The Blessing

You know, I live in a society where we're always concerned about, and we should be, the protection of our children. I can remember childproofing our home. You go around and try to make sure that there's things they can't reach. When the grandkids come, because we're to the age now, it's like, eh, you know, they hit themselves alert. No, not that bad. You're not quite as protective as you get older. You realize, hey, this is a learning process.

You take away the stuff that could really hurt them, and then you say, don't touch that, and if you touch that, ooh, that hurt it. So, it's a learning process. When we childproof our homes, you know, people will get their children immunized. We have protective from all diseases.

It's gotten to the place where the protection of children has become an obsession. Where, you know, there's, in California, they can't even play dodgeball at school. I played dodgeball as a kid. I never saw anyone permanently injured by dodgeball. I remember having welts on me, but, you know, they went away. Because we're afraid they'll get hurt, or we're afraid of the fragile emotional state of children.

And yet, with all this concept of protection, the average child in our country is at spiritual and emotional risk all the time, especially spiritual risk. The whole value system in this country is wrong.

And so what children are being taught is not what God wants them to know. And so emotionally, we also are producing children that are very emotionally messed up. It's amazing how test after test show that the United States, the average child in the United States math skills is dropping until we're one of the lowest, in terms of math skills in the entire developed world. And yet, if you ask the average child in the United States, they believe that they're the best. So they feel very good about themselves, but they can't produce. The end result of that will be emotional collapse. But you actually can't produce, but I'm the best.

No, you're not. So we have... how many children do we have? They have obesity problems in the United States. But part of that is too, not only because of the food, junk food they eat, but how they spend their time, which is video games, you know, five, six, 10 hours a day on video games. And you say, well, that's not true.

I've... yeah, there are times where there are young kids spending that much time a day on a video. So we know that our children are children. You know, we're worried about their physical risks.

We also have to be concerned about their emotional risks and even more importantly, their spiritual risks. You know, let's look at Matthew 19, because this is what our tradition is, what we do. I think it's our tradition, you know, as a minister, I bless children all the time. People will call me that aren't even in the church. So you bless my child. Sure. But traditionally, we do it a couple weeks after the feast with everybody together. But that doesn't mean that's the only time we do it.

We do it. Sometimes someone will have a child say, I don't want to wait six months. They have my child blessed. You can bless my child now. Sure. Okay. And this is a tradition, but it's based on this Scripture. Matthew 19 verse 13. Then little children were brought to him, brought to Jesus Christ, that he might put his hands on them and pray, but his disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, let the little children come to thee and do not forbid them.

For as such is the kingdom of heaven, and he laid his hands on them and departed from there. Now the song that we sang, the last song here, this morning at the beginning of services, or actually it was the one in between, was it, Suffer the Little Children. It was based on this passage. Let them come to me so I may lay hands on them. It's very interesting that not only did he pronounce a blessing, he laid hands on them. The laying out of hands is a foundational doctrine of the church, according to Hebrews chapter 6.

Why did he lay hands on them? What was the purpose of this blessing? It just says he prayed for them. He would have prayed for God's blessing. It's important that this is God's blessing. He prayed for God's blessing on those children. A blessing, you look at biblical times, a blessing is a very important thing.

May God bless you. When people would say that, that really had a meeting. Because they were asking God to give you a gift. A blessing is a gift. Now, we look at the blessing of the Levitical priesthood. It's in Numbers. That they were to get up on a regular basis and bless the people. It is a blessing from God. They were to pronounce this blessing. Today we're going to look at a blessing that God wants to give all of us. I also want to tie it into why Jesus did this and a blessing that we can give to our children, our grandchildren.

There's a blessing we can give. First of all, we need to understand a blessing that God has given to us. He's already given it to us. How this blessing should change the way we look at things. I want to go look, first of all, the Old Testament at the blessings God gave to Abraham. Because God told Abraham, I am going to bless you. He made a covenant with him. And he said these blessings will also go on to your descendants.

So this blessing must be passed on. Now, if you look through, you read the book of Genesis, you will see that every time the descendants of Abraham got to a place where they were going to die, they brought in their children and they blessed them. It was a formal blessing. We are now passing on to you a blessing that God gave to me, or our forefathers. So God gave it to them, and they were to formally pass it on throughout their descendants. Now, we also know the story of Jacob and Esau. What we have is Isaac's children, and Jacob and Esau are fighting over the blessing.

Jacob wants it. Esau has it. But Esau doesn't really care. And remember, he sells it to him for a bowl of soup. Oh, it's God's purpose all along. He said, you know, Jacob's the one I'm going to be passing this blessing on, because Esau doesn't mean anything to him. To Jacob, this blessing meant something, because it was a blessing from God. But he also realized this blessing was passed on formally by his father. And so, he, of course, Rebecca and him sort of get together, and they decide what they're going to do is trick Isaac in giving him the blessing, which wasn't right. It's not what God intended, because God was going to give it to him anyways. But you'll see in Jacob this propensity to try to work things out to his advantage.

But it's not always real honest. Okay? So, let's pick up the story in Genesis 27.

So, we have a blessing. God gives to Abraham, and Abraham gives to Isaac. He passes it on, and now Isaac's going to give it to his son. So, this is going to go to, usually to the oldest son, although Abraham didn't give it to his oldest son. His oldest son was this view.

And here we find here, it didn't go to his oldest son either.

It passed on to the son that God had chosen. Genesis 27, 26.

Then his father Isaac said to him, now remember, this is when he comes in, he puts on some skins over, animal skins over his arms, so he feels hairy. He's always been a hairy guy, okay? He smells like him. He cooks food like him. He comes in, he probably does something with his voice, you know, a little bit, coughs a lot or something. But he comes in and he actually tricks because Isaac is blind.

So he says, then his father Isaac said to him, come here now and kiss me, my son. He came here and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his clothing, and blessed him and said, surely the smell of my son is like the smell of the field which the Lord has blessed. Therefore, may God give you of the dew of the heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you, and nations bow down to you, be master over your brethren, and let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed is everyone who curses you, and blessed be those who bless you.

Now, this blessing wasn't something he could make up. Remember, this is the blessing God gave to Abraham, passed on to Isaac, and Isaac now passes it on. And you will see, Jake can pass it on with Ephraim on it. So it's going to be passed on.

So, he says, cursed is everyone who does it now bow down to you.

Now, Esau comes in later. Jacob runs away.

I've got to get out of here, because when Esau finds out, he's going to probably kill me.

And so, what happens, verse 30? Then it happened, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, then Esau, his brother, came in from the hunting. He made savory food, as it says in verse 31. Verse 32. Oh, no, that's good. Read verse 31. He brought the savory food, brought it to his father, and said to his father, Let my father arise, eat of his sons game, and your soul bless me.

There's the I need the blessing. Jacob will do anything to get this blessing, because it came from God. But it came to his father.

There's two things we're looking at here. We're looking at a blessing from God, and we're looking at a family blessing. This is passed on inside this family. And father, now you will give me the blessing. These are children. These are grown men who desperately need this blessing. They want this blessing.

And his father, Isaac, said to him, Who are you? He said, I am your son, your firstborn. Esau. And Isaac trembled exceedingly and said, Who? Well, where is the one who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate of it. Before you came, and I have blessed him. And indeed, he shall be blessed. I've already passed it on. God only says I can give it to one of the sons. I've already given it. And Esau heard the words of his father. He cried with an exceeding, a great and bitter cry, and said to his father, Bless me, even be also, O my father.

You know, some of the Arab peoples are the descendants of Esau. The angst you see in them, is the same angst. Bless me, God. Why is it that the Jews have the blessing? Why?

Bless me, God. They're just desperate. Bless me, God. All these thousands of years later, there's still people who agonize with this. This need for this blessing from God that comes to the family. Verse 35, but he said your brother came with deceit and taken your blessing.

And so we see that he did get a blessing. Verse 38, and I think his father...

Verse 36, let's read this. Esau said to his father, Have you only one blessing, my father? Bless me, even be also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and he wept. This grown man breaks down. Absolutely just breaks down. I've missed my blessing.

My father can't bless me. God won't bless me the same way that he would have.

Then I think his father answered and said to him, Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth and the dew of the heaven above, but your sword shall... by your sword you shall live. You shall serve your brother. They shall come to pass when you become restless, that you will break his yoke from your neck. There's going to be conflict between you and Jacob generation after generation after generation. And there still is today. There's conflict between these people. And all has to do with this blessing. The receiving of a blessing. Now, obviously, the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant, you know, you and I can't bless our sons and say, Calvin, let me lay hands on you and give you this Abrahamic covenant. But you and I are recipients of the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. Right? We'll talk about it a little bit more in a minute. Therefore, our children can become recipients of the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.

And we'll talk, like I said, in a minute we're going to talk about that even more. John Smalley and John Trent, or Gary Smalley and John Trent, you may have heard about the radio. They talk a lot about marriage and marriage values from a biblical viewpoint. But they've written some good interesting books over the last 30 years or so. One was simply called The Blessing.

Now, what's interesting is the book goes through what happens when people receive a family blessing. We're talking about two blessings here. A family blessing and a blessing from God. Now, actually, a family blessing is from God, too. Because the family is something that's commanded by God. That's why gay marriage, homosexual marriage, will bring a curse on this nation that's almost inconceivable. Because the blessing from God is marriage. And marriage is supposed to pass on a blessing to each new generation. And when that's not there, that becomes a curse. And the Bible compares blessings and cursings in a lot of places. So you have to realize the magnitude of the concept of homosexual marriage. What it's going to do.

But these two authors, they looked at this blessing here that's passed on to the patriarchs, and it came up with five very meaningful things that happened here to the person who's receiving the blessing. They're very interesting. One is meaningful touch. It was passed on by a label of his. There's touch involved. And the touch is coming from their father, the one person they respect the most in that patriarchal system. Because it was God who talked to the father of the household. And it was God who used him to pass on the blessing.

So they received touch. When that father laid hands on Jacob, it was an overwhelming experience. And Esau said, can't you touch me too? Can't you give me something else? Two was a spoken message. This blessing was verbalized.

It was spoken out loud. Two, the attaching of high value. You are receiving a blessing from God. This is important. You are receiving a gift from God.

For this blessing pictured an incredible future. You, your grand, your kids, your grandkids, it's going to go on for generation after generation. There's a future here that goes beyond your lifetime that God is now carrying out through you.

On a purpose, my life is going to affect people 10 generations, 100 generations from now. Kids are remaining alive, doesn't they? At five, there was an active commitment to carrying out this blessing. In other words, Abraham taught his children.

Isaac was trained to receive the blessing. Isaac trained his sons to receive the blessing. Each parent had to train their sons, and of course, now we're going to expand this out beyond just the son here, to receive the blessing. Remember, these are grown men here. Jacob fled. He was willing to leave his family and hide and leave his life away from his family just to receive the blessing. Esau was willing to kill him over it because he took my blessing. He took my gift from God. Now, Esau eventually realized, no, he didn't. I gave it up. He didn't kill Jacob.

But you can imagine what he felt like at the time as we read of the emotion, from that man went through. Now, how can we use this blessing as a model for blessing our children?

A family blessing. So, I'm taking two things and comparing them here. We're going to go back and forth between the two. We have a spiritual blessing that comes through Abrahamic covenant.

The you and I receive blessings from. And we have a family blessing. What does this blessing, the way this was passed on teach us? Well, what did you think about something?

For many of you, did you receive meaningful touch as a child? Did you hear words of encouragement? Were you told you had an important future? That God wanted something in your life?

Most of us didn't. Some of us did, to various degrees, right? Did you receive that kind of family blessing? People who do receive that kind of family blessing approach life differently than those who don't. And most people do not. Most people do not receive a family blessing in the way that we see that this was passed on here.

Maybe you lived in a home where you were simply told you were worthless. The only meaningful touch you had was when somebody hit you. Or maybe nobody ever showed you affection at all.

Maybe there was no teaching about God. No understanding of what God would do in your life.

No future. You're stupid. You don't have a future. Now, you tell a child they're stupid long enough you know what they become? Stupid. It doesn't matter how smart they are. Children will become what we tell them they will become.

So many of you look back and say, well, I didn't get much of a family blessing.

So how in the world do I make sense out of this? You know, when you do receive a family blessing, a number of things happen. First of all, people who really receive a family blessing try to create a family. They have lower divorce rates. They tend to really try to raise their children with certain standards. They tend to have a different value system.

They tend to try to pass on the family blessing. So a family blessing also becomes generational.

It becomes generational. It tends to get passed on from generation to generation.

But what do you do if you never received a family blessing? Which most people don't.

What do you do? How do you say, well, how do I relate to this? And how do I relate this to my children or my grandchildren? Or, well, my children are grown. I don't have a blessing to give them anymore. Actually, you do. I want you to remember Jacob and Esau are grown men. They're not teenage boys. These are grown men saying, Father, bless me. The blessing we're looking at today, anyways, has to do with God. So now we go back to, we're looking at two different blessings. I will show you how they connect together inside the church. We have a family blessing that you and I can pass on. But it can't tie back into this Abrahamic blessing also. What is the heart and core of the Abrahamic covenant? Genesis 12.

So I'm going to show you how Abraham laid his hands on Isaac, and Isaac laid his hands on Jacob.

Has to do with what you have received from God. Genesis 12. So you're with me so far? Okay, all together. Like I said, I'm putting two things together, but I want to show you how they fit together and how this can become practical.

Verse 1. Now the Lord had said to Abraham, Get out of your country from your kindred, from your father's house to a land that I will show you. Now I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. Well, this is what real blessing is. I'm going to make you great. Your descendants will be great. You'll make them a great nation. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now I'm not going to go through all the scriptures that you have to put together to do this, but how was Abraham going to bless all the families? Not his family, all the families.

How was that going to happen? Anybody know?

Christ. He was going, it was through his family that the Messiah was going to come. And now there's other scriptures we can put together to show that that is part of the promise. Through his family, I send the one who saves mankind, and everybody gets blessed. You have already received enormous blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, because a descendant of Abraham, who is also God, has come and died and was resurrected for you.

The laying on of hands of these people has reached out across thousands of years.

And affected your life. The promise you made here is being carried out in your life. Understand that. You are a recipient of the blessing.

Now that blessing, that blessing, should affect all other blessings.

You have been a recipient of the Abrahamic blessing, the Abrahamic covenant. Now, people turn to me and say, well, I received that because the modern descendants of Abraham have great nations.

That's actually very much secondary. That's not the primary blessing you receive. Because in all nations, in other words, the Abrahamic blessing goes to people no matter where they are, no matter what their background, no matter what their genetic makeup, no matter what their race all over the world. That's the promise. All peoples, everybody, can receive this blessing. You have already received it. We just came back from the Feast of Tabernacles and celebrate what? The reign of Jesus Christ on this earth for a thousand years. That's a blessing for the whole world. We know about that blessing. Why do you know about that blessing? Because you've received it.

God gave you the blessing. And we're looking forward to further blessings. We're looking forward to that time, which is a further blessing. So you've already received this incredible family blessing. This family blessing allows you to become, what? A child in the family of God.

Ah, it is a family blessing. And you don't have to... In fact, we will go there. But Paul argues we really don't get this if our emphasis is on the physical descendants of Abraham. Because he said, everybody who receives the blessing of Jesus Christ is a descendant of Abraham.

Everybody! Because this blessing is everybody!

And so here we are, you and I, are blessed... are received the blessing already. And if you receive God's Spirit, someone laid hands on you, didn't they?

But if you receive God's Spirit, someone laid hands on you. Why? The blessing is being passed on.

Now we begin to understand why it's so incredible that Jesus picked up these children and laid hands on them.

He's passing on a blessing. He's passing on a blessing that comes up... it comes from God.

God wants each of us to be able to come to Him as a Father. Now we're working on these public appearance campaigns. And one of the things we were trying to figure out... how do we explain to people that when God says, you're my children, He literally needs that. As Steve Myers came up with a great way to explain it, he said, you ever notice on the back of a van, you'll see the little stick figures? Dad, mom, you know, and each kid, and each kid has one has a soccer ball, and one, you know, and he showed that, and at the end there's a dog. Right?

And he said, now, if God did that, what would you have? Well, you'd have a stick figure of the Father and a stick figure of Jesus Christ, and they need to have all these little stick figures. And they look just like them. They just be smaller.

And then you might have a dog. The dog isn't the point. We're not God's pets. The point is, we're just like you were just smaller.

There's the perfect explanation. We're just smaller. That's our potential.

That's the blessing. It's a family blessing.

And it goes clear back to Genesis 12. All nations, all people, will be blessed.

So, you say, well, but my parents didn't. No, stop a minute. I don't care if you had the perfect parents. The perfect parents gave you a family blessing. They didn't give you the blessing we're talking about here. This blessing is from God. It's a family blessing, but it's even more important than the family blessing you receive if you have a come from a good family.

How do we, as parents, grandparents, help our children understand God's blessing?

And you and I can give a blessing to our children. I see people give their children huge blessings of an inheritance. Although I was reading a book recently that said that, statistically, the amount of people who receive wealth through an inheritance, who waste that wealth, is enormous. The people who earned it value it. The people who just got it through inheritance, so many of them don't actually value it. They just tend to waste it. But we can give our children a huge inheritance of wealth. The Bible says you should give your children an inheritance. We can give them an inheritance of character. We can give them an inheritance of being loved. You know what? They will be better people. But whatever you and I give our children as parents, cannot give them eternal life. We keep. That blessing comes from God. Now, we can help prepare our children for that. You see what I mean? We can help prepare them for that blessing. We can give them the blessing. And in preparing them, we're passing on the blessing. Now, how do we incorporate that into child work? Let's go back and look at the five things that Mr. Smalley and Mr. Trent were able to say. Look, these are five things that in conjunction with this passing on of this patriarchal blessing was meaningful to the person who was receiving it. And with it, we have really a scriptural understanding of, okay, I can pass a blessing on to my child and prepare them for God's blessing by using the same things. One is meaningful touch.

Now, different children need a different amount of affection, right?

When my son was little, you couldn't hug him enough. I had a daughter that, when she wanted to be hugged, was fine, but she didn't. She would do this. And I couldn't pick her up and put her in my lap much. I had to wait for her to come up and get in my lap. I have a granddaughter same way. When nobody else is around, she crawls up in my lap. I just sit there sucking her thumb looking at me. When everybody else is around, it's don't touch me. But meaningful touch is important to every child at some level.

Okay. By having that kind of relationship with the child, I can help prepare them to respond to God as Father. See? So as Father or Mother, doing this is very important. Two, a spoken message. We need to verbally encourage our children about God's involvement in their lives.

We need to verbally encourage—here's what we do sometimes. We can tell them, you're bad, you're bad, you're bad, you're bad, until they're so discouraged they give up. At some point, we have to say, but God is involved in your life. God has a purpose for you. And I must verbalize that. If you say, oh, they know it, no, they don't.

No, they don't. Well, they know I love them. No, they may or may not. It depends on how intuitive they are. Usually, they don't. They're looking for some demonstration. We have to verbally tell them. Now, if you say, well, I'll verbally tell them I love them, but then now you may be producing a good family blessing. But remember, this goes beyond family blessing. We're trying to prepare them for the blessing of Abraham, which is the Messiah. And that means we have to tell them God has a purpose for you. God wants to forgive you. God wants to work with you. God wants to do something with your life. Three, attaching high value.

We need... There's a real pitfall. People can put such high value with your children that the children become the center of their lives. You want to produce selfish children? Make them the center of your life. Make God the center of your life, and you'll have a different outcome. So what we tell our children is, no, you're not the center of the universe, but you have high value, because God gave you to me as a gift. You are God's gift to me. You're God's blessing. But how many people grow up and believe that somehow they weren't a blessing? Their parents never passed that on. You weren't a blessing to me. You were God's blessing to me. You were God's blessing to me. So God must have a purpose for you. So we attach high value, not by saying, if you get in the best school, if you're the fastest runner, all the things people say, that's what makes this kid have high value. No. If you're the fastest runner, what about the 7 billion other people that don't run that fast? Does that mean they don't have value? It's great that a person can run that fast. We honor them for it. We say, well, that's amazing.

But it doesn't make the difference inside. It doesn't change who they are. So we keep looking for these ways to give value to children that many times aren't really valuable. I think going to a best school can have some value. Maybe in your career, a lot of times, it doesn't have any value at all. 80% of the people who go to best schools drop out anyways.

All you have to look at is, do you have value because God gave you to me as a gift? 3. Picturing a special future. Remember, this isn't the same as the strange sort of self-esteem movement. Children have to feel good about themselves, but where does that come from? Oh, I get a participation trophy. Oh, I just feel good about myself. It doesn't matter. I did something bad. Oh, you can't scold me because it makes me feel bad about myself.

But you should feel bad about yourself sometimes.

That's right. We should feel bad about ourselves sometimes. The whole essence of repentance. And when we go before God, we should always feel, I'm really not worthy to be here unless you say I am. Now, this is the future. The future comes from where? It comes from God. God says you're mine. God says you're my child. God says I'll do something with your life. God says, come to me. Christ said, come to me and I'll carry your burdens for you. Right? So we have to, that's one thing that Feast of Tabernacles does.

One thing I learned as a child from keeping the holy days, God's really got something going on here.

I learned that as a child. I know children can learn that. Seven, eight, nine, ten years old.

Yeah, there's something going on here. There's a future. And I want to be part of it.

That an active commitment to see the blessings of the past. You know what that means? You and I, as parents, have to actively try to bring about that blessing in their lives. And what we do as parents sometimes is we try to actively bring about, well, I don't want them to have any discomfort. Life has lots of discomfort. In fact, as a parent, you should be bringing some discomfort to them once in a while. You're going to do your own work. You're going to sit there and get done.

Well, that's uncomfortable. You're hurting myself to stay. No, that's what you must do because if you don't, you'll never hold a job when you get out of school.

Our job sometimes is to bring discomfort. So if we try to protect them from all discomfort, it's not going to work out well because now we know what the blessing is. We have to bring about a blessing in their lives so that they are functional human beings and the best we can prepare them to receive the blessing God wants to give them. You can't make your child receive God's blessing. You can't. I can't. I can't make my children receive God's blessing. I can only prepare them, but then they make their decisions. But we are to prepare them. As we prepare them for that, we must teach them God's way. And as we teach them God's way, we also need to pray for them.

You say, oh, I've lost my kids. They, you know, one of them is in jail. Then pray for your child. Pray for them.

You'll never know what God may allow you to bring a blessing to them.

You know, this means we really have to teach them about consequences of good and evil. If we're going to teach them about the blessing, we also have to teach them about cursings. We have to teach them what it's like to devalue the blessing that God has given to them. It's very interesting. If you go to Genesis 49, we won't turn there. But when the blessing is passed on to the twelve sons, he says, you're going to get this blessing and you're going to get this blessing and you're going to get this blessing and this is what your descendants will get. But also in there, you'll see, and this is going to happen and you're going to get this curse and this... In other words, bad things were going to happen in the descendants of those sons because they were devaluating the blessing. They weren't living by the blessing. And so there was going to be curses involved in this blessing, too. Eventually, the entire nation of Israel was destroyed.

There was a curse from God. But the blessing still came about. The primary would be what? Two thousand years ago, there were a whole bunch of Jews living in Israel, the land we call Israel today, Judea. Why were they there? Because they were God's people. What was their purpose? To be there so the Messiah could come.

Because that was the promise. All peoples will be blessed when He comes. So they'll be there. So they'll be there. When you look at what God had to do to get those people there at that time, He had to mess up the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire. He had to do all kinds of things to get them there. But they were there. Because Genesis 12 says they would be there. Not specifically. But if you take Genesis... We'll do this sometime. We'll go through Genesis 12 and we'll put together all the prophecies that tie into the Messiah.

And how that was fulfillment of that partial of those promises.

And you're the recipient of that blessing.

There's a very interesting story in 1 Samuel 2. Let's go there. 1 Samuel 2 Verse 12.

Eli was the high priest at the time in Israel. Now the sons of Eli were corrupt. They did not know the Lord. The priest customed with the people was, when anybody had offered a sacrifice, the priest-servant would come with a three-pronged fleshhook in his hand while the meat was boiling. Or he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. And the priest would take it for himself so the fleshhook brought up, so they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites. Now in other words, they were stealing the people's offering The sermon will be about an hour. Follow along. We'll be moving fast. We'll be moving fast.

The sermon will be about an hour. We'll be moving fast. We'll be moving fast. We'll be moving fast.

The sermon will be about an hour. We'll be moving fast. We'll be moving fast. We'll be moving fast.

They were so far gone, God said, I'm going to kill you. But they did not heed. Now the problem here is not just them. It is Eli as the parent. Eli should have removed them from big priests. But he could not. Why could he not do it? Look at verse 30. God comes to him, to Eli and says, I'm going to punish you and your descendants. See, family blessings get passed on. They're going to be called to the church. They're going to be called to the church. Verse 30. God comes to him, to Eli and says, I'm going to punish you and your descendants. See, family blessings get passed on. Family cursings get passed on.

You know, if you have an alcoholic in a family, unless something happens to stop that, guess what happens to the next generation? Alcoholism becomes part of the family. The next generation. Alcoholism becomes... See, the curse gets carried on unless something stops it. What does it say with the blessing? The blessing is passed on. Here, he said, the blessing you received to be my priest with your sons now will no longer happen.

And this has generational effects, and you can read about what he says to him. But verse 30. Therefore, the Lord, God of Israel, says, I shall have deed that your house and the house of your father would walk before me forever. But now the Lord says, Far be it for me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. See, his problem was... Eli's problem was he honored his children more than he honored God. Now, we're not talking about six-year-olds. We're talking about grown people. But the point is, he honored his children more than he honored God. And God had given him a blessing. God had given him a gift. He didn't earn being the high priest. He was given to him. His sons were given a gift. And they devalued that gift. As a parent, that means we need to be aware that we don't devalue our own children by honoring them more than God. Because we actually devalue our children when we do that. And it's not good for them.

Now, you might be saying, okay, my children are all grown. I'm a single parent. I received the blessing of Abraham through Christ. But, you know, I don't have anybody left to pass on all of them. Actually, you do. Well, wait a minute. I never got married. I never had any children. I have no one to pass that blessing. Well, you don't have a family blessing in the way that some might have children. But the family blessing that comes from being part of the family of God, you do. Look at 1 John 3. 1 John 3.

1 John 3. 1. Behold, while banner of love, the Father has bestowed on us. Your Father has given you a blessing. Your Father has prepared a future for you. Your Father has verbalized it. You see, He's giving you the blessing. Has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. Therefore, the world does not know us, because it does not know Him. Beloved, now, now we are children of God. And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. For we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is. This is the blessing. The blessing is now you have a relationship with God as His child, and in the future, we don't know exactly what it means, but we will be like Him. That's what John says. That is the blessing you've received. You've been brought into a family, and the family blessing is this. What's interesting is, this is the gospel. This is part of the gospel. You and I are to pass this blessing on to whoever will listen.

We live this, and we're to pass it on to whoever will listen. God will change your life. God will forgive you. There is a better way than what you're living. There's a reason why your Christianity doesn't work. There's a reason why this is such a struggle in life. Yes, even though you didn't receive a family blessing, you can receive a greater family blessing. That's all part of the gospel-ness. That's all part of what we're to tell people. That's all part of what we're supposed to share. It's interesting, as Jesus, there was a point in his life where he said, This is my mother, these are my brothers, my sisters. He said, Everybody who follows me is my brother and my sister.

That's a family relationship. That's a blessing. That's a blessing. We here have each other as part of a blessing. When we can't get along, or we get on each other's nerves, or whatever, think about life without each other. We are part of the blessing. You are part of the blessing. Be with each other. Be together as part of the blessing.

That's what God has given us.

And we can't share that. That means you can share that with every new person that walks through that door, and you can share it with every child in this room. I don't care who you are. You can share that blessing. You can talk to them. You can tell that God has a future for them. You can pat them on the head.

I did that one time. Made a mistake. I said, The Feast of Tabernacles and all these little kids are just saying, There must have been 50 or 60 kids in this choir, and they're coming off, and I'm standing here waiting to go up and get the sermon. The first one that went by, I pat him on the head. And the second one stopped. So I pat her on the head. I had to pat every one of them on the head. Everyone walked up. Pat, oh, I said, Good job. They smiled and walked off. The next one walked up and said, I pat on the head. I had to pat everybody waiting for the sermon to start. I just pat them on the head. Let's keep moving, kids. But I understand what's going on. Meaningful touch and affirmation. It's important you tell me I do good. Thank you very much. They're receiving this. They're receiving a blessing. And so I stood there and blessed every one of them. I figured at that moment that was just as important as anything I had to say. They knew who I was. I was just the man that touched them and thanked them.

We can do that. And children, you can receive a blessing. Instead of running around and knocking all of us old people down. Listen to us. We really want to share this blessing. We really do. We want to share it with you. I don't care if you're two years old. If you're, you know, 17 years old, we would share it with you. Because the blessing was given to us. So now let's turn to Luke, Chapter 18.

Verse 15. This is Luke's account of what we read at the beginning of the sermon in Matthew.

We do the laying on its hands, following this example. We're not passing on the Abrahamic blessing. But we are asking God to bless that child. To do something in the life of that child. Physical protection, but also spiritual protection.