Channel Of Blessing To Your Family Series

Channel of Blessing to your Family

Introduction

By now, if you have been coming to services the last couple of weeks, you know that you are a priest according to the First Epistle of Peter. And you may also know that your function as a priest is to be a Channel of Blessing. We are to be that blessing to others because Christ told us that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to be that blessing to the local church that we call home because just as Christ loved the church, we ought to love the church. But you and I both know it is not easy to be a blessing to others, or a blessing to His church because hinderances pop up that prevent us from being that blessing. And we have looked at those hinderances that affect blessing others and affect blessing the church.

Today, we want to look at the third area where we should be a Channel of Blessing and that is in the home. Each person in the home ought to be a Channel of Blessing to one another. God tells the husband to love his wife- a blessing. The wives are told to submit to her husband- a blessing. Children are told to honor their parents- a blessing. Parents are not to exasperate their children- a blessing. So, if we are doing what we ought to be doing as a family, there ought to be a whole lot of blessing going on in the house.

But just like in the other two areas that we are to be blessings, there are things that crop up that hinder us from blessing one another in the family. Today, we are going to look at three of them.

My First Point

Family Blessings will cease, and strife will begin if someone in the family starts showing favor to one over another in the family.

(1) My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.

James 2:1 - NIV

(9) But if you show favoritism, you sin...

James 2:9 - NIV

Remember the story of Jacob and Esau. In Genesis 25:8 we are told that Isaac loved Esau and Rebekah loved Jacob. This is a case of each parent playing favorites of one child over another. I know you would not do that. And that favoritism led to deception and ultimately to break up of the family unit. Right after stealing Esau's birthright, Jacob had to flee to Rebekah's brother's home in Haran because Esau was so angry that he said that he wanted to kill his brother.

And then there was Jacob who chose to favorite Joseph over his other eleven sons as his favorite. This caused Joseph to be hated by his brothers and one day the brothers faked his death and sold him into slavery.

In the New Testament there is the story of the Prodigal Son as an example of favoritism. The older son certainly felt that the dad favored the younger son. When news of the young son's return was brought to him the Bible says that the older son became angry. The older brother refused to go in the house and celebrate the return on the younger son. And when his dad came to him, the older son told his dad you gave my younger brother everything, but I didn't get even a young goat for me and my friends to enjoy.

Favoritism did not work out well in the Old Testament. It created strife rather than blessing. The perceived favoritism by the older brother in the New Testament did not work out well also. It, too, created strive rather than blessing.

So, what do you think favoritism in a family will do in 2021 keeping in mind those outcomes in both the Old and New Testament? It will stifle blessing and quickly create strive in your family.

Is there strife rather than blessing in your family today? Let me tell you how to get rid of it and start having a house of blessing rather than strive. What did the writer, James, call favoritism in his epistle? In James 2:9 he says, "but if you show favoritism, you sin..." I got to call favoritism what it is as sin and then go to God to confess that sin. And each person in that house needs to look at their dealing with one another in the home, and if there is favoritism confess that as sin. And that house can become a house of blessing rather than a house of strive.

My Second Point

Family blessings will cease, and a lack of trust will prevail when the truth rises to the surface after being pushed down with so many lies.

(2) There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. (3) What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. Luke 12:2-3 - NIV