8AM "The Better Benediction" Pastor Reginald W Sharpe Jr July 31, 2022

44:12 Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen, amen, amen.

44:42 The Lord bless you and keep you. Make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. Lord turn His face toward You And give Me Amen Amen Amen Amen, Amen, Amen Amen, Amen, Amen Amen, amen, amen.

46:09 The Lord bless you and keep you. Make his face shine upon you And be gracious to you The Lord turn his face towards you And give you peace And give you peace He will give you peace I give you peace Hallelujah He'll give you peace

47:15 He'll give you peace. And all of God's people said amen.

47:35 Numbers chapter 6 verse 22 through 27. Come with me to Numbers chapter 6. verse 22 through 27. Stand with me when you find God's word. Thank you so much for that beautiful message through music.

47:56 Numbers chapter 6 verse 22 through 27 out of the new revised standard version today. Out of the new revised standard version number 6 verse 22 through 27 out of the new revised standard version today. it reads like this the Lord spoke to Moses saying speak to Aaron and his sons saying thus you shall bless the Israelites you shall say to them the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace So they shall put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them. So they shall put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them.

48:51 I want to talk today from this thought very simply, the better benediction. Thank you. You may be seated. The better benediction. The better benediction. We've been in the summer playlist all summer long. And I pray that these messages have been encouraging to your souls. I thank God for an opportunity to marriage, put a marriage or make a marriage rather between the Bible and the culture. And take the words of songs that have ultimately become the messages we've heard week in and week out. Today the song comes from the album P.J. Morton. I have preached for the last three times I've preached from his album, PJ Morton, starting with the song Please Don't Walk Away. Then the week after Please Don't Walk Away, we talked about Watch the Sun. And the final song on that album, he calls it the Better Benediction.

49:50 And really, I can't even tell you about the lyrics of this song, Auntie Claudette, because the whole song, he's saying the same thing throughout the song. He's telling the people listening to the song, it's going to get better. And there are multiple male vocalists and solo artists that ad-lib through the song. But the whole song is, it's going to get better. And if you watch the storyline of this whole album, Watch the Sun, he starts having a conversation with his lover asking her, please don't walk away. Next song, why don't you walk away? Because you've got to keep watching the sun. And if you keep watching the sun, he promises that things are going to get better. I like this. He calls it the better benediction. He closes the album with what he calls the better benediction. But before there was a better benediction from P.J. Morton, we already have a better benediction in the book of Numbers.

50:52 A benediction. benediction, that word benediction, benny means well or good. Diction means to speak. The very word benediction means to speak well over someone. That word benediction is where we also get the final word of blessing. The final good word spoken in most Christian services is the benediction because you don't want to leave the service without the minister or the preacher speaking a good word over your life. That very word benediction. I like this benediction we have in our text today because this is what I call the better benediction. Can I tell you why it's the better benediction? God told Moses to tell Aaron and the priest to speak this benediction over the people because God said this is what I plan to do for my children. This is a better benediction because this is not the benediction that some priest or some psalmist or some thinker theologian created this literally is a benediction that was created by the almighty god god told moses it's right there in your bible unless you tore it out in verse 22 23 god told moses i need you to tell aaron who represents the priestly lineage lineage of the people speak this word over my people it is the only benediction that God gives to tell the people to speak over the people. It's the only benediction from Genesis to Revelation. There are other benedictions, you know. Paul has one where he says, now may the love of God our Father and the grace of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and forever. That's a good benediction. I have a benediction that I took from Jonathan McReynolds where every time we close out the service, I say to you, don't I, every week, what do I say? Lord, it just left me.

52:44 I think I say, may your struggles, there it is, keep your knitted cross. May your troubles show that you need God. May your battles end the way they should. May your bad days prove, come on, say it with me, that God is good. I pray your whole life proves that God is good. That's a good benediction. That's a good word to speak over somebody's life, but I like this benediction because I argued this morning that it's the better benediction. It is the benediction that God releases to the priest to speak over the people of God. I like the book of Numbers. It gets its name literally from the census that happens in chapter 1 and chapter 26. There's a census that happens. You know what a census is? It's an official count or survey of the population. So the Latin or Greek history of numbers getting its name numbers is because there was a census taking place to count how many people were in the people of israel and another thing another thing it gets his name from this hebrew meaning and the hebrew meaning of number means in the desert in the desert let the church say in the desert so some people believe it gets his name because there's a census that happens where the leaders are counting the people to see how many are in the congregation how many are in the population that's the latin and greek understanding of the name numbers but also that name numbers in hebrew is where we get the phrase in the desert because this is a people in the desert i know you're wondering what is the preacher talking about this morning i'm about to make a sharp turn towards your house and we're gonna have some church this morning because some of you this morning are in a desert some of you this morning are in the wilderness and some of you have been having your own personal senses trying to count who you can depend on in your life and god in the middle of you trying to count who you can depend on count what you can lean on god is here for the

54:51 counters and god is here for the sojourners who are walking through the desert walking through the wilderness and God says I got a good word that I want to speak over your life now may the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you may the Lord look you right in your face and give you peace I don't care how how how lonely the desert is I don't care how languished the wilderness is I don't care how many people you've been trying to count on and everybody you count you can't count on it doesn't matter who's dropped you who's deserted you God in the middle of your wilderness God in the middle of your desert God in the middle of your senses wants to speak a good word over your life you got a God I got a God we've got a God that'll bless us and keep us a God who will let his face shine on us which means he'll smile on us a God that will be gracious to us a God that will look us right in the face and we got a God that'll give us peace I'm still wondering how people are sitting here looking at me like I ain't said nothing I said God says I am the God who will bless you and I keep you and I look you in the face and give grace to you and smile at you and give you peace. Anybody glad God will meet you in your desert, meet you in your senses and speak a word of life in the face of death.

56:26 I don't even want to watch the news right now. I don't know what's going on in the world. We barely got over the pandemic. Now we got monkey pox. President thought he was going to get over COVID. They said he tested positive for COVID again. I don't know what's going on in the world. Ukraine and Russia at war China there's backup in our storage gas prices are so high it's like you got to pay college tuition just to drive out of town I mean everything and in the middle of all of this God centered me and said I still can speak a good word in the middle of your wilderness in the middle of your desert that will grab you back into a place of hope let's just walk through this better benediction. There's a couple things I want you to see in this and I promise I'm done and I'll see y'all in September. Amen. Here it is. Number one. Here it is.

57:18 Number one. Here it is. Number one. I want you to notice the source of your blessings. The source of your blessings. Somebody say the source of my blessings. Three times in this better benediction we see the Lord. The Lord. The Lord. The Lord. The Lord. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord lift his countenance upon you. The Lord make his face shine upon you. I know it's too fast. I'm talking way too fast this morning. Every time there is a blessing, it starts with the Lord. You don't get a blessing in this benediction without the Lord being at the front of the blessing. I'm closer to you than you think I am. Some of us are trying to depend on people. Some of us are trying to depend on supervisors. Some of us are trying to depend on a paycheck. Some of us are trying to depend on our boss. Some of us are trying to depend on our boo and our bae. And when all of those entities fail in your life, let me give you the secret sauce.

58:16 The Lord is the source of all your blessings. So it doesn't matter if my resources shift, my source stays the same. So when I come to church, I owe the source praise because while the resources are shaky, the source is still stable. So you sit there like you did on a Sunday morning. But when I think about the goodness of Jesus and all he's provided for me, I know who my source is. You ought to tell somebody beside you this morning, do you know who your source is? And when you know who your source is, oh, it's too soon. Don't do it. When you know who your source is, your praise won't stop. When you know who your source is, your faith grows. When you know who your source is Even when life is throwing you a curve ball You still swing with your best shot Because you know the Lord will make a way somehow Wait, wait, I'm just trying to tell you I know who my source is And that's what I need for you to remember in the month of August I'm not your source Sharp ain't your source Sharp don't wake you up in the morning Sharp don't make sure your water and your light stay on Sharp don't put oxygen in your lungs and strength in your muscles.

59:30 So since the source is still the same, worship the source and not the resources. You know God is the source