The Power Of A Father’s Blessing Series

AT THE END: As Jacob comes to the end of his life, he blesses his children.

- Genesis 48:1-49:28.

- These two chapters share with us the final acts of Jacob. He has lived a long life and he knows he’s at the end (48:1-2; 49:29, 33).

- The words that Jacob speaks are words of blessing (49:28).

- It’s important to pause here and acknowledge that there are ways this is a unique historical situation. Jacob was also named Israel. His blessings are guided by the Holy Spirit because all of chapter 49 gives us a preview of important parts of what’s ahead for Israel as a nation. In so doing, he is predicting the future through the power of the Holy Spirit.

- We do see other places in the Old Testament where we see blessings like this, although this has particular resonance because of the identity of Israel. Those other places are also ones where an Old Testament hero is empowered by God to speak words that are prophetically true.

- I am not saying this morning that we can do that!

- We have not (with rare exception) been given the gift of prophecy. So the point this morning is not that we can speak words over our kids that will predict their future.

- Nonetheless, the idea of Jacob blessing his children does in another sense give us something we can do in our lives. I believe that the idea of “blessing” is an important idea that is applicable for us today and I want to talk about how to make it happen.

SAY IT ALOUD: There is power in blessings spoken over our children.

- So now that we’ve gotten out of the way the ways that this passage can’t be applied today, I want to focus for the rest of our time on how it can be applied. I want to unpack the general principle here and then talk about three ways Jacob shows us the way to make it happen.

- I am a big believer in the power of spoken blessings over our children.

- We have to start with this point: there are no more important people in a child’s life than their parents.

- Others have impact: a great teacher, a motivating coach, a warm grandparent. I don’t deny that. In fact, we should celebrate it! It’s pretty much impossible for a child to have too many significant, mature adults pouring into them. It’s a great blessing when they have several.

- But none are more important than the parents.

- This is easily and obviously illustrated in a host of ways:

a. Parents spend more time with the children than any other adult.

b. Parents are the ones who are there (hopefully) for the child’s whole childhood, not just a season.

c. We all have seen examples of people who are deeply scarred by having bad parents who spoke words of harshness or cruelty into their child’s life. Some people spend their whole adult lives trying to get past the scars they were given by their parents’ words.

d. Parents are our first heroes.

- And this is borne out by surveys year after year. Children and teens will themselves say that the most influential people in their lives are not TikTok personalities or movie stars or recording artists, but their parents. This is enormously encouraging to all of us parents who want to have a deep and abiding impact on our children. But it’s also frightening to know how much impact we have even if we mess up and it’s a negative impact.

- The opportunity for impact is there.

- Story of Dad talking to me at the end of my time at PBC.

- Now, I want to take moment to differentiate between speaking blessings and building self-esteem.

- I am not trashing building self-esteem. There is a place for that (within reason).

- The key difference here is that usually building self-esteem is about trying to convince them that you see great things in them. Speaking blessings is about trying to convince them that God sees great things in them.

- What might this look like? We’re going to talk about three things the passage points us to in a moment but let me briefly share a few other ideas:

a. A child who struggling with no self-worth and we share that they were so valuable that Jesus died for them.

b. A child who thinks they don’t have anything to contribute and we share how the Holy Spirit gives everyone a spiritual gift.

c. A child who doesn’t feel they can be forgiven and we share about how we’ve been forgiven by Jesus.

- In all these, there is often also words from the heart of a parent as well, sharing our love and hope for the child. Those two can go together. But this is more than just building them up – this is trying to get them to see themselves as God sees them.