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 Introduction: What do you thing of when you hear the word “bless”. Is it what you do before you eat? Is it something we do when someone sneezes?
How often do you bless people? Think about it. Do you use the word bless? The Hebrew word for bless "barak" is used over four hundred times in the Old Testament.
 We close our eyes when we pray, through the Scripture never tells us to, but how often do we bless someone with our words, though the Scripture mentions it hundreds of times.
To bless means “to endue with power for success, prosperity, longevity…” When we bless someone we impart a positive future to them. But how do we bless them? … with words!
The Bible says that “ Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed.” (Proverbs 11:11) The destiny of a city can hang in the balance, determined by the words spoken about it.
 “ Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” We read in Proverbs 12:18 . With our words we can harm people and with our words we can bring healing to people.
Our words even bring either blessing or destruction to our own lives. Proverbs 18:21 says, “ The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Or lives will reap a harvest of the words we have spoken.
In chapter twelve of Proverbs we read, “ 14 From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him.”
Is this all a bunch of hooey? Do words really have power, as these passages seem to suggest? Or are these just positive reminders to “play nice”.
In Genesis we read a story of Jacob tricking his father Isaac into giving him the blessing of his brother Esau. When Isaac found out what happened he could not revoke the blessing given to Jacob, because it had already been given.
 In Genesis 28 there is a story of an aged Jacob blessing his grandchildren. When his son Joseph places his children before his father Jacob, crosses his arms and blessed them, giving the blessing of the first born to the youngest and the blessing of the youngest to the first born. The weird thing about the story is that the blessing stuck.
So what is the point of all of this? The Bible is clear that our words carry power. When we intentionally bless someone with words from Scripture, or with a positive word of encouragement, those words have power.
Even our careless words are important to God. Jesus said that at the judgment people will give account to God for the careless words we have spoken, not just the ones we said on purpose.
Here is the point. God has given us the ability to affect a positive future for ourselves and for others through the words we speak. Two weeks ago we saw that James compared the tongue to the rudder of a ship, directing the whole ship. He also compared it to a bit put in the mouth of a horse. With the bridle the rider can direct the whole animal, by pointing its mouth in the direction he wants it to go.
There is a lot I can say to you about the negative effect of criticism. Negative words spoken to a child can become a weight that weighs that child down their entire life. Our health can be affected by words spoken to us. Much counseling will come down to a person living out the effects of something someone said to them when they were small. We will get to that…but another week.
Today I want to speak to you about the power you have to encourage, to bless, to empower others by what you say to them and about them.
The Greek word for blessing is eulogia . Does that word sound familiar? It should, it is where we get our word eulogy from. And the time when the most positive things are said about people is at their funeral. ‘Just a little late I think.
 A few years ago I heard someone share on this concept of blessing and the word eulogy. It saddened me to think of how often we wait until someone is gone before we really say all that they mean to us. My family decided to have a meeting where we all gathered to bless my mom and dad for all that they had done right. Everyone took turns blessing them, as parents and grandparents, and thanking them for the good they had done. Years later, at my dad's funeral we played a sound bite from that meeting, where dad said, “I'm the luckiest man alive.”
Eulogia means to speak well of. Jesus invoked this word numerous times, and even told His followers to “bless” those who persecute them. Christians are the stewards of God's blessing. We claim to have been forgiven of awful sins. We claim to have done nothing to earn God's favor, yet received it purely by His grace. We claim to stand in a place of receiving undeserved love, favor and blessing…and God expects for us to give that kind of blessing away with every opportunity.
In Peter Lord's book Bless and Be Blessed (copies are on their way) he tells several stories of people who were going one direction and had their whole direction changed through the positive words of someone who took the time to care. Children, students, employees, difficult church members…all examples of people whose behavior, and even destiny, was altered through the positive words of someone else.
It is generally accepted that a child needs to receive ten positive affirmations for every one criticism they are given. But is that a reality for many of us? Yet the Scripture, and life experience, teach that even one positive word can change someone's course. It is certainly worth searching for that word.
And our words do not merely bring encouragement. They bring life. What you say to someone, or about them, may affect the course of their lives.
 In the movie Parenthood Steve Martin's character lapses in and out of daydreams in which his plays out his son's future based on what kind of a job he did as a dad. One scene has him graduating from college and honoring his father as the greatest influence in his life. Another has the young man shooting people from atop the University of Florida 's Century Tower , and it was all dad's fault!
Parents sometimes live with a sort of paranoia about what kind of psychoses their kids may grow up with based on their actions. We don't need to be paranoid. But we do need to realize that our words have power. We should choose them carefully, and bless them with every opportunity.
But our power to bless is not limited to childrearing. We can change a waiter's day by saying something positive at lunch. They certainly have enough negative things said to them during a shift. Oh yeah, and leave them a big tip.
We can change an employee's performance by beginning to point out the positive things we see in them. We can affect a friend's future by telling them what we see positive in them.
Two weeks ago in our home group we spent time just going around the room and telling others what we admire about them. People pointed out things in the lives of others that can easily go unnoticed by everyone, except God. Which brings me toward my conclusion...
God sees the positive in every person. He notices. He made everyone with a purpose. He wants to let us in on the process by allowing us to see the good in others, and then say something about it. That is a blessing. It is not just something we say when someone sneezes. It is not struggling to think of something nice to say, because the pastor is going to tell me to do that before this sermon is over!
Conclusion: Blessing someone is saying what God says about them. It can come from something that God reveals to you (He will if you ask) or it can come from what He has already said about them in the Scripture (e.g. they are a new person, they can do all things through Christ, they are made in God's image…)
Before you leave here today I would like for you to bless someone. Look around. Tell someone what you appreciate about them. Tell someone how god has blessed you through them. Tell someone you believe in them, and why.
And them when you leave here, bless someone you don't know. Find something good to say (ask God for help) and say it. You can be the difference in that person's life – through the power of a blessing! |
