Blessed By God
“BLESSED BY GOD”… Isn’t that a beautiful subject to contemplate? You are I are blessed by God. That’s what the Bible says…
ESV Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
PLEASE DON’T LET THE WORDS ROLL BY YOU… This great verse is telling us Christians that we have been blessed by God with every spiritual blessing…
GOD IS TO BE BLESSED; He is to be praised… This is how we are to see God, how we are to understand God: as One who is to be blessed…
ESV Psalm 66:8 Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard,
The time-worn, traditional Jewish prayer and the words religious Jews begin practically every address they make to God is, בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהוָה (ba-rook a-tah a-do-nai) – “Blessed art Thou, O Lord”…
WHEN WE SEE GOD AS ONE WHO IS BLESSED – regardless of circumstance – we are then more likely to see ourselves as we truly are… When we see God as He is and ourselves as we are, we have taken a huge step in the direction of living Christian lives that are pleasing to God, rewarding to us, and exemplary to others…
ONE TREMENDOUS PART OF EPHESIANS 1 OF THE EPHESIANS IS VERSES 3-14 (the longest sentence in the Bible) in which Paul is declaring who God is and what He has done for believers in Christ…
A FASCINATING AND ILLUMINATING FACT ABOUT THE INTRODUCTION is that each of the 3 sections focuses on a different member of the Trinity. “After an opening summary of all the saints’ spiritual blessings in v. 3 – our message for this morning, the first section (vv. 4–6) offers up praise that the Father has chosen us in eternity past; the second section (vv. 7–12) offers up praise that the Son has redeemed us in the historical past (i.e., at the cross); the third section (vv. 13–14) offers up praise that the Holy Spirit has sealed us in our personal past, at the point of conversion.” – NET Notes…
NO OTHER BOOK IS QUITE LIKE THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS IN THIS RESPECT…
“BLESSED BY GOD”… You and I as believers in Christ are “Blessed by God”…
WHILE WE ARE GOING TO LOOK MAINLY AT THE N.T. verse of Ephesians 1:3, the idea of blessing is decidedly Old Testament… One old scholar said, “Blessing is the most important concept of the O.T. and the religious system of Judaism.” – Kittle/TAR…
THE WORD “BLESS” IN ALL ITS FORMS IS FOUND MORE THAN 500 TIMES in our English Bibles… That’s a lot…
IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A POINT OF INTEREST TO ME TO OBSERVE HOW often we Christians use the familiar words of our faith with a freedom that is more often than not born out of assumption rather than true understanding. When we use these great words (like faith, glory, and worship) we assume we know their meanings and assume that the person to whom we are speaking also knows their meanings. One of those words, I would suggest to you, is bless…
IF “BLESS” IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT WORD IN SCRIPTURE, and it is something we as believers constantly and aggressively seek, I think you’ll agree it is to our advantage that we correctly understand what the word means…
THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF “BLESS” IS 1. To make holy by religious rite; sanctify. 2. To make the sign of the cross over so as to sanctify (Catholic tradition, not biblical). 3. To invoke divine favor upon. 4. To honor as holy; glorify: Bless the Lord. 5. To confer well-being or prosperity on. 6. To endow, as with talent.
I THINK MUCH OF THAT DEFINITION IS GOOD AND ACCURATE Bible… When we bless God we are honoring Him as holy; we are glorifying, magnifying, and honoring Him. And when God blesses us He is conferring well-being or prosperity on us. One of the things we are doing when we say “God bless you” is we are beseeching God to bestow something of His favor upon the person. Exactly what that blessing is varies greatly in Scripture…
ONE THING I BELIEVE I AM CORRECT IN SAYING ABOUT THE MEANING of bless is that its definition is not as much a single word as it is a composite of meanings… In other words, rather than the definition of bless being one color, it is a blend of colors…
THE GREEK WORD FOR “BLESS” IS εύλογητός (oo-la-gay-tos) and its sister word (cognate) εύλογία (oo-la-gee-a)… There is also the verb form of this word, εύλογία (oo-la-gee-a) “The definition and use of this word group in the O.T. is heavily influenced by the O.T., by the word בָּרַךְ (ba-rak) and the Jewish understanding of God Himself” (Kittle/TAR). For the sake of simplicity I will refer to just one word. We get our English word eulogy from this Greek word. A eulogy is speaking well of someone. This is the word that most often translates the O.T. word בָּרַךְ (ba-rak) in the LXX (Septuagint). εύλογητός (oo-la-gay-tos) means literally good word; εύλογητός (oo-la-gay-tos) is good speaking. When it applies to God, as it always does in the N.T. (8 times), it means praise. Praise is literally boasting about God, bragging about who God is and what He has done. Praise is speaking well of God…
ALTHOUGH “BLESS” IS FOUND THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE BIBLE, it is mainly an O.T. word… I say this not only because the majority of usages of “bless” are found in the N.T., but because when all dimensions of the definition are considered, the word “bless,” as it refers to us being “Blessed by God,” is basically an O.T. concept…
THE FIRST TIME THE WORD “BLESS” IS USED in English translations is found in the promise God made to Abram preparatory to the Abrahamic Covenant…
NAS Genesis 12:2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing;
THE FIRST TIME THE WORD “BLESSED” IS FOUND in English translations is…
NAS Genesis 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
IN THE HEBREW TEXT, BOTH “BLESSED” AND “BLESS,” as well as the word “blessing” all come from the same word… The Hebrew word is בָּרַך (ba-rak). It literally means to kneel, bless – kneel, I believe, as in adore on bended knees…
ALTHOUGH THIS O.T. WORD בֶּרֶך (berek) literally means kneel, the meaning “to kneel” appears only four times… Here is one of the occurrences…
NKJ Psalm 95:6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
THE SAME WORD IS USED TO REFER BOTH TO US BEING BLESSED, AND us blessing God… That may come as a surprise to some of you, but the Bible tells us that not only does God bless but we are to bless God. Listen to Psalm 103:1…
NAS Psalm 103:1 A Psalm of David. Bless the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
IT IS A BEAUTIFUL IMAGE, IS IT NOT…
I THINK THIS IMAGE IS A SIGNIFICANT PIECE OF THE PUZZLE… When a person kneels before God that person is both putting God in His rightful place and at the same time acknowledging that the person’s rightful place is beneath Him. We might say that there is “a felt association between kneeling and the receiving of a blessing” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament). Listen to this verse from 2 Chronicles which speaks about the time King Solomon dedicated the magnificent Temple he had built unto the Lord…
NAS 2 Chronicles 6:13 Now Solomon had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court; and he stood on it, knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven.
IN SCRIPTURE GOD BLESSES MEN, AND GOD BLESSES THINGS: He blesses, for example, the Sabbath, fields, and work, among other things…
GENERALLY, IN THE O.T., BLESSINGS FROM GOD ARE MATERIAL BLESSINGS; in the N.T., blessings from God are spiritual blessings…
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS A LIFE LIVED BY THE POWER AND GUIDANCE OF the Holy Spirit…
NAS Romans 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
NET Galatians 5:16 But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.
NAS Ephesians 5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
THOSE ARE BUT 3 OF THE MANY DIRECT AND INDIRECT COMMANDS IN THE N.T. that emphasize the spiritual nature of our relationship to Christ and the life we are to live as believers…
NOTE THE WORD “EVERY” IN EPHESIANS 1:3… “Everything that Christians have received through God’s saving act in Christ is comprehensively summarized in the expression every spiritual blessing. Here the adjective spiritual means’ ‘pertaining to or belonging to the Spirit,’ and this ‘spiritual blessings’ signify those which properly pertain to the life of the Spirit. The adjective does not primarily point to a contrast with what is material, secular, or worldly.” – O’Brien…
“THE NATURE OF THESE GRACIOUS GIFTS IS MADE PLAIN IN THE FOLLOWING words of Paul’s introductory eulogy (vv. 4-14), and include (1) election to holiness, (2) adoption as God’s sons and daughters, (3) redemption and forgiveness, (4) a knowledge of God’s gracious plan to sum up all things in Christ, (5) the sealing of the Spirit, and (6) the hope of glory. Although each gracious gift of God is mediated to us by the Spirit, and His activity is assumed throughout the paragraph, the apostle ‘s language does not state explicitly that the Spirit Himself is the blessing.” – O’Brien…
“ALL THE GIFTS BETWEEN VV. 3 AND 14 ARE UNDERSTOOD AS ELEMENTS OF this one blessing and are therefore grounds from giving praise.” – O’Brien…
ONE HEBREW SCHOLAR LISTED AS ONE OF THE MEANINGS OF “BLESS” filled with power… I think we can say that one of the things we may be asking God to do when we ask Him to bless us is to fill us with power; power to be obedient to Him; power to deal with the situations of life…
WHEN THE CONTEXT OF EPHESIANS 1:3 IS CAREFULLY STUDIED, one can rightly say that blessings are resources and benefits; they are in essence gifts from God…
SO THERE IS A TRANSFERENCE OF SOMETHING THAT GOES ON IN BLESSING: someone gives something, and someone or something gets something… Sadly, we do not have time to properly do that – study the context carefully – but I encourage you to do so on your own. When you do you will see that God has not only blessed us, but he has abundantly, overwhelmingly blessed us…
WHEN WE ASK GOD TO BLESS US WE ARE ASKING HIM TO GIVE US something… And when we bless God we are in turn giving Him something…
WHEN WE BLESS GOD WE DO SO IN WORDS; WHEN HE BLESSES US – while He may choose to bless us materially, He blesses us mostly spiritually; He blesses us with spiritual benefits…
WHEN GOD BLESSES US IT IS THE CREATOR SOVEREIGNLY bestowing something on His creation…
IT IS NOT THAT GOD WILL GIVE US BUT THAT HE HAS ALREADY GIVEN US every spiritual blessed (the participle “who has given” is aorist [completed action])…
NAS 2 Peter 1:3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN EVERYTHING WE NEED TO LIVE A SUCCESSFUL AND satisfying Christian life…
NAS Colossians 2:10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;
WE HAVE EVERYTHING WE NEED; WE ARE COMPLETE, because we are “in Christ”…
THIS IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME CONCEPT AS GOD’S GRACE, for a good definition of grace is complete provision; grace is God graciously providing for us everything we need to be in relationship to Him… Whatever God requires of us, He provides for us…
ONE CLEAR LESSON THAT COMES FROM A CAREFUL STUDY of “bless” and “blessing” is that blessings are often are the direct result of obedience… While I cannot say dogmatically that this is the case every time, it stands to reason that God is most inclined to bless those who are living lives that are in accordance to His commands in Scripture… Here is but one example…
NKJ Deuteronomy 28:1-2 “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. 2 “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God:
ALONG THESE LINES, SERVING BRINGS BLESSING…
NAS Exodus 23:25 “But you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst.
JOHN MACARTHUR HAS SOME WISE WORDS IN THIS REGARD, I BELIEVE… He writes, “Paul is not so much referring in Ephesians 1:3 to immaterial blessings as opposed to material ones but to the divine origin of the blessings – whether they help us in our spirits, our minds, our bodies, our daily living, or however else. Spiritual here refers to the source, not the extent of blessing. Our heavenly Father lavishes us with every goodness, every good gift, every blessing. That is His nature, and that is our need.”…
“MANY CHRISTIANS CONTINUALLY ASK GOD FOR WHAT HE HAS ALREADY GIVEN. They pray for Him to give them more love, although they should know that ‘the love of God has been poured out within our hearts.’ They pray for peace, although Jesus said, ‘Peace I leave with you.’ They pray for happiness and joy, although Jesus said, ‘These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full.’ They ask God for strength, although His word tells them that they can do all things through him who strengthens them.’ It is not that God will (future) give us but that He has already (present) given us ‘everything pertaining to life and godliness. He has blessed us already. We are complete in Him.” – MacArthur/TAR…
NAS 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,
GOD HAS BLESSED US WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING “IN THE HEAVENLIES”…“This phrase further elaborates on the sources of the spiritual blessings, which are not only from the Spirit of God but are also from the heavenlies.” – Hoehner…
THE GREEK WORD έπουράνιος (ep-ou-ra-nee-os) is in the plural… When the Bible speaks of heaven it usually (not always) does so in the plural. “Heavens” in Scripture can refer to simply the sky. There are at least three “heavens”…
NAS 2 Corinthians 12:2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago– whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows– such a man was caught up to the third heaven.
THE “HEAVENLY PLACES” TO WHICH PAUL IS REFERRING IN EPHESIANS 1:3 MAY be described as what we think of when we think of the word “heaven”… “The heavenly places encompass the entire supernatural realm of God, His complete domain, the full extent of his divine operation.” – MacArthur…
“HEAVEN,” IN OTHER WORDS, IS WHERE GOD IS, HIS LOCALE…
THE N.T. AFFIRMS THAT CHRISTIANS – EVEN WHILE THEY ARE LIVING ON EARTH – are citizens of heaven… We have, as it were, a dual citizenship…
NAS Philippians 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
“WHEN AN AMERICAN CITIZEN TRAVELS TO ANOTHER COUNTRY, he is every bit as much an American citizen as when he is in the United States.” – MacArthur… And it’s the same with us: even though we are in the “foreign land” of America, we nevertheless possess all the rights and privileges of our true heavenly citizenship…
CHRISTIANS ARE SPIRITUAL PEOPLE, AND THEY ARE HEAVENLY CITIZENS…
…“THE REASON GOD IS TO BE BLESSED IS BECAUSE HE BLESSES.” – Hoehner/TAR…
IN CLOSING, LISTEN TO THESE VERSES THAT TELL US WHO IS BLESSED in Scripture…I think that by ending our brief study this way we will get a sense of just how big and important a word the word bless is in the Bible… Remember that even though most of the O.T. is directed toward the nation of Israel, among other sections of the O.T., the Psalms and the Proverbs are more universal and may be selectively applied to us in the Church today. Here are just a few of these O.T. universal verses…
NAS Psalm 84:5 How blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; In whose heart are the highways to Zion!
ESV Psalm 106:3 Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!
ESV Psalm 118:26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We bless you from the house of the LORD.
ESV Psalm 119:1 Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD!
NKJ Proverbs 8:34 (Wisdom speaking) Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors.
ESV Proverbs 28:14 Blessed is the one who fears the LORD always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.
I THINK YOU WOULD HAVE TO AGREE THAT THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR… Doing things God’s way increases our likelihood of being blessed by God… All believers are blessed with every spiritual blessing, but the Bible clearly indicates that the blessings of obedient believers are somehow intensified…
BLESSINGS ARE MOSTLY SPIRITUAL GIFTS GIVEN TO US FROM a sovereign and loving God, not because of our good works, but because He is pleased to bless His children…
PAUL BEGINS HIS INTRODUCTION BY FOCUSING ON GOD, declaring that He is Blessed, and then he immediately announces that this great God has blessed believers with every spiritual gift… We will see in the ensuing weeks that the remainder of Paul’s introduction – through v. 14 – is in great part an elaboration of these blessings…
“BLESSED BY GOD”… Because we have been so richly blessed, we should live obedient and holy lives that demonstrate our thankfulness… “Obedient” means, of course, doing what God says for us to do, being the kinds of people God says for us to be. “Holy” means set apart, that is, different from our increasingly pagan society…
THE BLESSINGS WE RECEIVE FROM OUR GRACIOUS GOD ARE “IN CHRIST”…
NAS 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,
“IN CHRIST” WILL BE OUR NEXT FROM EPHESIANS…
– Professor Thomas A. Rohm
