1. Four Principle Acts Of Blessing:
   1. Man blessing God:
      1. PSA 103:1-2, Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
         1. It is used seven times within the Psalm. Here it cannot possibly mean what some think blessing means, which is to involve a beneficial force which one transmits to another.
         2. God cannot receive any increase from man. Man cannot add to God. 2CO 11:31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.
         3. When creatures bless the Creator we ascribe to God the praise, glory, honor that is due Him or it is an act of thanksgiving for His mercies.
         4. The context determines its meaning and here Bless, or Barak (Hebrew) or Eulogeo (Greek from which we get our word eulogy or to eulogize) means just what we stated.
      2. GEN 24:48 And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son.
         1. Here we again find it means to praise, to exalt and we might also add that it is a part of worship, or is worship.
         2. It is not a means of transference but praise from the subordinate to the sovereign.
      3. When we speak of blessing the Lord we are ascribing to Him praise and adoration. When we read Psalm 103 we find it is a wonderful expression of worship and a heart pouring out its affections unto the Lord for the mercies and benefits God "blesses" us with.
   2. Man blessing man:
      1. This is the most often misunderstood part of blessing so I will give it a bit more time.
      2. Jacob blessed his sons (Gen. 28:1), Joseph blessed Pharaoh (Gen. 47:7), Moses blessed Israel (Exo. 29:43), David blessed his family (II Sam. 6:20), Rebekah's family blessed her (Gen. 24:60).
      3. These are not some magical words transferring some gift or beneficial force upon others.
      4. Hebrews 11:21, helps us understand what it means for man to bless man. HEB 11:21 By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
         1. What did he do here? Gen. 48:13-20
         2. He believed (had faith) the promises of God and confirming to his sons the truth of the covenant God made and that had already been prophesied and that it would be fulfilled.
      5. Man blessing man are, according to knowledge and faith, are foretelling events with certainty. They had no power of conference themselves but were declaring a pronounced standing or prophesied conclusion.
      6. LUK 2:34 And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
      7. Or look at Gen. 14:18-19. Neither conferred by their own person any special transference to the other. They were simply declaring what God had already promised.
      8. You can study out Numbers 22 where Balaam is called upon to curse Israel because it is thought that he had some special power to bless and to curse. He told the servants of Balak (Num. 22:18-20), he could only say what God gave him to say, nothing more, nothing less.
      9. Man blessing man is also often used as a simple means of wishing good upon others, or praying to God for His mercies and goodness for others.
      10. The idea that you and I can arbitrarily confer a blessing or curse upon someone apart from God's directive and gift of faith in his promises is ludicrous and leads us away from the truth and benefit of what blessings truly are.
   3. The blessing of things:
      1. 1CO 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
         1. This cup of blessing is not a cup, which is blessed by man, but one, which symbolizes the blessings, the mercies and the grace God has bestowed on those who believe and are part of the Lord's church.
         2. This cup is a blessing because it symbolizes the fellowship of the saints with the Lord in his death. It speaks of the blessings of being forgiven of sin, made righteous, pardoned, and our sins atoned for.
         3. The blessing we issue forth is one of thanksgiving for what this cup symbolizes.
      2. Here, in the blessing of things, we can again find strange practices among some that call themselves Christian.
      3. Men will walk out and sprinkle water or oil upon a car, a home, a hospital, etc. and pronounce a "blessing" upon it.
      4. Once again it appears man is confused as to the meaning and use of the word blessing. In ignorance they are teaching others that they have some power or ability to set apart something to God's use without God first declaring His setting that thing apart for himself.
         1. Men have used 1 Kings 18, where the Temple is consecrated by Solomon and where he blesses Israel as proof that a person can confer special graces, or mercies of God upon a dwelling or building.
         2. Whether it be the bread, or the cup, or the temple man is simply eulogizing, or giving thanks and showing what this item is that is already set apart for God's use and testimony.
      5. We also bless the cup by doing it scripturally; assembling to eat, waiting for one another; eating to symbolize and not to satisfy our hunger among other things.
         1. We bless the cup or anything else God has given us by using it scripturally, for His glory and for the purpose, which God intended.
         2. You want your car blessed? Drive to church and not to places you shouldn't be. But that won't make it run any better or keep from braking down.
   4. Man being blessed of God:
      1. This is where we will spend some time and hopefully find ourselves "blessed."
2. The Blessings Listed In Matthew 5:

• Everybody wants something that will make a change in his or her lives for the better. The problem often is that they are not ready for the words that will truly make a difference. Here we find the happy or blessed man's condition.
• Christ is not preaching to His listeners how to acquire blessings at all. He is not telling them they are to seek to be poor in spirit or to mourn. What He is tell them is that those who find themselves in such a condition will be blessed or happy because of the conditions that follow. These are conditions of the regenerate who will find themselves blessed.
• I do not believe you can separate one from the other. The first four build one upon the other and are preparatory to the last four. This is a picture of the character upon whom divine blessings rest.

1. Poor in spirit -
   1. Blessed, happy, blissful, that is what this word means, but be careful how you look at this. These are not goals set before you to achieve but graces of God in which you find blessings.
   2. This is the disposition of the regenerate and you are not destitute, you are not left without hope, you are not left undone.
   3. You are pronounced blessed because you are now in possession of a nature that is exactly the opposite of what you were by nature.
   4. This is a very different concept than saying that those who are self-confident are happy. This is a very different concept than the prosperity gospel that some preach.
   5. Those who will see their total spiritual poverty will be blessed, happy. ISA 66:2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
   6. This is a very different attitude than the one who says "who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?" When we see our emptiness spiritually, when we see that all our righteousness is as filthy rags, when you see yourself in the dust before God you are one who is no longer impoverished but rich. Your future is to inherit the kingdom of God.
2. Blessed are those who mourn
   1. The first step to a rich inheritance (the kingdom of God) is seeing your spiritually impoverished state. The second step is to repent, having godly sorrow.
      1. 2CO 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. You must first see your sinful condition and then mourn for that sinful condition.
      2. The result will to be comforted of God. I like that. PSA 30:11 Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;
   2. This reference to mourning is not just any mourning, but a godly sorrow over rebellion against God, hostility towards His will, and a heart that has been trusting in self-righteousness.
   3. Note also the tense of the verb, which is "who mourn." Not have or will, but who mourn. Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death.
      1. We continue to mourn over our sin and sinfulness.
      2. We mourn when we feel the chastening rod of God.
      3. We mourn over sickness and the loss of loved ones.
   4. But here is the blessing; "they shall be comforted."
      1. The blessing is not in the fact that you mourn but that it is part of the work of grace that causes us to finally look away from our sin and look to the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.
      2. The blessing is in the fact that "if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. There is our comfort.
      3. The blessing is in the fact that when we feel the chastening rod of God we know that "afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."
      4. The blessing is in the fact that when we die we shall be comforted as was Lazarus who begged at the gate of the rich man. Luke 16:25.
   5. Again, let me remind you that Christ is not prescribing steps to being happy, but the conditions of or birthmarks of God's children.
3. Blessed are the meek:
   1. Meekness is not weakness, meekness is not being shy, and it doesn't mean that you are easy going or don’t get your feathers ruffled easily. Meekness is not an outward quality but an inward one. It means to rest in God, trust in Him and what He has done, is doing, and will do. Meekness is not compromise it is giving up our will for His.
   2. Meekness is being sensitive to His will, not the will of others. Meekness holds in balance the two truths that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing and that I can do all things through Christ who strengthenth me. A happy person sees their spiritual poverty, they have an attitude of repentance, and they are trusting and resting in God.
   3. If we are conformed to the will of God, resting in Him, and trusting in His provisions we will not complain about what God gives to us now knowing that our Father owns it all and it is part of our future inheritance. We will not be as the prodigal son who wants to take possession now so that we can spend it on our lusts, but we wait patiently for God's timing.
   4. That is partly what Paul was trying to convey to the Corinthian Church when he wrote, 2CO 6:10 As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
4. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness:
   1. Only God satisfies, our only contentment can be found in Him. Here Christ is using words that relate to starvation and intense hunger. This is not a reference to "I need a sip from the drinking fountain, or I need a little snack, I haven't eaten all day." He is referring to people who are in a grievous condition, someone who is desperate.
   2. Are you starving for God? If you realize your true spiritual state, if you mourn for your sinfulness, if you are now kneeling before God and if you have a hunger that is as if you have been living in a land of famine - then blessed are you.
      1. PSA 63:1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
      2. "Are your eyes dry, your faith old and your prayers cold?"
   3. If we follow along with the context so far set forth this is a description of a happy man who has seen his spiritual state and worth, he has seen his wickedness and is repentant. There is present in him a godly sorrow, he has bowed himself before the will of God, and he now hungers for the righteousness that only God can provide.
      1. Happy is the man who seeks an inward and sanctifying righteousness.
      2. Happy is the man who hungers after the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.
      3. Happy is the man who is still seeking, hungering, and thirsting after that righteousness, to experience it on a daily basis..
      4. Blessed, or happy is the man who sees his daily imperfections and senses his own private rebellion that still exists in his flesh and hungers after that righteousness or continual right walking before God.
      5. Happy is the man who perceives his own backslidden ways and has repented and seeks the walk of Christ in him right now.
5. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy:
   1. - Take on the character of your Heavenly Father. Begin to grow - "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:36).
   2. It isn't enough to just do the above, there must be a real change in our lives. We can't continue to live for, in and of ourselves. Others must become more important than we are.
   3. This is not a prescription for salvation or salvation by works. This is a description of those who have already been regenerated; those who have already had the character of God stamped upon them.
      1. 2PE 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
      2. We who have received mercy from God give evidence of this by being merciful to others.
6. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
   1. You need to be right on the inside. It matters little if the outside is the only thing converted. A beautiful shell can still be empty and ugly inside.
   2. PRO 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.
   3. See also I Chron 29:19. The word pure that Jesus used is katharos, meaning to make pure by cleansing, but it also has to do with being single-minded.
   4. We can't be mixed or double minded - lacking faith. Don't come to Christ and think you are going to get something in return, come because you have a devoted love and life for God.
   5. The first four beatitudes lay the foundation for these next four. One builds upon the other. Be poor in spirit, repent with godly sorrow, become tender and broken before God, thirst after God and his righteousness and you build the foundation for becoming pure in heart.
7. Blessed are the peace makers :
   1. Be at peace; be at rest, God is in control, you don't have to fight with folks. But peace doesn't just mean there is an absence of conflict.
   2. There is plenty of peace in a graveyard but no living is going on there. True peace is not compromising with sin, nor compromising truth with error. PSA 85:10 Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. You have peace by dealing with things correctly.
   3. Deal correctly with your wrong attitudes and actions that cause the conflict in the first place. Sometimes the only way we arrive at peace is through conflict, we need to deal with the things in our lives that destroy us and our peace. (See Eph. 2:13-14 and Col. 1:19-20.
   4. Also we are to be peacemakers, meaning we have, after being born again ourselves, the responsibility of being reconcilers. We have the ministry of reconciliation. 1CO 7:15 But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. Are we peacemakers or troublemakers?
8. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake:
   1. Matthew 5:10-12, He doesn't say that we will be blessed if we are persecuted because we are obnoxious human beings. No, if you are persecuted because you are being obnoxious, you deserve it.
   2. When He talks about righteous, what does He mean? The answer is probably found in verse 11 where He says that all of this persecution comes to us "on account of Me."
   3. To be righteous simply means being like the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, those who are like Him have always been persecuted.
   4. The early Christians knew where their loyalty should be. Perhaps a hundred years after the early church a man came to Tertullian, one of the church fathers, with a business problem. After he explained his difficulties, he said, "What can I do? I must live!" The godly Tertullian replied, "Must you?"
      1. We should know that the primary concern of the Christian is not living but following Christ.
      2. How we should respond to persecution. Jesus said that we should "rejoice and be glad." Jesus obviously was not saying that we should rejoice because of the persecution. Rather, He was saying that we should "rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great." We rejoice because of our reward. There is the blessing.

1. The Blessings Of Scripture:
   1. Are tied to our relationship to Christ:
      1. Going back to our original test we find the phrase "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" and that which follows points us to a covenant relationship, or the covenant of grace.
      2. The words "hath blessed" speaks of our being actually redeemed or reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.
      3. They have their source in the electing love of God.
         1. EPH 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
         2. PSA 65:4 Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.
         3. It is the purpose of God to bring His people to holiness, sonship and eternal glory and to do so through a Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
         4. Our covenant relationship with Christ is based upon our union with Christ and is the ground of all our benefits.
         5. What this should do for us is inform us that God works from an eternal plan without possibility of failure and should be a strong ground of confidence and comfort.
      4. All of this should evoke or promote worship FIRST, as is pointed to in verse 3 of Ephesians 1.
      5. These blessings are spiritual blessings - not fleshly or physical.
         1. We have been predestinated to be holy - vs. 4.
         2. We have been made sons, heirs - vs. 5.
         3. We have been made accepted - from being unacceptable, vs. 6.
         4. We have been redeemed and forgiven - from the slave market. Vs. 7.
         5. We have been given life, from being dead in trespasses and sins. 2:1, 5.
         6. We have been enlightened. Vs. 8 & 9.
         7. We have been given a down payment - the Holy Spirit and sealed by the same Spirit. Vs. 13-14 after we have believed which is also a blessing from God - 2:8-9.
      6. These blessings are in contrast to those we normally are attracted to - physical blessings. This list goes on if we will but spend some time looking through this letter to the Ephesians.
         1. He concludes his list of blessings by telling us of not only of God making us spotless but how we can have power over sin, by taking to ourselves the "whole armor of God."
         2. And how we can be filled with the fullness of God - 3:19.
         3. These blessings are not future, there is nothing to do that is necessary to procure these blessings, it has already taken place. He "hath" blessed us.
   2. Are tied to Israel as a nation:
      1. GEN 12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
      2. The blessing here is two fold. The later should be seen easily.
         1. The families of the earth shall be blessed because it is through Abraham that the Messiah will come.
         2. Salvation for other families besides Abraham's is provided in the promised seed.
      3. The first has to do with the fact of protection. God will not allow Israel, as a nation, to be wiped out. He has a plan and purpose for them and if anyone seeks to void that plan they are marching against the army of heaven and God himself.
   3. Are tied to our habits and habitations:
      1. PSA 1:1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
      2. PRO 3:33 The curse of the LORD is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.
   4. Are tied to our faith
      1. This has to do with the faith that springs from God and is a gift of God.
      2. PSA 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
      3. PSA 34:8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
      4. PSA 40:4 Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
      5. PSA 84:12 O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
      6. JER 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
      7. ROM 4:6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
      8. GAL 3:9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
   5. Are the tied to our walk of righteousness:
      1. PSA 5:12 For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.
      2. PRO 10:6 Blessings are upon the head of the just: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.
      3. PSA 24:4-5 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
   6. Are tied to our being forgiven:
      1. PSA 32:1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
   7. Are tied to our national government:
      1. PSA 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
      2. PRO 24:24-25, He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous; him shall the people curse, nations shall abhor him: But to them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them.
   8. Are tied to our treatment of others:
      1. PSA 41:1-2 Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble. The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.
      2. PRO 22:9 He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor.
      3. LUK 14:14 And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.
      4. ACT 20:35 I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.
   9. Are tied to our attention to and attitude towards worship and God's house:
      1. PSA 84:4 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee.
      2. PRO 8:34 Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.

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