Ex 39:43, And Moses examined all the work and behold, they had done it; just as the Lord had commanded, this they had done. So Moses blessed them. 
    	In our reading, the details are given of all the work that was done to complete the robes of the priests and the Tent of Meeting and all the furniture and the utensils associated with it. It was all done according to the plans as given to Moses by God. Every facet was completed to insure that each article was constructed meticulously in accordance to the mandates of God. There were no shortcuts, no cutting corners, no compromises, and no mistakes permitted. All was done …just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
	What we want to consider this morning is the after effect of what happens when everything is done in full accordance to the plan and the purpose of God. This is something we may just gloss over in our lives. So many of us are trying to live our lives in line with what will please God. We take Him into account in almost every decision, and consider everything associated with our walk on this earth in the light of His Majesty and His Honor and His Glory. This is not to say that we do this perfectly and at every time, but we do take Him into account as the focal point of our lives.
	Accordingly, there is a great reality that is made manifest in our lives that we dare never take for granted. And, I will admit, that this consideration has been at work in my heart with respect to the manner in which I deal with you as a fellowship and as individuals. Therefore, it is incumbent on me to share with you that which is at the heart of the recognition of this life that we live. When we honor the Lord with all our substance and with the first fruits of our labor and with our heart and soul and mind and being, we are blessed. More than just being blessed, we are to recognize that we are blessed and so honor the Lord all the more in the manner of our conduct, and our behavior, and our thanksgiving. 
    	As well, it should be a pronounced blessing from the heart of God to His people through those whom God has given the privilege of guidance and encouragement and support. Just as in our morning’s reading, when all was done in full and beautiful tribute to God according to that which He required…Moses blessed them.
Moses blessed the workers. He blessed the tribes. He blessed the children. He blessed those who had given everything from their treasuries. He blessed those who supported the craftsmen and the laborers. He blessed the priests. He blessed all the people with the pronounced blessing of God. 
	When we do that which honors God, we are to experience His blessing lavished upon us. We should never expect that we will receive the blessing of men on behalf of God, but that often does occur, as is the case in our text today. Moses blessed the people because he knew God was blessed by their obedient endeavors. 
	This was also the case with Abraham as we saw when we were reading Genesis. Specifically, Gen 14:18-20, after Abraham had rescued Lot from those kings who had launched their attack on Lot’s city. Abraham was blessed by Melchizedek as being honoring to the Lord. Gen 14:18-20, And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand." And he gave him a tenth of all. 
	We see that the priest of God, Melchizedek, was prompted by the Lord to go out to Abraham, then Abram, and to let him know that God was pleased with Abraham’s obedience to rescue Lot. Melchizedek declared that both God and Abram were blessed and honored. 
This was to serve as a means of reassuring Abram that God was going before him as he obeyed the Lord in everything. He had left his homeland by faith. He had brought his family into the land of Promise by faith. He had rescued Lot by faith and God was pleased and blessed and wanted him to know it in a most tangible manner. 
	We know, in our hearts and minds, when we are pleasing the Lord. There is a full sense of His glory resting upon us and a peace that invades our beings. This is also how we often know when we are doing something that displeases the Lord because that peace and that rest are forfeit when we are disobedient to Him. 
However, when we do honor God with our obedience, He is gracious to us in that He will often send the message of His blessing through one of His servants. It is a marvelous thing to know that God so loves us and is so pleased in our honoring Him that He would give us that word of encouragement, as Melchizedek gave to Abramham. This is the same as Moses did to all the people when they so honored God in their labor and skill and sacrifice. 
	In line with this, we read the following in Lev 9:22+23, when the Tent of Meeting was consecrated. Once again the people were blessed, this time by both Moses and Aaron. Lev 9:22+23, Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he stepped down after making the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting. When they came out and blessed the people, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. 
	Notice what happened when the people were blessed by Moses and Aaron. A huge part of that blessing was that the people could see the glory of God. When they came out and blessed the people, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. They were enabled to witness God’s glory with their own eyes and hearts. They not only received the blessing of the two leaders, spiritually and politically, but they experienced the fact that God had given them a glimpse of His eternal glory in the manner of His direct encouragement to them that He was well pleased. 
	This is something that should be in evidence in our lives as we please the Lord. We should not only have His peace and His rest evidenced within our beings that we are honoring to Him, but we, as well, should be witness to the glory of God. This is not in terms of some brilliant display of blinding light with multitudes of angels singing the Hallelujah chorus. It is the manifested ruling and overruling of God in the very specific details of our lives, both great and small. It is as we are in earnest prayer and travail about circumstances and situations so far beyond our control, and we are enabled to watch as God so perfectly fits all the pieces into place that show that He has done the work for us. In seeing His glory in action, we can only give Him more praise and adoration for it all. 
It is as something, which seemed so hopeless and so extremely devastating, suddenly turns, by the grace and the mercy of God, into a miraculous blessing revealing the glory of God, thus making it ours to cherish and to celebrate. It is when God answers our smallest need, such as showing us where we left our keys, that we can continually rejoice in His goodness and His care for such as ourselves. Nothing is too great or too small for His glory to envelope in full display to the eyes of those who so serve and honor and obey Him in the every detail of life. 
	This, then, brings us to the blessing as was detailed by Moses in Num 6:23-27. While this was specifically for the Children of Israel, it still holds true when voiced upon us by the mandate of God. Num 6:23-27, "Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, 'Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them: The Lord bless you, and keep you; The Lord make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.' "So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them." 
    	This is what we know, as we have already stipulated, as the blessing of God in our lives when we so serve Him with all our beings: heart, mind, soul, and spirit. There is the true and evident knowledge of His face shining on us. So much so, that, as we have stated, we know when His face is not shining upon us when we are disobedient. It is the same with the full awareness of His peace as it is reigning in our lives or is not at all evident in our lives. We are so graced to have these blessings in place for the reality of our faithfully being unto God that which is our living devotion to Him.
	The other detail in this blessing that is ours is the obvious and discernible grace of God that covers our lives and our families. This is something else that we never ever what to take for granted in our consideration of the goodness and the glory and the love of God. He shows Himself mighty in our lives in so many and varied ways by the working of His grace to cover and to protect and to seal us forever and ever. He is gracious to us in ways and means that are far beyond any human comprehension. 
	Consider for a moment the miracle of His choosing us to be included in His saving work of grace. All of us deserved to be condemned to hell eternally in agony and torment because of our sin and unrighteousness. As the Apostle Paul so forcefully details it for us in Rom 3:21-24. Rom 3:21-24, But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;  
	Apart from the saving grace of God, we would all be receiving exactly what we deserve before the holiness of God. And please do not think that I am in any measure teaching that we can earn the merit of God and our salvation through anything that we might do for God. It is all only by the grace and the mercy and the gift of God that any of us are brought into this living relationship that is ours in Jesus Christ! The manner in which we live our lives reflects the One Who is made to be our life now and evermore. Accordingly, as we honor Him in our obedience, we experience the increasing awareness of how God’s grace covers and keeps us day by day by day. We are able to enjoy the fullness of the grace of God shed so manifestly and freely upon us in the course of pleasing Him. That grace is magnificent in the revealed majesty and sovereignty and nature of the Lord God Almighty. It is our anchor of assurance that God does have all things well in hand! 
	Truthfully, if we do disobey and displease God, there is that doubt that infests our minds and our hearts as to whether we really know the grace of God as our salvation. We begin to harbor those thoughts and dreads that we might not be saved. But that is the consequence of our sinful disobedience and not the reality of our true lives. God’s grace covers even in our times of despair and anguish. He causes us to turn back to Him and to seek His forgiveness and to continue forward in the lives that He has eternally given us in His Only Begotten Son. 
	 It is by His grace alone that we can humble ourselves before Him and ask Him to remove the sin which is causing us to be disobedient and displeasing. Then, as He works, it is His grace that keeps us from being utterly consumed in the breadth and depth and magnitude of just how much we need to be cleansed from the filth that would strain our relationship with Him. His grace is sufficient and perfect in the every manner in which He showers it upon us so that we are not completely annihilated nor utterly discouraged as He makes us know the fuller wealth of His saving refinement in us. 
This, too, is our promise as written in Deut 7:12-14. The blessing of God upon us is far beyond all understanding in its fulfillment of God’s glory revealed to us. Deut 7:12-14, "Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers. And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle. 
	His blessing flows forth unto all that we have and do. Our families and our work and our land and our posterity are all the recipients of the fact that we bring Him into every meeting, every decision, every interaction, and every plan of our lives. It becomes very evident very quickly that where God has planted His people, there is a blessing in evidence upon all who are involved in their lives. It will be so obvious that we will be asked what the difference in our lives is. Why, when we go through trials and tribulations is there a hope and an assurance that all will be ok? There is such confusion and such disillusionment and such despair in this realm which has no place in our lives in Christ! 
	Note that we are not immune from the tests and the tribulations, and it even seems that we may have more trials than many of this realm. But we echo the reality as voiced by the Apostle Paul to Timothy in 2 Tim 1:12, as he declared his complete trust in God. 2 Tim 1:12, For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. This is the blessed truth of God’s Hand on our lives and we will continue with this consideration next time, Lord willing. So be it!
	And Moses examined all the work and behold, they had done it; just as the Lord had commanded, this they had done. So Moses blessed them. Amen.

	
This morning’s benediction is Job 8:19-21. "Behold, this is the joy of His way; And out of the dust others will spring. "Lo, God will not reject a man of integrity, Nor will He support the evildoers. "He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, And your lips with shouting. Amen.