Blessed Because He is Cursed

Words are important. It's a profound statement. The Bible teaches us that words are important because they can sway people, they can convince people. But we know words are important because God speaks. God gives words. He speaks words. Now the interesting thing about how language works is it's extremely powerful, but language is also very moldable. we can actually change the meaning of words. As Mike has already pointed out, we seem to have changed the word talent. Words can take on various meanings, and oftentimes words can even take on new meanings. What I want to challenge us this morning with is that God has given us words that are very important. We need to consider those words, make sure we protect their meaning according to what God has said. He is the authoritative author. We need to listen. Because quite frankly, we've ruined a lot of words that have a very specific, precise meaning in scripture. We've ruined them. First and foremost, the word awesome. Everything is not awesome. God alone is awesome. He alone brings about an awe and a wonder. We've ruined the word happy. Happy is, throughout scripture, the word blessed could easily be translated as happy. We ruin it by applying it to fickle emotions. We've ruined the word love. We've discussed this numerous times. Love is not something you fall into. Love is something you choose to give. I fear we've even ruined the word God by using it as a slang term, to use it as a swear term, to use it to apply to anything, not just that one Creator and Savior. We've ruined the word grace, we've ruined the word church. The word I want to think about this morning, one of the two words is the word blessed. This is an extremely important word through Scripture. One of my main goals is to help you see that blessed and cursed, these are two words that tie Scripture together. These are extremely important words and terms that must be understood together. And we've ruined it, and this isn't necessarily horrible, but we talk about how blessed we are usually when we talk about the stuff we have. That's messing up the term a little bit. When we primarily apply it to the stuff we have, and we need to be thankful, we need to realize it comes from God, that we give thanks to God, but when we only use it when we talk about the stuff, we're not really taking the full biblical meaning of what it means to be blessed. Where I come from, we've actually messed it up more. It's a way of being condescending and to mask an insult. Look at that boy's hair. Bless his heart. These are my people, so I'm allowed to make fun of us. She's wearing blue shoes with that black dress. Bless her heart. It's a way of insulting. I assume that's wrong to do. I don't know. But when we use it to mask an insult, that's ruining the Word. That's associating it with something that lessens the gravity of blessing. Let me challenge you. One of the ways to be transformed in your mind is to learn God's vocabulary. There's words in Scripture. Justification, sanctification, propitiation, judgment, curse, blessing. These are words that matter because they're God's words. We may think, oh, that's too high theology. Just tell me what to do. No. God said it. It matters. One of the best ways you can learn to be transformed in your mind to love God more is to know his vocabulary, protect his vocabulary, and then you'll live out that vocabulary. We're going to think about blessing and curse. Let me just highlight how important blessing is. That word is used 160 times in the first five books of the Bible. 160 times it's used in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. In Genesis and Deuteronomy alone, the first and the last book of those of the Pentateuch, it's used 130 times. There are three different words that we translate for curse. And if you combine all three, that's used over a hundred times throughout the first five books of the Bible. These words tie a lot of Scripture together. They tie God's truth together. And so we need to see what that looks like. These words are important. In Genesis 1, God blessed creation. Specifically, He spoke a blessing to man and said, be fruitful. God responds to our sin in Genesis 3 with a curse. In Genesis 12, five times he used the word blessing. Abraham, I'm going to bless you with a great blessing, and you shall bless all other nations. What we're gonna see in our text, Deuteronomy 27 and 28 especially, this is the concentration of curse and blessing. And finally, as we've already read, Galatians, Jesus came to become a curse so that we might receive the blessing of Abraham. These words are important. We must understand them together. Let me give a kind of a broad theology before we enter in. And yes, the sermon is over 10 chapters. And actually about Deuteronomy, I'm preaching Galatians 3 this morning because we're the New Testament church. But let me, I will discuss these things. Let me first explain what blessing is in the Old Testament. Blessing is tied to fertility, being fruitful, authority and dominion, victory and battle, peace and rest, and prosperity. Cursed is tied to infertility, unfruitful, loss of place, loss in battle, condemned. If I could summarize it like this, the most simple way, blessed is when God is with you and for you. Cursed is when God has forsaken you and is against you. Blessed is when God is with you and for you. Cursed is when God has forsaken you and is against you. Let's just look at a very simple passage. We can see these blessings and curses. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 28. If you're using a pew Bible, this is found on page 169. Deuteronomy 28. The context is Israel has been redeemed from Egypt. They've been saved. They've been delivered. They've been redeemed by the blood of a lamb. They've crossed the Jordan. Now the redemption is about to be complete because that second generation, they're going to go into the promised land that God is giving them. That is salvation language. Now they're going to be called to obey in order to enjoy the blessed land. Look to Deuteronomy chapter 28, beginning in verse one. Hear the language of blessing. And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you. And if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds, and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. Everywhere you go, everything you do will be blessed. if you carefully obey God's word. Deuteronomy 28, verses 15 through 19. And if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city. Cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground, and the increase of your herds, and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. There's not much gray area here, is there? God has spoken. We will listen. and obey and be blessed. As a nation of Israel, they're going to either go in and obey and be blessed or they're going to disobey and be cursed. Why? Why would God set this clear decision before them? Well, it goes back to the fact that He's already saved them. God claimed these people to be His people. He set His name upon them. He gave them His law. He said, you're my treasure possession. All the nations know Israel, Yahweh's people. As they go, so goes His reputation to the nations. And His desire was for Israel to be a blessing to all the nations so that His name was known to all the nations so that they could be saved. They're supposed to come to Israel and say, Deuteronomy 4, oh, what wisdom. How close is their God? Look at how blessed they are. God demands absolute obedience, which will lead to absolute blessing, because that's His way of testifying to all the nations, this is who I am. His name is tied to them. That's why it's a clear, hard choice. Obey. be blessed, disobey, and be cursed. He wants the world to see that He's just and merciful. Our message this morning is this. We are blessed because God has saved us. We are blessed because God has saved us, and we enjoy His blessing by obeying Him. You're blessed if you've been called a child of God instead of a child of wrath. But you don't enjoy that blessing unless you are actually following the Father in what He has said according to His truth. We are blessed to have the salvation of Christ, but we don't enjoy that salvation unless we're keeping His commandments. To give us a big picture of where we're at in Deuteronomy, We're covering Deuteronomy 19 through 28. Deuteronomy is made up of four sermons. Chapters one through four, that's the first sermon. That's a prologue. That's what God has done. Chapter five through 26, that's what God expects. That's his law. Deuteronomy 27 and 28, that's the blessing and the curse. That's what he sets apart as how God will respond according to your choice. It's pressing in that choice. And then 29 through 30, that's how they're going to either choose life or death. Now, the reason I'm doing this huge section together, I'm ending the second sermon and I'm doing the entirety of the third sermon, well, that's because Galatians actually ties these two together. Galatians 3 quotes both of these and ties them together for the blessing and the curse. While we're already taking an ambitious chunk of scripture, I want to be a little more ambitious. I want to give you a brief history of the blessing and the curse so that you can see how powerful this language is. Let's go back to Genesis 1. Genesis 1, verse 28. God blessed them. He actually speaks the blessing. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill all the earth, subdue it, have dominion. Go to Genesis 2.3. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. God has blessed that particular day, that particular time. Genesis 3.14, after man forsook the blessing, after he exchanged the glory of the blessed life, God curses the serpent. This is the key curse. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. The curse continues for verse 16. The curse will affect the woman because she will have pain and childbearing. That very promise of a child who will destroy the work of the devil will crush his head. It is now tied also to the fact that the womb is cursed. Verse 16 as well. Your desire should be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Your relationship now is cursed. Verse 17, for the man, the ground is cursed. Chapter 3, 24. Well, the word curse isn't here. I believe it's implied God drove out man from the garden. Part of the curse is that we are no longer near God. Genesis 4.11, God cursed the ground because Cain murdered Abel. Genesis 8.21, God promises, I will never again curse the ground because of man's wickedness. This is in response to Noah's flood, or the flood that Noah was saved from. Genesis 9.1, God blesses Noah. And this is very Genesis 2 and 3 like. God blesses Noah because he's supposed to be another Adam. He's supposed to be a new beginning. And he fails just like Adam. Genesis 12, let's read this. Hear the word blessing and hear the word curse. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. That's the command. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Over and over again, this blessing is repeated in Genesis 15 and Genesis 17. And then we get to Genesis 22. where after Sarah had a closed womb because of the curse, and God brought a miraculous child, Isaac, to attack the curse, God opened that womb to bring a child, a promised child, not the promised offspring, but a promised offspring. God says to Abraham, go sacrifice that child. And Abraham obeyed. As Hebrews tells us, believing that God could even resurrect him from the dead. If you look to Genesis 22, verse 15, after Abraham, obeyed, God stopped him, he provided, and the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time in the heaven and said, by myself I have sworn declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sand of the sea and of the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Because you obeyed my voice. We can go on and on throughout Deuteronomy how God blesses His people and then calls them to obey so He can further bless them. This is a central theme that ties the foundation of the Old Testament, all of Scripture together. is a central theme. We are cursed because of our sin. We are blessed because of God's grace. God created us to be with him so that he could be for us. But because of our sin, he's against us, and we're far from him. Now, we have to first appreciate cursed. I think that's actually even more corrupted than the idea of blessing. Because I think for the most part, we ignore the whole idea of curse. We like a God who only gives blessings. We like a God who's always blessing. Do you think about God and His justice to curse? Have you thought about the fact that God does curse everybody who's in their sin? They're under a curse. Here's the dilemma we have to wrestle with this morning. We deserve the curse, but God says we're blessed. How can that be? We deserve the curse. We have forsaken Him. We have said what you have said is not worthy to be listened to. We reject you. Our minds are darkened. We rebel against Him. We're wicked. We're out of His presence. We deserve His curse. How could God bless us? Well, it's found in Galatians 3. Either turn in your bulletin or page 973. 973. Again, this particular passage unites our text together. Twice Paul quotes our text. Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. That's quoting chapter 27 of Deuteronomy verse 26. That's establishing that if you do not perfectly and completely obey, you're cursed. Now, think about how much we actually disobey. It's not a matter if there's one little sin in my life. Maybe God will overlook that. No, it says no. Think about, if we're really honest with ourselves, how much we actually disobey God. How much we bring upon ourselves the curse. We are, in our sin, a cursed people. But then, Paul quotes, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. And he quotes this to say Christ redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us. What we see in Galatians, is a beautiful truth that Christ became a curse for us. Now look at the result, so that we might be blessed with the blessings of Abraham, so that we might receive the promised Holy Spirit. The gospel begins here. We deserve judgment. We don't deserve God's love. We deserve the curse. There's two parts to the curse. One, under judgment. The wrath of God should crush us because of our rebellion. The friendship that God has should be against us. He should despise us. We should not be friends with God. We should be His enemy. We make ourselves His enemy by rejecting Him. But Christ redeemed us from these two aspects of the curse. First, Christ was forsaken for us. You can see this in Hebrews 13, 11, just listen. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. We rejected God, therefore he rejected us. He's our enemy instead of our friend. His wrath is against us and we can't know Him. Just like in the garden, because of our sin, He drove us out to be distant when we were created, to be close, to not know Him, to be exiles in the wilderness alone when He created us to know Him and to be known by Him. There's a foreshadowing in the religious system of Israel that a priest would take the sin atonement blood and he would place it on a goat and then he would drive the goat out of the assembly for that goat to die in exile in wilderness, to take the sin outside of the camp so that God could once again say, I will be with you in the assembly. This is why Christ carried his cross outside of the city walls. The author of Hebrews is saying this pictures Christ suffering like us in our place, suffering the consequence of our sin. He died apart from God. He felt our distance that we have with God. This is why he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He feels and experiences the distance that we deserve so that He might then draw us near to God. He takes on the curse that drove us away so that we could be, once again, friends with God. Secondly, the consequence of the curse was distance. The consequence of the curse is judgment. Cursed is everyone who is hanging on a tree. All the wrath of God that we deserve, the consequence of our sin, Christ was punished in our place. He became a curse. He took that sin upon himself, even though he was sinless, so that we might be declared righteous and innocent. And notice the purpose. That cursed means he felt our judgment, he felt the distance from God. But then look, verse 14. So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to us. So that we might receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. That language of curse and blessing, it's salvation language. We have to know this language because it is salvation language. Think about Ephesians 1. Blessed be the God and Father of our Jesus Christ, who in Him has given us every spiritual blessing, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Three times the word blessed is used. And those blessings are redeemed, adopted, forgiven, predestined. The language of blessing and curse, it's salvation language. We have to know this. We have to think like this. Let me draw your attention to verse 14 of Galatians 3. Last two words, through faith. If you're not a Christian this morning, this is for you. If you're not a Christian, if you're tempted to check out, this is the only thing I want you to listen to right now. Your works speak against you. so that you will be judged when you face God. You will feel forever distant and judged at the same time. You will feel undone. Your works only speak against you. What Paul is saying, Christ, He's worked for you. He's died in your place, the judgment's taken away. He's died in your place so that you can be brought near. He's died in your place so that you can know the love of God. And the only way you can know that love, the only way you can be forgiven of that sin is by believing that Jesus Christ came to do these things for you. You don't have to clean yourself up. Christ washes you. You don't have to make yourself better. Christ sanctifies you. It's through faith. that we are saved. It's through faith that the curse is removed. It's through faith that we receive the blessing. We want to start in Galatians because that is the gospel. That is what Paul wants us to know and that's what Moses is pointing us to. So now let's go back to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy. Let's look at chapter 27. I want us to see two parallels, two things that parallel one another. Israel was saved. That happened to them. In order to enjoy that salvation, they have to obey. Israel was redeemed and they were given the land. That happened to them. In order to enjoy that salvation and that land, they had to abet. We have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God's beloved Son. We have been made alive when we were dead. We've been forgiven. In order to enjoy that, we have to abet. If you're a miserable, professing Christian, that's God's blessing upon you to remind you that you're called to reflect His glory by obedience. If you're not enjoying Christ and His love and His glory, it's either because you've never believed in Him or you're not obeying Him. If you wrestle with doubt, don't pretend it's something intellectual. If you're a professing Christian and you're wrestling with doubt, there are some intellectual questions. Real doubt stems from sin. Deuteronomy 27. I want to show you a few things. Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people saying, keep the whole commandment. that I command you today, and of the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster, and you shall write on them all the words of this law when you cross over to the end of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers has promised you, and you shall, and when you have crossed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones concerning which I command you today. Now first, these stones, the fancy word for this is Ebenezer. I only draw that to your attention because we just sing of an Ebenezer in Come Thou Fount. When we sing that song, Here I Raise My Ebenezer, it's something that we place in our lives to remind us constantly of what God has done for us so that we remember to obey Him. He's telling that when you cross over, set up a memorial, something to remind you Another thing I want to point out here, crossing over the land I'm giving you, what do you think crossing over should remind them of? The deliverance from slavery. They crossed over the Red Sea as the climactic event when God delivered them. It happened to them. When they're going to cross over the Jordan into the land He's giving them, it's reminding them, God has done this for you. All of the commands to obey and be blessed or to disobey and be cursed, they're built on the foundation that salvation has happened. In no way does Moses ever teach salvation by works. Everybody who's ever been saved has been saved through faith in either God's promise or God's fulfillment of that promise. Everyone who's ever been saved is called to obey so they can enjoy that blessing. Now, we want to pull back a little bit And while we know that all of God's Word is profitable, all of God's Word is good for us, not all of this is directly applicable to us. Israel is different from the church in a couple ways. One, the church is not a political state. Israel was actually a political state. A political state has responsibilities that we as a church do not have. Many of them you can see in the text. You see in chapter 19 there's cities of refuge. You see in chapter 20 concerning warfare. You see the atonement for unsolved murders. The state has a responsibility to perform capital punishment and to deter murder. That's what these laws are for. We as a church are not a state in that way, so we do not perform capital punishment. I want to point that out to you because we have a different kind of citizenship. It's in the eternal kingdom. We're not a political state like Israel, so these things aren't directly applicable to us. What they teach us is how murderous we are. Secondly, Israel was a different kind of religious institution. They had beliefs and practices that we no longer observe. We don't have a lamb to slay today. We're not going to perform the same kind of practices. We're remembering that Christ fulfilled all of those practices. He was the Lamb of God that took away the sins of the world. We're called to live differently. We're called to worship differently. One of the things that also stands out, chapter 23, no one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. There are restrictions on who got to worship God close. There are restrictions on who got to go into the temple at different stages. in the old covenant, in the new covenant. If you've been washed by the blood, you get to go right up to the throne and worship God. There are no restrictions. We're all called to boldly go into his presence in the name of Christ. Now, one other law I want to focus on because I think it's of particular interest for our church. Chapter 21, verse 18. This one terrified me as a youth. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives. And they shall say to the elders of his city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear in fear." As God's people, as God's holy nation, a son like this would lead many astray. to not actually approach a sin that is obvious is to condone it. And in this structure, the political state Israel, it would be condoning it. It's evil that will influence others. But here are some reflections that I want you to think about. We as a church do not practice this. You're welcome. Because we don't believe we are responsible for capital punishment. responsible for removing those who profess Christ if their lifestyle doesn't match their testimony. First thing I want to say about children, recognize how important honoring your parents is. It's capital punishment important. This isn't a light command. It's another command that we see throughout Scripture. This is weighty. Your obedience, your honoring, the way you look at your parents, the way you relate to them, it is a weighty matter. Think about it. Encourage one another. Meditate upon it. Make this your primary purpose. Because it does matter in another way. One of the chief ways we describe sin is that we do not honor God or give thanks to Him. Let me explain the way I think God has set this up. You're learning what it means to honor someone and give thanks to them by the way you relate to your parents. It's training for worship. The way you relate to your parents is a training seminar by God for worship. If you think you're going to worship when you're out of the home, you're not. It doesn't start later unless God redeems you with grace. Now is the time God wants to train you for worship. Do not forsake that. Honor your mother and father. Second thing, children. God doesn't say, honor your parents based upon the honor you think they deserve. He says, honor them according to what I say they deserve. This goes for all relationships. God tells husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, not how much you think she's lovely. Wives, respect your husbands, not based upon how much you think they are respectable, but how much as to the Lord. Children, Give them the honor God says they deserve. Practically speaking, don't talk back. Do not demand. Defer. Be a delight to your parents. This is how you delight God. It is your worship. Fourth, parents. If your children are disrespectful, are they learning it from the way you treat one another? If you see your child disrespecting your spouse, are they learning to talk that way and to think that way based upon the way you talk about and talk to your spouse? Do they learn it from the way you talk of others? One of the key things here in this passage, though they discipline him, verse 18. Are we disciplined in the way we think and talk to one another and about one another so that our children are seeing models of respect, honor, and deference? Fifth, this principle is important for us as 1 Corinthians quotes, purge the evil from your midst. Again, if we see sin in our midst and we We overlook it. It's difficult to address sin. It gets messy, because sin's messy and gross. But if we decide we're going to overlook it, we condone it. We address it so that others will hear and fear and have reverence. Let's look at chapter 27 again. I wanna do something to get you active here. I'm gonna read verses 15 through 26, and when I get to the point that says that all the people shall say amen, what do you think you should say? Amen. Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image An abomination of the Lord, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret, and all the people shall answer and say. Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother, and all the people shall say. Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark, and all the people shall say. Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road, and all the people shall say. Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, and all the people shall say. Cursed be anyone who lies with his father's wife because he has uncovered his father's nakedness, and all the people shall say. Cursed be anyone who lies with any kind of animal, and all the people shall say. Cursed be anyone who lies with his sister, with the daughter, or his father, or his daughter of his mother, and all the people shall say. Curse be anyone who lies with his mother-in-law, and all the people shall say. Curse be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret, and all the people shall say. Curse be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood, and all the people shall say. Curse be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them, and all the people shall say. A few observations about this text. Most of them have to do with the way we relate to one another. not caring for the fatherless, leading astray the blind, moving a landmark, striking down in secret, taking a bribe. Takes us back to Genesis 12. Abraham, anybody who dishonors you, I will curse. The way we relate to one another, it matters. The way we speak to one another and speak of one another It matters. That vertical relationship we have with God, it matters how we're relating down here. They're connected. And to highlight one other thing, a majority of these curses have to do with sexual sin. They stood out. We have to realize the importance of God's great gift of sex and what it was meant to be used for. It was meant to unite one man and one woman to enjoy together so that they have this special and unique loving relationship. Our world is full of sexual misconduct and it is a curse. Well, we as a church have to remember is that sex has been given to us as a great blessing from God. Now, I thought you all were in the Amen mood. Sex has been given to us as a great blessing from God when we use it according to His purpose. To unite a man and a woman as a husband and a wife in that unique way that they share that intimacy. That's something that may make you feel uncomfortable. There's children in the room. Hey, if they don't hear it from us, they're going to hear it from somebody else. I know a lot of our kids don't ride the school bus anymore. They're going to hear it somewhere, and it's going to ruin them. We have to talk about it according to God's plan and God's will, the way He designed it, because it is a blessing. These blessings and curses that we've read in chapter 28, we've read in 27, they're for a specific political state going into a very specific land. They're called to obey, to enjoy the blessing that God had for them. I don't think these things parallel for us. Much of them have to do with health, wealth, and prosperity. It says, You'll be fruitful from the womb. You'll be fruitful from the ground. What does that remind you of? Israel, if you obey, the womb will be fruitful, the land will be fruitful. What does that remind you of? Eden. God is saying, if you obey, you can go back to paradise. If you obey, you can have everything I created you to enjoy. If you obey, you get to have paradise back. It's teaching us something. There's no obedience that we can perform that gets us back what we lost. There's no obedience that we can perform that gains us back what we lost in the garden. that relationship with God, that enjoyment and that friendship. We can't get it back. That's why we're longing for that seed, that offspring of the woman who will crush Satan and destroy his work so that we can once again be blessed. This theme is very powerful. God blessed man to be fruitful. God then curses the womb of the woman, which means that's why we have barrenness. That's why we have miscarriages. We have children who are born in sin and sometimes with disabilities. Every child that's born is born in sin. It all goes back to the curse. It all goes back to that first sin, that original condition that we now have. The beauty of God's blessing in Genesis 12 It attacks the curse. It is a direct attack on the curse because He promises a barren woman she's going to have a son. Fast forward to Jesus Christ. If you ever wondered if God has sovereignty over the womb, it's the Virgin Mary. He had a child born of a virgin. He's sovereign over the womb. God Himself, the Blesser, came and took upon flesh in a cursed womb. He took upon our nature to live the life we could not live so that He could become a curse for us, so that He could give us blessings. Friends, God is undoing and destroying the works of the devil we can trust in Him. I want to address one other minor point or significant point in Deuteronomy regarding sickness. It says you won't have the plagues of Egypt. It says you'll have a health. Now, we actually do know from 1 Corinthians 11 and James 5 that it is clear that sometimes sin leads to sickness, even death. There are instances where our sin causes sickness for ourselves or our children or our spouse, and sometimes that leads to death. There's a significant difference in Deuteronomy 27 and 28 in the covenant and our covenant today under Christ. This is it. If you were sick as an Israelite in the promised land under this Mosaic covenant, if you're sick under Moses, you ask, what sin did I commit? Because by definition, sickness was a result of sin. In the Mosaic Covenant under Moses, you had to ask what sin did I commit? Because worship leads to abundant life. When sick in Christ, we should ask that question, is there a sin that I need to repent of? But most primarily, it is not necessarily sickness or suffering from sin. All the more we should ask when we're sick, what is God teaching me through this suffering, through this difficulty, so that I might be a more faithful worshiper? The significant difference is this. Under Moses, for Israel under Moses, suffering was only a consequence for not obeying God. For the church in Christ, suffering is expected for anyone who follows Christ faithfully. That's a significant difference. We are told we will suffer. God promised Israel and Moses, you get to go back to paradise, no more suffering. Sin leads to suffering. For us, He says, if you follow Christ who suffered, you are going to suffer with Him. And you rejoice in that suffering. The abundant life is actually found in participating in the suffering of Christ. Finally, I'm just hitting the high points of blessing and curse. Turn to Matthew 5. If you want to know what our blessings are, this is our blessing. From the great prophet, Jesus Christ, the final prophet, the Son of God, page 809. This is Jesus replacing Moses. These are our blessings. Deuteronomy 27, not our blessings. These are our blessings. And Jesus opened his mouth and taught them saying, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. A couple of observations. Verse 3, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Verse 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. These bookend a section between. The promise is theirs, the kingdom of heaven. Notice all the promises are, they shall be, they shall inherit, they shall be, they shall receive, they shall see. There's every kind of blessing involved here. And we see the bookends, and I want you to see most of these are our future. They shall be comforted, they shall inherit, they shall be satisfied. They're also ours today. They're perfected in the future because perfect comfort comes when Christ comes back. They're perfected in the future because we will delight and enjoy being a son of God fully without the taint of sin when Christ comes back. The kingdom of heaven will be ours, we'll inherit the earth when Christ comes back. But today, we need to pursue these things. We need to pursue being merciful so that we will delight in His mercy more. That's a command. Be merciful. Be merciful. If you want to delight in the mercy of God, you must obey. Be merciful. He makes it very clear in Matthew 6. Jesus does. If you forgive little, you'll be forgiven little. Or there's the parable in Luke 16. The unjust steward who demands justice after receiving mercy. Our ability to forgive demonstrates how much we delight in His forgiveness. There's a direct correlation. If we refuse to forgive, we will delight less in His forgiveness. If we are quick to forgive, we will delight much in His forgiveness. That great declaration, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. We must pursue purity. so that we can pursue a more faithful worship of seeing the face of God, delighting in Him. Philippians 4.8, whatever is pure, right, honorable, praiseworthy, think of these things. I just heard the phrase this past weekend, set your screensaver to these things. When you're not focused on something, when you're not thinking of something, when your mind drifts, where does it drift to? That tells you what you worship. That tells you what you love. Think of the honorable, the right, the praiseworthy. We must pursue peace. Sort of like more and more being in the adoptive family. We must pursue an appetite for righteousness. Let us, it says, those who hunger and thirst. What are you hungry for? What have you trained your appetite to love? We have control over that. We have to change our desires, our affections, our cravings, our longings so that we might be more satisfied in Christ. This is profound. One, sin is so unsatisfying. Makes so many big promises and it is so unsatisfying. It makes you more thirsty. It's like trying to quench a thirst by drinking from the ocean. only makes you more thirsty. As we pursue an appetite, focused on the things of Christ, focused on the things of God, focused on loving Him and being loved by Him, it satisfies. As one theologian rightly said, our hearts are restless until they find rest in Christ. Will you pray with me? Great God of blessing, blessed be our Father who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. We want to bless your name. Because You have blessed us. You did not give us the curse as we deserve, but Christ took it upon Himself. You now allow us to enjoy the blessings. Lord, help us enjoy, to pursue a delight in Your blessings. Help us to put blinders up on all these lies from the world that say, I can satisfy. You'll be satisfied only if... Lord, thank You for Your Word. that it directs us to the One who truly satisfies. Lord, help us to encourage one another with these words, to be built up together with these words, to grow together into maturity to Christ our Head with these words. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.