The Blessing | Summer at Shoreline | Pastor Rob Koke | Message

I am loved by God. I cannot earn it, I cannot lose it. I am forgiven and made brand new. In Christ, I live with passion and purpose. I am empowered by the spirit to be the church in the world and to live this love revolution. Come on, let's give God praise for that. You may be seated. So in 1979, a group of archeologists were combing through some burial tombs outside of Jerusalem. They had been at it for a couple of months. The budget was not very significant and so they recruited some volunteers to help and they even asked some of the kids in school to join them on this particular dig. One of the young people that was involved was a young man named Nathan, he was 13 years old, but he was more of a distraction than he was a help and so the lead archeologist, you know, just gave him a hammer and put him over in a corner and said, just have at it, just knock out some stones. And as fate would have it, you know, sometimes God has a sense of humor and the foolish things of the world confound the wise. This crack team of archeologists had been working there for months and months and months and never really discovered anything, but this bored teenager hammering with his hammer and just breaking up some stone actually found one of the most significant

archeological finds in the 20th century. I just tell you that story to let you know that there's hope for your teenagers. As he was banging his hammer on the floor, he actually broke through and they discovered that there was a floor underneath the floor that they had been working on. They found some pottery there, they found some jewelry there and they found a small little one inch scroll. They found two of them made 100% out of silver, the size of a filter on a cigarette butt. And you might ask, how do I know that? Well, when I was in sixth grade, I used to smoke. And then my mom found the cigarettes and that ended that experience for the rest of my life. Two of these small little silver pieces of jewelry, they were silver that were wrapped in a scroll. And when they tried to unravel, they could immediately tell that it was corroded and it was gonna turn into dust if they did it. So they contacted all of the major museums around the world to see if there was anyone who would be able to unravel the scroll and every single museum turned it down. They thought they would destroy the artifact. So this leading team of archeologists decided to do it themselves. And for three years, they painstakingly unraveled this piece of jewelry and millimeter by microscopic millimeter,

they were able to flatten it out. And this is the end result here on the side screen. This is what it looked like when they were finished. They took an X-ray and some high powered microscopes and they discovered that there were words that were written on this scroll. And it turns out that the words written on this scroll are the oldest scripture verses that have ever been discovered in the history of the world. 500 years earlier than what other discoveries had revealed. The first word they read was Yahweh, the intimate name for God. And as they read the rest of the words, they became pretty excited. And I think you might be excited this morning as well, because this is a verse from the Bible that we cherish here at Shoreline. It means a lot to us. This is the words, this is the scripture that was found on that scroll, the oldest recorded finding of scripture in all of history. Here's what it read. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face to you and give you peace. Isn't that incredible? A phrase that we have often closed our services with, something that we have spoken over you countless times throughout the years.

These are not words that are like a poem or written to make you feel a little bit better about your life. They're not just wishes for something good to happen. These words are pregnant with supernatural power and divine authority. And I share this verse with you this morning. We're gonna unpack it word by word. And I share it with you for four reasons. Number one, I want you to know the nature of God's heart towards you. Number two, I want you to believe it slash receive it in your life. Number three, I want you to speak it over yourself and your family and your circumstances. And number four, I want you to live up to it because when you discover how blessed you really are, that's the motivation we need to live a God glorifying life. So let's start. This blessing begins this way, the Lord. The first thing you're going to recognize about this blessing is that it comes from God. And to understand this priestly blessing, you need to understand its origin. It didn't come from Moses. It didn't come from Aaron. It came from God himself. In the verse that precedes this blessing, we read, and the Lord spoke to Moses,

saying, speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, this is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Not this is a way, not this is an option. He was very intentional. These are the words that I want you to speak over the children of Israel. And you'll notice that there isn't a prerequisite. There aren't some conditions. It's not that God spoke these words because the children of Israel were doing so well and he just wanted to bless them, you know, because they were just really, you know, killing it. These words were spoken and it was given freely. It was out of the heart of God. He took the initiative, not because the children of Israel deserved it or earned it or strived for it or somehow were living worthy of it. He just did it. And you might ask, why? And I would say, because he loves. God offers you this blessing today because he loves you. Sometimes I ask Laura, I said, why do you love me? I'll just ask her, why do you love me? And she'll respond, because. And what I really want is a list. Tell me why you love me. Tell me I'm irresistibly handsome. I'm wise.

I'm a strong leader. Give me a list why you love me. And she doesn't do that. She just says, I love you because. And we're here this morning. I want you to know that God loves you because. He just loves you. It's not because you're so great or so awesome or so amazing, even though in some cases you are. He just loves. Sometimes I ask Laura, well, how much do you love me? And you know what her response has always been? 500 million. I don't even know where she got that from. I think she just kind of picked it out of thin air. How much do you love me? And she said, 500 million. 40 years ago, when we first got married, I asked her, how much do you love me? And you know what she said? 500 million. We've been married for 40 years. Yeah, come on, that's worth something. I asked her the other day, how much do you love me? And she said, 500 million. We've been married for 40 years and it hasn't gone up. It started at 500 million and it's still 500 million. I did a little Google research. And when we got married, the price of gas was $1. Now it's $4.

The price of a stamp was 25 cents. Oh, it's 75 cents. The average price of a home back then was $80,000. Now it's $400,000. She loved me 500 million 40 years ago. Was there any increase, any inflation? Did it go up? Nope, it's still 500 million. At least it didn't go down. And you know, the spirit behind that, I asked her one time, she said, well, why 500 million? I mean, like, where did that come from? And she said, I don't know. It's just a sum so large and so outrageous, it's like infinity. And so in the words of Laura, I want you to know that God loves you 500 million. Why? Because He just loves you. And that's the spirit behind this particular blessing. The Lord, not because you earned it, deserved it or worthy of it, He just did it because He loves you. Every true blessing comes from the Lord and these blessings are so close. There's a fable about a rich man who took a journey and he was carrying a big bag of treasure and on his journey, he attracted a companion and this rich man was a little bit wary of his traveling companion.

He was wise enough to be because his companion turned out to be a thief and that thief plotted every single night to steal the rich man's treasure. While the thief was getting ready, washing in the bathroom, the wise man took his treasure and put it under the pillow of the thief. The rich man fell asleep, the thief would scour through every part of the room and would never find the treasure and days went by and weeks went by and he never found the treasure and eventually he just gave up and said goodbye to the rich man. And the rich man turned to the thief and said, you know what? That blessing, that treasure was a lot closer than you think. And I'm here to tell you this morning that that can be the story of our lives. We are like that foolish and frustrated crook looking for joy and blessings in all of the wrong places, entirely blind to the fact that God has already placed this blessing so very close to us. The Lord, the Lord. Second part, the Lord bless you. Now, we use that phrase a lot in our society. Sometimes when someone's given a political speech,

you know, they'll say, you know, God bless you and God bless the great United States of America. So we hear that a lot. If somebody sneezes, everyone says. If they sneeze twice, they often say bless you, but a little bit less enthusiastically. If you sneeze three times, they leave the room. The Lord bless you. But this is not about being nice or polite. The Hebrew word for bless is Barak. And it actually means to bend down and bestow power, prosperity, and fruitfulness on someone's life. Now, I want you to pause here for a moment and understand, let your heart be saturated with the fact that God bends down and meets you where you are to bless you. And when he blesses you, he blesses you with strength and with resources so that you can live a fruitful life, that your marriage could be blessed, that your business will be blessed, that your relationships will be blessed. The Lord bless you. And that word bless and prosperity, I think it includes your finances, but don't limit it to your finances. He wants to bless you with wisdom. He wants to bless you with joy. He wants to bless you with peace. He wants to bless you over and above

more than you could ever ask or imagine. Some people are convinced that God is a taker, but he's the ultimate giver. Our God is a blessing God. In James chapter one, in verse 17, it says that every good and perfect gift comes from above. And look at all of the incredible gifts that God gives. Sometimes they're so common that we take them for granted. But you look at the beauty of God's creation and mountain peaks and wide, expansive oceans and beautiful rivers and all the different species of animals and plant life. God is a giver. You think about the talents and gifts that he's blessed you with. Your friends and your family. There are blessings all around you. And this Bible is full of stories of God blessing. When Jesus walked on this earth, often the miracles that he did, it wasn't just a miracle that was enough. It was always more than enough. When he fed the 5,000, you know, with some loaves of bread and some fish, it wasn't just the perfect amount. They collected 12 basketfuls left over. When he turned the water into wine, there were 700 bottles more than what were needed. When the disciples were frustrated

because they were fishing all night, Jesus said, toss your nets on the other side. And they caught a net-breaking, boat-sinking load of fish, 153 large ones. Our God is a blessing God. The Lord bless you and keep you. Not only does our God bless, but he keeps. And the Hebrew word for keep here is to protect. It's to guard. It's to watch over. It's to preserve. It's the same word to describe a shepherd watching over the flock or a guard watching over a treasure. This reveals something beautiful about our God. He doesn't just bless and walk away. He blesses and then he keeps that blessing. How many times have we had an experience in our lives where something good happened, but then we lost it? It seemed to disappear. God not only wants to bless us, but he wants us to keep those blessings. And I think that that happens in our life a lot more than we think. The reason why we aren't aware of it is because he protected us from something that we didn't experience. So we don't even know that his protective hand was working because it never really impacted our lives. Like for instance, how many times have we been driving

and we got slowed down because traffic was more intense than we thought and we were thinking in the back of our minds, you know, this is ridiculous. This is Austin, I can't stand the traffic here. And all the time God was working behind the scenes to save you from an accident that might've happened, but you weren't even aware of the fact that he's keeping you. He's watching over you. He's protecting you. Maybe it happens financially where you have a, you know, some options for your resources. Maybe you wanna buy something or invest in something. And he keeps you from it. And he's keeping you from something that would have lost you, your resources, but you weren't even aware of it. How many times does it happen with our health? He guides you to a different restaurant perhaps, or keeps you from an environment where there was something that could make you sick. And the only reason you're not aware of all of the times that he's kept you is because you didn't experience it. But I imagine that there are some of you here today that came to church and you're facing some challenge in your life, we all do. We have an enemy who seeks to kill, steal and destroy. We live in a fallen world. Sometimes people do things and in doing things, it makes an impact in our lives. And sometimes we make our own mistakes.

And those mistakes have consequences. But our God is a miracle working God. And he takes all the things, even our mistakes, the mistakes of others, all the negative circumstances that we face in life. And he has a way of turning it around for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. There are some stories in the Bible where Jesus was in the middle of a storm with his disciples and he got, you know, woken by his disciples who were fearful and he went to the bow of the boat and he spoke and the winds died and the waves became like glass. Our God is a God who can calm the storms in our lives. But if he doesn't take us out of the storm, he can take the storm out of us. us. Our God is a God who keeps us. And even when you experience the worst of what life offers, heaven is the ultimate restorer of everything. Heaven makes sure that God has the final say. No matter what happens, God will always keep you. The Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. Have you ever seen someone's face light up? I'm a grandfather, Laura and I are grandparents. We have four grandchildren with one on the way, so there's five of them. And we're so blessed, honestly, we're so amazed. Nobody told us how good parenthood is. It's awesome. Our house is the house of yes. Whatever they ask, the answer is yes. We spoil them rotten, give them sugar highs, and then hand them back to their parents to deal with the consequences. It's the ultimate win scenario. It's payback to our kids. And they love us. Our grandkids love us. And I know this season probably won't last forever, but right now, whenever our grandkids see us, they come running up to us. Even this morning, they came to church this morning. I was up in the office and the kids were knocking on the door. They came in, and little Sterling and little Nala, they

go, oops, oops, oops. And man, I lit up. They lit up. It was awesome. I just want you to know God is lit up over you. He is lit up. His face lights up. I was at the airport the other day. I was coming down the escalator. Baggage claim was downstairs at the Austin airport. And on my way down, I noticed that there were three guys. They were all dressed in black. They had their iPads with them with the name of the person that they were going to pick up. So they were either Uber drivers or limo drivers, and they were just waiting. And I was imagining that this was kind of a business transaction. Some businessmen were coming into town. This was their ride to get them to the hotel or to get them to the meeting. And as it turns out, one of the business guys was in front of me, got off the escalator and walked over to the guy and said, that's me. And they had a formal handshake and they went on their way. But as I was coming down the escalator, I noticed on my right that there was a family there and there were signs and balloons. There was like 10 of them and they were like jumping up and down with excitement and anticipation. And I didn't know who they were waiting for, but it was somebody special. I was already down, but I was just kind of watching this play out as I was waiting on our, our luggage. And it turns out that there was someone in the military that was coming down the escalator and this family went nuts. There were two of them behind a pillar and they jumped out with surprise. You should have seen the face of this military guy. It was lit up and all the family members were lit up. And that is the image. That is the image that God intended for you to have. You just get out of bed in the morning, tomorrow morning, you get up and you're going to have your little devotional time. I want you to know how lit up God is to meet with you, to hang out with you, to spend time with you. The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. The shine of acceptance, the shine of laughter and joy, the shine of unconditional love. You know what the only difference is between the business guys that had a formal handshake and then went on their way and the family that was so joyful? You know what the difference is? Relationship. That's what the difference was. One was a formal transaction, the other was a rich, deeply, joyful, satisfying relationship and that's what God wants to have with every single one of us here this morning. Not because we earned it, not because we deserve it, just because. million.

The Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. God's whole posture towards you is grace. There's a lot of things that you can argue about when you read the Bible. You know, you can have a different perspective about a lot of things. But there is one truth that the Bible speaks of that is non-negotiable and can't be debated. And that is grace. We are made right with God, not based on how good we are, but based on how good he is. That is what we celebrate every single time we get together. Grace for the forgiveness of sins. Do you think that when Aaron would speak this blessing, cause this is how it played out, right? God gave this blessing to Moses and then Moses was supposed to give this blessing to Aaron and Aaron was the one who was supposed to speak it out. Do you think when it got to this part in the blessing, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you? That phrase, be gracious to you, do you think it had special meaning to Aaron? I bet it did. I think it's absolutely amazing that God gave this to Moses and said, I don't want you to speak it, I want Aaron to speak it. And you say, well, what's the big deal there?

The same Aaron that 40 days after they got out of the bondage of Egypt made a golden calf in the wilderness for all of the children of Israel to worship. That Aaron was given the privilege of speaking this blessing. Do you know the heart of God, his grace towards you? Some of you might've come to church here this morning and saying, you know what? I've made a mess out of my life. My life, I've made some bad choices. I want you to know that your God is a forgiving God. Grace for the forgiveness of sins, grace for a brand new identity, grace for his presence to empower you, grace for the promises that are in his word, grace that you get paradise when this life is over. Come on somebody, give God praise this morning. God's unmerited favor. And may the Lord turn his face to you. Maybe this is the most beautiful part of the whole blessing. Because there's an aspect to this blessing that feels a little bit corporate. When God gave it to Moses and told Moses to get Aaron to speak it, he was to speak it over all of the children of Israel. So there were millions of people. When we have spoken this blessing at the end of our services, there are thousands of people in each service

and then countless thousands more watching online. So there's a lot of people that hear this blessing. But honestly, at its core, this blessing is extremely personal. May the Lord turn his face to you. Means that he's going to look straight at you. Sometimes when I want the love that I feel in my heart to be felt with its greatest impact to the person I'm expressing it to, whether it was my own kids or my grandkids, I'll just look them, I'll just grab their face and I'll look them eyeball to eyeball with our noses touching. I want them to know they have my undivided attention. I'm not distracted by anything else going on in the world. And this verse, this phrase tells us that God wants to go eyeball to eyeball, nose to nose with each and every one of you so you feel the intensity of his love. Nothing is distracting him. Nothing else has his attention. May the Lord turn his face to you. There were 2 million people receiving this blessing the first time it was offered. Thousands receive it here, North, South and online. But it's personal, extremely personal. The grammar used. used in the word you is strictly singular. This was not a crowd-pleasing generic blessing, it was a deeply personal one.

And notice the way that this blessing rolls out. The Lord, the Lord, the Lord, three times the Lord is spoken in this blessing. But let's count together how many times you are in this verse. The Lord bless you and keep you and shine on you and be gracious to you and turn his face to you and give you peace six times. You are the focus of this blessing. God wants you to know how intensely personal this is. This is and to give you peace. That's the fruit of the blessing. If you have the courage to believe it and receive it, this is the fruit that you'll walk with every single day of your life. I wanted to unpack this verse for you. I wanted to unravel the scroll because I wanted you to see the nature of God's heart towards you. I wanted you to believe it and receive it. I wanted you to speak it over your life and your family. And I wanted you to live up to it because these words aren't just wishes, they are divinely inspired and powerful to set the course of your life. Now, if you do believe that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and turn his face to you, if you believe that and receive that in your heart, you will never know another moment of fear

for the rest of your life. As long as you hold this truth near to your heart, you will experience the fruit of peace. And that word peace in the Hebrew, in the English language, it's just the absence of conflict, but in the Hebrew, it's so much deeper and richer than that. It's about wholeness, completeness, harmony, rest, calm, nothing is missing. And it's not based on circumstances. It goes beyond our understanding, it's transcendent. This peace that God gives you is not just that things are okay in your life. The world could be at war, but you would have peace. There might be relational conflict all around you, but you can have peace. Your business might be in trouble, but you can have peace because there is a blessing over you that circumstances cannot rob from you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face to you and give you peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace.

Peace. Peace. Those two little one inch scrolls, they had a name, amulets, and they were a piece of jewelry that ancient children of Israel would wear. They would put a chain to that amulet and they would wear it close to their heart. When I was doing the research for this particular message, I asked Laura if she wouldn't mind as my anniversary gift that she would just get this for me. It wasn't very expensive, honestly. But the words that are on this are priceless. This is a replica of what they found from 2,500 years ago. And I can't read it because it's in Hebrew, but I know what it says. It says, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord. turn his face to you and give you peace. And I wanted those words to be the closest to my heart. And this morning, I want you to take these words and treasure them in your heart. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you peace. Let's pray.

Father, I thank you so much for our time together here today. Lord, you are so good. And I pray Father that these words will be words that we cherish and treasure and take with us as we go today. That we would recognize just how good and awesome and amazing you are. That we would believe it and receive it. Father, that we would learn to speak these words over our life and our children and our friends and our businesses. And we would live with the fruit of peace from this moment forward. If we could please remain in an attitude of prayer for just a moment longer. If you came to church today and you'd say, pastor, I'm not where I need to be with God. What a beautiful service this would be. If there were some here today that didn't know the nature of God towards you, you didn't know his heart. You didn't know how he really truly felt about you. And God would speak to your hearts today and this would be the day that you give him your life. So if you're here today and you wanna meet him for the very first time or you wanna rededicate your life to serving him, would you please raise your hand quickly and boldly wherever you are? Wonderful, God bless you, God bless you. Thank you, all of you with your hands raised.

I wanna lead you in a very simple prayer to invite Jesus into your heart. And I'm gonna ask every single person, not just those who raised their hands, but everyone here today. Let's all of us pray this prayer out loud together. Heavenly father, come on, let's pray together. Heavenly father, I thank you for sending Jesus. Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart. Forgive me of all my sins. I put my trust in you and I will live for you from this day forward by your power, for your glory in Jesus' name, amen, amen. Would you give them all a great big hand clap? Let's all of us stand to our feet, but nobody leaving early or moving around, just a few last minute items. We have on our left, on my left and on my right, we have some signs for those of you who prayed that prayer for the first time to rededicate your life or to meet him for the first time. We would love to get some information from you and help you and give you some resources that really help you to live the Christian life that you just prayed to receive. If you wanna sign up and be a part of the children's ministry, that's available out there up front. We're gonna have some prayer partners here at the front of our sanctuary.

If you have any prayer requests, please come forward. We're so excited about summer at Shoreline. It's gonna be a wonderful, wonderful time together, but I thought it would be fitting today if we would close with all of us saying the blessing together. It's here on our back screen if you need some guidance, but let's all of it, all of us say it together and let's let our joint faith make it the reality of our heart. You guys ready? One, two, three. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. God bless you. Have a fantastic rest of your weekend and we look forward to seeing you next Sunday. God bless. Thank you.