The Power Of A Father’s Blessing Series

- 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”).