(Show the congregation a large white piece of paper and make a black dot in the center of it with a marking pen.  Hold it up for them and ask them what they see.  No doubt most will say they see the black dot.)  What else do you see?  Don’t you see anything other than the dot?  (wait for response)  You have completely overlooked the most important thing of all – the sheet of paper!  (Make application.)  In life, we are often distracted by small, dot-like disappointments or painful experiences, and we are prone to forget the innumerable blessings we receive from the hand of the Lord!  But like the sheet of paper, the good things are far more important than the adversities that monopolize our attention!  Rather than concentrating on the trials of life, we should fix our attention upon the blessings the Lord pours upon us!  Relax!  God’s smiling!

Gene and Grace Fox began their marriage by moving to Nepal to serve as missionaries.  They packed their few belongings in rat-proof metal suitcases, and headed to a tiny village in the hills.  A mud dwelling with a thatched roof became their home.  It was probably the size of one of our smaller bedrooms.  No running water.  No electricity.  No indoor plumbing.  Grace learned to bathe in a plastic basin on a cow-dung kitchen floor.  She cooked on a kerosene camp stove. It was an exciting adventure, like camping, but then the monsoon season arrived. 

Laundry took several days to dry.  Termites ate her cookbook.  Ants invaded the sugar container.  Scorpions snuck into her house.  Vines grew through the walls.  The novelty wore off. She started focusing on the annoyances and inconveniences.  She began to complain.  “I wish the neighbours would stop staring through the windows.”  I’m tired of boiling and filtering water.  That’s all I do every day!”  “The flour is crawling with worms.  I have to sift through every spoonful before baking cookies.  Yuck!”

At some point, God must have decided He had heard enough.  He began launching a lesson in appreciation for his blessings.  One night Grace noticed an orange glow across the valley.  The next morning they found out a fire had destroyed a family’s home and shop.  They had precious few belongings before the fire.  Now they had none.  Later in the day, Grace saw a man carry a sick woman in a basket on his back.  Since there were no roads or vehicles, he’d backpacked her along steep paths for four days in search of medical care.  Then a schoolgirl, maybe 8, stopped by their house.  “My mom died last night,” she said.  “A snake bit her while she slept.”  And after that, a woman knocked on her door and asked if she had medicine for her sick toddler.  She’d already lost four of her eight children and was afraid that he would die, too.

The visual aids grabbed Grace’s attention.  When she began looking beyond her trivial troubles and seeing other people’s pain, she realized that her complaints grieved God.  Her life was filled with his blessings, and He wanted her to see that. (Ten-Minute Timeouts, Grace Fox) Friends, I think we can learn from these visual aids too.  Let’s stop focusing on that little black dot in the middle of the page and look at the rest of it.  Let’s open our eyes and hearts and see the amazing blessings God pours out upon us!  Rather than whine about rainy weather, we can give thanks for the moisture and pray for those who are starving in drought-stricken lands.  Rather than complain about walking when we’d rather ride, we can remember people suffering from crippling diseases and thank God for two strong legs.  Rather than grumble about losing electrical power in a storm, we can be grateful for modern conveniences and pray for people in third world countries who chop and haul firewood every day so they can cook their food and heat their homes… if they have food and homes.  Let’s stop forgetting about God’s blessings, worrying, and complaining! 

Relax!  God’s Smiling At You!  The words of our text give us reason to be sure of that.  God had just led his Children of Israel out of Egypt, delivered them from their enemies, parted the sea for them, provided them food, and even endured their complaints.  Now He had just gathered them in the desert to give them instructions, and then, He told the High Priest to give all of his people his blessing.  It was a three-fold blessing, punctuating the specific work of each member of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which gave God’s people every reason to put worries behind them.  “The Lord bless you and keep you; the lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

Friends, the Lord of all is taking care of us!  God is smiling on us!  Why on earth would we ever worry?  Or complain?  But we do, don’t we?  C’mon, admit it!  What do you do if the power goes out during your favourite TV show?  Or your air conditioner goes down on a hot summer day?  Or you stub your toe?  Or your friend bought the outfit you wanted to buy?  Or your mom said you couldn’t have ice-cream?  Or your boss asked you to work an extra half-hour?  Or your investments aren’t turning out like you hoped…We all complain!  We all worry! 

Why?  Because, like the Israelites who complained and worried even they saw some of the greatest miracles of all time, we are big-time sinful.  We have this nasty habit of seeking other gods to give our attention to.  And selfishly worrying about “number one” – ourselves.  We’ve grieved God with our actions.  And don’t deserve a thing from Him!

But relax, friends!  God is smiling at you!  He is turning his face toward you and letting it shine into a big, broad grin!  Because, since you are His creation, He loves you with that great big heart of his, even though you don’t deserve it!  He gives you his grace.  And his peace.

God makes you this promise, directly from Him to you, words that have been repeated countless times over the centuries: “The Lord bless you and keep you.”  This speaks primarily of the FATHER’s work.  The Lord of the covenant made this promise to you.  He blesses you as He bestows power for daily living, prosperity, fertility, and other gifts.  He keeps you as He protects, watches over, and looks after you so that no harm comes to your soul.

And He, the Father, becomes your Father as He adopts you into his family.  In verse 27, He says, “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”  God was promising to “put his name” on us.  The same thing adopting parents do with their new children.  Think of Carinette, a 7-year old girl in a Haitian orphanage.  If you saw her with the other 60 children there, you might not be able to pick her out.  She has the same dark curly hair and bright eyes.  She eats the same rice and beans.  She plays on the same grassless playground.  She sleeps beneath a tin roof just like the others.  She appears to be no different. 

But look again and you might see a difference.  You might see a glow and a smile on her face.  You might see a fistful of photographs in her hand.  The ones she is showing everyone who will look at them.  The photos are pictures of her future family.  She has just been adopted.  She received the pictures in a care package from her new parents and they remind her of her home-to-be.  In a month, she will be there!  She knows the day is coming.  Every time the gate opens, her heart jumps.  Any day now her father will appear.  He promised he would be back.  He came once to claim her.  He’ll come again to carry her home.  (Come Thirsty, Max Lucado, adapted)

Little Carinette lives with a smile now.  Shouldn’t we?  Her situation mirrors ours.  Our Father paid us a visit too.  He claimed us.  He adopted us.  He put his name on us.  He searched us out.  Before you ever knew you needed adopting, He had filled out the papers and selected the wallpaper for your room.  He paid the adoption fees in full.  (Which happened to be the life of his own Son).  God has given you his name.  He has given you a family.  Can you imagine Carinette telling her new parents to get lost?  Never!  Dare we tell God to get lost?  He has promised to be our Father, to bless and keep us, to give us his family name in baptism, and give us his kingdom.

Then He says: “The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.”  Isn’t this primarily focused on the work of the second person of the Trinity, the SON of God?  God’s face shines on people, not because of what we have done, but because of his grace.  You know how you sometimes break into a broad smile when you see someone you love?  Your face reveals the attitude that is in your heart?  That is how God feels when He looks at you!  His face shines!  He smiles at you!  He loves you so much, He can’t help it.

And it isn’t because you deserve it.  It’s because He is gracious.  He looks on you with grace – undeserved love.  Consider that the Israelites had just worshiped a golden calf!  God’s face didn’t shine on them then!  It was burning in anger!  Like those children, our record of sin is exhausting.  But God’s face continued to shine in grace on them and us because He promised to send a Saviour.  And that Saviour, Jesus, took all our sins away.  See God smiling on you?

Our 2nd lesson for today said: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Karl Barth, a famous theologian, was once speaking on a major university campus to a large crowd of students, faculty, and visitors.  During the question and answer period, one student asked him, “Dr. Barth, may I ask you a personal question?”  Dr. Barth smiled and said, “Yes, you may ask me anything.”  The student then said, “Dr. Barth, you are a very educated man.  What is the greatest truth you have ever learned?”  Dr. Barth bowed his head and thought for a moment.  Then he raised his head and responded to the whole crowd, “The greatest truth I ever learned was at my mother’s knee: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

That simple truth gets delivered to us by the Holy Spirit.  Romans 5:5: “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” And verse 1: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God…”  You can’t help but think about the work of the Holy Spirit when you hear the third part of God’s triple blessing:  “The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”  Being at peace with God is the greatest of all blessings!  And that blessing fills your heart and life when the Holy Spirit delivers it through Word and sacrament.  Relax!  You’re at peace with God!

A peace that gives hope.  Could those in war-torn countries ever know of this peace?  Could someone like Antwan ever know of this peace?  A few years ago Time magazine did an article about abused children.  A boy named Antwan, 10 years old, was made into a puppet for neighbourhood bullies and drug dealers.  They demanded his loyalty.  He feared their punishment.  When police would show up, his “friends” would stash drugs in his socks, thinking the boy wouldn’t be searched.  Antwan became more acquainted with the police than his school teachers.  What hope does a boy like Antwan have?

The article took us to his sparse apartment.  His mother owned one light bulb.  When she left the kitchen, she carried the lone bulb to the living room.  As she screwed it into the lamp, the dim glow illuminated a poster on a far wall of a young black boy crying.  The caption at the bottom read, “He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain.  All of that has gone forever.”  A quote from Rev 21:4.  (Come Thirsty, Max Lucado)  Friends, this is the hope we get from the peace God has given us!  This is the ultimate blessing we have from our Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who blesses us, keeps us, makes his face shine on us, is gracious to us, and gives us peace!  Forever in heaven.  So Relax!  God’s Smiling at You!   Amen.