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.
- So my story about my Dad a minute ago spoke to the importance of parent’s words but wasn’t fully what I’m talking about here.
- To put it another way, at the end of the day, I am ultimately not who you say I am or even who I say I am, but who God says I am.
- What I am saying, when you add all this up, is there is enormous power in our words as parents.
- We have the opportunity to speak powerful words into our children’s lives. We need especially to do that when it comes to the things of God, we need to speak into our children’s lives.
- I’m reminded of the sociological concept “the looking-glass self.” It’s the idea that often we begin to see ourselves the way that others see us. If others act and speak as though we are intelligent, we begin to believe that we are intelligent. If others act and speak as though we are beautiful, we begin to believe that we are beautiful.
- We have an opportunity to help our children see who God sees them as by speaking blessing into their lives.
- It also has to be said that far too many of us, especially as Christian parents, are leaving this powerful tool at our disposal unused.
- We say, “I love you” but we don’t speak blessings over our children.
THREE THINGS JACOB SHARES:
1. JACOB SHARED HOW HE'D SEEN GOD ANSWER PRAYERS.
- Genesis 48:3-4a (end with “numbers”).
- Jacob started essentially with nothing and God had given him so much. God had appeared to him and promised him fruitfulness.
- Jacob had seen that come true.
- As parents we have an opportunity to show our children how God is real in the life of our family by sharing how we’ve seen Him answer prayers.
- We need to share with our children when we see God answer and move. We can also share stories of how He has supplied in the past. We need to help them see how we are children of God.
- Now, of course, the problem in some cases is that our prayer lives are so weak that we don’t have such stories.
- Some of us this morning need to take a long, hard look at the reality of our spiritual lives. You can’t share a strong, vibrant faith with your child if your faith is mediocre or nonexistent. It’s not really legitimate to ask God that our children see Him move in powerful ways in their lives when we are expecting nothing much in our own lives.
- If we want our kids to be on fire for God, we need to be fire as well.
- This is a stark truth. This is uncomfortable for some in the sanctuary this morning. We don’t want to think about how our own weakness in faith has an impact on our children’s faith.
- I want my children to be people who believe you look to God first for answers.
- I want my children to be people who believe God answers.
- I want my children to be people who have seen direct, specific answers to needs in their lives and our family’s life.
- I want my children to be people who have reasons to say, “I know God is real because I’ve seen Him move in my life.”
2. JACOB SHARED HOW HE TRUSTED THAT GOD WOULD PROVE FAITHFUL.
- Genesis 48:4b-7 (start in v. 4 with “I will”).
- Some of what Jacob shares here has not been fulfilled yet. Does that mean God failed? Absolutely not. It means that some of what God promised was bigger than one lifetime.
- Looking at chapter 49 helps us to understand this truth. Jacob is also named Israel. The blessings he gives to his sons as he comes to the end of his life are pictures of what is going to happen within the nation Israel in generations to come. This is a big vision.
- As we hear Jacob speak in 48:4 of a “community of peoples” and the “land as an everlasting possession,” we know that these are promises that God will fulfill as the nation of Israel comes out of Egypt in Exodus and then takes possession of Canaan in the years after that.
- This gives us another important area to speak blessings into our children: what we believe He can do through their lives that we haven’t seen accomplished yet.
- Now, obviously, we need to be cautious about making specific promises if we don’t have Biblical backing. We can’t just make up what we want the future to be.
- But there are a lot of Biblical promises that give ironclad promises to God’s children.
- [Pull the sermon on the promises of God. Maybe list the verses in the outline.]
3. JACOB SHOWED HOW GOD WORKS IN UNEXPECTED WAYS.
- Genesis 48:12-20.
- As happens so many other places in the Scripture, God works in ways that fly in the face of convention. Just to cite places in Genesis where the younger receives the blessing instead of the older (as dictated by convention): God chose Abel, not Cain; Isaac, not Ishmael; Jacob, not Esau; Joseph, not Reuben; and now Ephraim, not Manasseh.
- We similar ideas in the New Testament as well, as the Kingdom of God is not like the world around it.
- For instance, we talk about how grace reverses things. Take, for instance, the story in Luke 7:36-50.
- For instance, consider how Jesus chose disciples that no other rabbi of that day would have chosen (Luke 6:12-16).
- For instance, look at how Jesus stood in opposition to the ruling authorities (religious and political) of the day.
- Most importantly, though, is simply the way that God sees people differently and sees value in people that the world would toss aside.
- When you add all that up, it equals a God who moves in ways that are unexpected.
- I think two implications are worth mentioning here:
a. We might be surprised by who God uses powerfully.
- It might not be those who we look to as impressive from a worldly viewpoint.
b. We might be surprised by the directions God leads our lives.
- It might not be in the direction that everyone else is going – in fact, it almost certainly will not be!
