1. Psalms 121
1 I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? 2 My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; The Lord is your shade at your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, Nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. 8 The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in From this time forth, and even forevermore.
Your going out and your coming in is used idiomatically of your entire life
28 “But I know your dwelling place,
Your going out and your coming in,
And your rage against Me.
The New King James Version. (1982). (Is 37:28). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

2. Blessed
Part 2 of ?

3. Psalms 118:26 “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”
Again our desire is to “state clearly the words of Ps 118:26”
And again we can’t get past the first word
In order to do this we will take several weeks dissecting the context
We laid out some basic concepts last week with the GIMEL… you are the GIMEL of God
We need to learn some more building blocks (words and insights) prior to even acknowledging what this phrase means
REVIEW TIME

4. Blessed בָּרַך (bārak) to kneel, bless, praise, salute
To bless in the ot means “to endue with power for success, prosperity, fecundity, longevity…”
Genesis 24:11 And he made his camels kneel down outside the city by a well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water.
בֶּרֶך (berek) knee.
One piece at a time we started our study of this word BARAK
We learned Bless means both to bless and to bend the knee
We reviewed the Story of Jacob briefly
We asked: “So Why then does Barak also mean to kneel down as in Genesis 24:11. ”
AND…next slide
Look to the story of Jacob with me.
Genesis 27: Where Jacob subverted the blessing of his brother Esau
Genesis 28:1-4 Where Jacob is again blessed by his father Isaac and charged not to take a wife from the Caaninites
Veres 5 He goes to Laban to flee from Esau….but later we see
Genesis 28:14 We read the promised blessing of the whole world, Jesus Christ… “and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Genesis 30 Laban realizes that God had blessed him for Jacob’s sake (note this is one who spitefully used Jacob)
Genesis 32:26 Jacob would not let go of the ANGEL until He blessed him…. ‘And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!”’
Genesis 35:9 God appears to Jacob and blesses him
Genesis 39:5 Joseph (Jacob’s son) being sold into slavery becomes a blessing to Potiphar’s house… Jacob at that time being a type of Messiah blessed the whole earth and indeed saved it.
Genesis 47:7 Jacob (the greater) blesses Pharoah (the lesser)
Genesis 48:9-20 Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh and ends with this powerful statement we repeat weekly… verse 20 So he blessed them that day, saying, “By you Israel will bless, saying, ‘May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!’ ” And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh.
Matthew 5:9 9Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God.
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,

5. Gimel We saw this analogy of the Gimel, the camel
He, Jesus, blesses (weighs down with gifts) the student of the Word
So that that student (or camel) can walk the gift to another.
Notice that he has to kneel (barakh…barukh)
To bless is to kneel.
We must kneel before Him
He then Loads us with gifts
We carry gifts to the point of need
And unload them

6. We acknowledge we fail and we have a safe place to practice.
SO ON TO NEW MATERIAL

7. Bless those
Luke 6: “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.
Who spitefully use you and curse you
This is the most difficult concept.
Those who do not deserve our blessings that we labored for
Those who did not do the heavy lifting
Those who didn’t bend the knee before the master.
They now receive the benefit of your hard labor.

8. The transition from last week to this week is understanding…
We are blessed for someone else
Its not about me..
Kathy and I like to ask this sarcastically to one another…
It’s NOT about me?
Blessing is for another What does it mean to be blessed and to bless. It is to bend the knee.
To get loaded up with gifts.
Do some hard dry work getting the gifts to the point of knee
Then bending the knee to a potentially ungrateful crowd
And unloading those gifts to them.
Here is an oblique statement if ever there was one:
Be as eliphaz the temanite who was filled with the awe of God and burst forth as a bottle of new wine.

9. This is the point
WE have to respond as Paul in I cor 9:19-22
19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more;
20 and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law;
21 to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law;
22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

10. One more Gimel analogy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhesHIaZqFg
Last camel analogy
Notice with me as we play this video on mute
it is NOT the women
It is NOT the fat white people with a lot of money
It is NOT the food and the water
It IS the interaction between the master and the camel
that gives encouragement to the camel to bear the heavy load of those crazy tourists
So if you are asking yourself…
Can we get off of the camel already?
This is it for today

11. My Father Abraham was Blessed Genesis 12:1-4
1 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 4 So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him
My Father Abraham was blessed
…Whose children you are
We need to realize verse 1…He was told to get up and go
He is a camel (sorry I said it again)
Abraham obeyed… because the Lord, the Master, had spoken tenderly and interacted with him
Abraham may have been a camel for Him
But Abraham had an interaction with Him that fueled him to do what he was called to do
What was Abraham’s response….
Well it was verse 4. He actually got up and went as the Lord had spoken to him.
Be as Abraham and be made a blessing to bless others.
If you do not do this Word you are a hearer only…. Deceiving yourselves.
You need to get up and Go also….
So what is the blessing and the cursing.
If we have been blessed with the blessing, what is it.

12. Mt. Ebal and Gerizim Deuteronomy 27:15-26 Deuteronomy 28:3-6
So friend’s of mine would like to remind all of us that …
A text without a context is a pretext
Turn to Deuteronomy to book mark it… we will be reading these together in a bit.
That’s a fancy way of saying...
If you pick a verse out of scripture (or anywhere for that matter) without understanding its immediate and greater context, well you’re just making it up
The context of Deuteronomy is the review of all of the Torah
The more immediate context is tithing
Blessing and cursing is to topic of course.
You can see by this simple map the great amount of stories that come from Mt. Ebal and Gerizim
Genesis 33:18-20 Jacob
John 4:10 Jesus speaks to the Samaratin women at the well
Mount Ebal Cursing
Mount Gerizim blessing

13. Mount Gerizim Mount Ebal Mount Ebal North Mount Gerizim South
Valley between is where the city of Shechem was
It is a militaristic stronghold controlling movement in central Israel on an important highway
The Mount of Blessing (Gerizim) Housed 6 tribes (all those that came from Rachel’s womb and Leah’s womb)
The Mount of Cursing (Ebal) came from Reuben (1st of Leah) and Zebulun(6th and last of Leahs male children) and the 4 children of the hand maids.
Mount Gerizim where the blessing was proclaimed
…view was of that of the whole land of Israel
…all the goodness of the land was spread before them
Mount Ebal was where the Law was written on Stones that no tool had been placed on it. It was plastered
…view was blocked by the Mountains of Benjamin so as only to see the Law and the Sacrifice.
…Sacrifice was offered here where the cursing was pronounced
It is noteworthy that, on Mount Ebal, whence came the responses to the curses, the great stones were set up on which “the law” was written, and that there also the sacrifices were offered. This is in itself characteristic. Perhaps even the circumstance is not without significance, that they who stood on Mount Ebal must have had their view bounded by the mountains of Benjamin. Not so they who occupied Gerizim, the mount whence came the responses to the blessings. For the view which greeted those who at early morn crowded the top of the Mount of Blessings, was only second to that vouchsafed to Moses from the summit of Pisgah. If less in extent than the latter, it was more distinct and detailed. All Central Palestine lay spread like a map before the wondering gaze of Israel. Tabor, Gilboa, the hills of Galilee rose in succession; in the far-distance snow-capped Hermon bounded the horizon, with sweet valleys and rich fields intervening. Turning to the right, they would descry the Lake of Galilee, and follow the cleft of the Jordan valley, marking beyond it Bashan, Ajalon, Gilead, and even Moab; to their left, the Mediterranean from Carmel to Gaza was full in view, the blue outline far away dimly suggesting thoughts of the “isles of the Gentiles,” and the blessings in store for them. Far as the eye could reach—and beyond it, to the uttermost bounds of the earth—would the scene which they witnessed in that valley below be repeated; the echo of the blessings to which they responded on that mount would resound, till, having wakened every valley, it would finally be sent back in songs of praise and thanksgiving from a redeemed earth. And so did Israel on that spring morning consecrate Palestine unto the Lord, taking sea and lake, mountain and valley—the most hallowed spots in their history—as witnesses of their covenant.
Edersheim, A. (1997). Bible History: Old Testament (Vol. 3, p. 75). Oak Harbor: Logos Bible Software.

14. Deut 28:6
6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
Recall Deuteronomy 28
It ends the blessing with…
Blessing not just part but the whole.
Your “coming in and your going out” is an idiom for
“the whole range of a man’s life”
How many people want their whole life blessed as stated in Deuteronomy 28:6.
And so Christ Jesus becomes the sacrifice by which this might happen…
turn
מָבוֹא (mābôʾ). Entrance, entry, setting (of sun). While mābôʾ refers concretely to the entrance of a city (Jud 1:24) or temple (II Chr 23:13) etc., it is used in an abstract sense in the phrase “going out and coming in” (II Sam 3:25) which in Hebrew idiom means “the whole range of a man’s life” (cf. contexts: blessing Deut 28:6, surveillance I Sam 29:6, petition I Kgs 3:7, promise Ps 121:8, and judgment Isa 37:28).
Martens, E. A. (1999). 212 בּוֹא. (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke, Eds.)Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Chicago: Moody Press.

15. Galations 3:13-14
13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),
Cursed is He who Hangs on a tree
14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
And why did he become the curse of the Law…
He had to fulfill the requirements of Justice.
God’s Justice states: One man sinned so one man must die.
Galations 3:6… the wages of sin is death…
So…One man sinned so one man must die.
His mercy is…
Adam sinned; so the Sinless One died
Becoming the curse of the law so that we might have the blessing of the Law.
How many people want their whole life blessed as stated in Deuteronomy 28:6….
How many want verse 14…the Blessing of Abraham to come upon their life
READ ALL OF GALATIONS 3:
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
The Law Brings a Curse
10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.”
13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
The New King James Version. (1982). (Ga 3:514). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.