God's People Are Blessed

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 117
• Hymn — Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Faith — Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 42
• Scripture Reading — 1 Samuel 25:23–43
• Pastoral Prayer
• Sermon
• Benediction — Romans 16:25–27

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Sermon Title: God's People Are Blessed

Scripture: Psalm 128

I. Our False Understanding of Blessedness

A. The psalm's foundation: "Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord who walks in his ways" (Psalm 128:1)

1. Calvin observed that very few people actually believe God's people are truly blessed in this present life
2. The pandemic and this season of life have stripped away many things we thought made us happy and stable

B. The root of our false understanding goes back to the Fall

1. In Eden, Adam and Eve were given a world of blessing to cultivate and enjoy; God's covenant promised continued blessing if they walked in his ways
2. The serpent tempted them to seek blessedness apart from God — to walk in their own ways rather than his
3. Since the Fall, every person tends to seek fulfillment in created things (spouse, children, home, money, entertainment) rather than in God

C. God's blessings are viewed most clearly and experienced most fully in suffering

1. Even in Adam and Eve's despair after the Fall, God showed grace and promised that their descendant would crush the serpent (Genesis 3)
2. God promised Abraham a multitude of children and a fruitful land — a shadow of the fuller blessings yet to come
3. What truly drew Abraham and God's people was not the material blessings themselves but relationship with God — to be his people and for God to be their God
4. J.I. Packer: "God doesn't allow us to stay with the idea that we are strong… My strength is made perfect in your weakness"
5. The Israelites sang this very psalm of blessing even while in exile, when children were taken, labor was stolen, and long life was uncertain — showing that the blessings transcend circumstances

II. Stepping Back into the Ways of God

A. God leads his people back onto his path by his Spirit and grace

1. He wants to know each one of us intimately and invites us to share our suffering with him
2. Paul's testimony in Philippians 3:7–11: "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings"
3. Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:10: "When I am weak, then I am strong" — in weakness, Christ's power rests upon us

B. Fearing the Lord and walking in his ways is the path of blessing

1. It means trusting God in suffering and being led by his Word
2. It means receiving the preached Word, conversing with God in prayer, and engaging in the sacraments
3. It means following Christ's example — laying down our lives for our neighbors as he laid down his life for us

C. To fear God and walk in his ways, we must come to know God

1. We know him through his Spirit as he opens his Word to us
2. We are blessed by knowing that God sent his Son Jesus to die for us even before we loved him
3. We receive a clean conscience before God, a hope that cannot be taken away even in death, and the assurance of Christ's presence by his Spirit in our suffering
4. J.I. Packer: "There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God's favor to them in life, through death, and on forever"

D. The benediction of the psalm (Psalm 128:5–6) is a prayer that God's people would be blessed in the fullest way possible in every area of life

1. These blessings — fruitful work, strong family, prosperity, peace — are foretastes here and now of what God's people will experience in full in the new heavens and the new earth
2. Even death itself will be overcome; God promises eternal life with him in resurrection bodies