them by simply blessing them, because as you do, they will be identified for who they really are, and that is they are My people, My heirs, My children forever. And you will know this when you just bow down before Him and say, load me up, Lord, I am ready to be blessed.

God has made it possible so that you can know and see His benevolent face toward you that brings grace and peace, and that is the gospel. Alan Wright, today's Good News message, titled, The Lord Bless You and Keep You. It's in our series, The Power of Blessing, and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his part in Good News Thought for the Day in just a moment.

Wouldn't it be nice to set your mind on God's blessing instead of the curses of the world? This month's special offer from Alan Wright Ministries will help. Coinciding with the release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless, we have created a flip-style devotional for your desk or kitchen counter. The beautiful spiral-bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration, utilizing some of the most moving excerpts from the new book. Use it day by day for four weeks so you'll keep the promises and assurance of God's blessing right in front of you. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, whatever is true, noble, right, and pure, think on these things. So make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and we'll send you the inspirational flip-style devotional as our thank you for your partnership.

Each spiral-bound devotional comes with a convenient easel-style stand so you can keep the day's inspiration in front of you and fill your heart with God's blessing. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back now with Pastor Alan and The Power of Blessing is what you're listening to in our series. The Power to Bless is Pastor Alan's latest book, How to Speak Life and Empower the People You Love. And this book is now out available everywhere.

Good books are sold and you can get it in several formats, e-reader on your tablet, audiobook, or just the good old-fashioned way of a hardback as I'm holding in my hands right now. So Pastor Alan, our parting good news thought here. The word secure is coming to my mind. The Lord bless you and keep you. Is there a blessing in knowing that you are secure in the Father? Christian faith is much more about God keeping us than it is us keeping our claims of obedience to God. We often think of the Christian faith and hear it said, like if you will do good and give a lot and serve faithfully, then God will really bless you and you can count on Him holding onto you.

No, the gospel really is that He came to us when we didn't know how to get to Him. And God holds onto us when we don't even know how to hold onto Him. So it's beautiful that the Lord bless you and keep you, that He is your keeper much more than you holding onto Him. Often thought of it, Daniel, this way, like when my kids were little and we were walking across the street at a busy traffic, I reach down and take hold of their hand and I hold onto them. I don't just put one finger down and let my toddler hold onto my finger. I don't want them to be able to let go. And I just think the longer I walk with God, the more I realize He's keeping me. I'm not keeping Him. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.