Blessings

Since our son moved in the area, we have our two granddaughters that we haven't spent a lot of time with, but now they're with us all the time. They want to come visit Meemaw, especially. Pee-Paul's okay, but Meemaw, that's the one they want to be with. And, you know, with the other children in Kelly's family, they're not there as often, but when they're not there, I get used to not being asked 80 questions an hour.

And now it's Pee-Paul, why this? What's this? I mean, constantly. And the three-year-olds, even more, inquisitive about everything. So we've been spending time with them. But we also have to make sure that we're protecting them all the time. You know, someone gave me a Civil War cannonball one time. And the three-year-old picked it up and said, what's that? And I said, it's a cannonball. If you drop that on your foot, you will break your foot. Oh, now she's just standing there with her eyes big. I said, you want me to help you put it back? No, I'll put it back.

And she goes and puts it back, you know, because she puts it back very carefully because, you know, it's heavy. And so we're always trying to protect them. No, you shouldn't do that. Don't do that. Can I touch this? Nah, you better not. Can I pick this up? No, put that back down. It's glass. If you drop it and it breaks, you'll get cut. And you're only three. That's a little big for you to care. Okay. I mean, she does everything I say, but there's child-proofing going on all the time.

We want to protect them. Any good parent wants to protect their children. But in our society today, there's a threat to children that's a lot worse than the physical threats. I mean, and there's a lot of physical threats, right? You don't want your child to be sick, but there's a greater threat to children. And it's to who they are spiritually and to who they are emotionally. We live in a society that has moved into a whole new way of thinking. And it's just, it's getting worse all the time. Now, it's a little disconcerting how quickly this new way of thinking, although it's been going on for years, it's actually for decades.

It started back in the sixties. So it's two generations, and especially through the educational system. And in this new way of thinking, we've replaced character with personality, worked with entertainment, and instead of self-control and morality and responsibility, we've replaced it with selfishness, which is sort of branded as self-esteem. But having self-worth and being selfish aren't the same things. And yet selfishness is actually taught as a value. Jesus did something that seems quite strange to us. We do it every year. This year, instead of doing it the second week after the feast, we'll be doing it on November the fifth, unless there's someone here that needs a baby blessed today.

We can do it today. We can do it as often as we have babies. That's no problem. But let's go to Matthew 19 and verse 13. Then little children were brought to him that he might put his hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. Now, they weren't rebuking them because they were asking for a blessing on their children.

This was a common thing they did in that environment. The blessing of children by laying hands on them and asking for a prayer was very common. It's because they thought Jesus was too important to do this. But Jesus said, Let the little children come to me, 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, laying hands on them involved in the pronouncement of a blessing.

Now, this blessing came from God. Once again, I don't think too many of us had our families lay hands on us and give us a blessing when we were young. And yet, that would have been common in that environment. Blessings were passed on to children, and the concept that those blessings came from God was central to their environment.

The whole Jewish world believed that God had given a blessing to Abraham, and that blessing was passed on through the families throughout history. Let's look at that blessing. Let's go to Genesis 27. We're talking about a blessing that children can receive in their family life, and a blessing that many of us did not get, that is still desired. Every human being is created with a need for a blessing.

Genesis 27. You know the story here. The blessing was going to be given to... ...from Isaac. It had gone from Abraham to Isaac, and it was going to be gone from Isaac to one of his two sons. He had more than two sons. But understand this blessing from God. Whichever son received it, he was a blessing to the entire tribe. He became the leader of the tribe. And God worked through him in taking care of the tribe. This was a huge blessing. And it was a blessing given to Abraham that he said had generational promises. In fact, it had promises to the entire world. Can you imagine your whole life being told, someday you will receive the blessing, ever since you're young. It's taught in the family. The blessing will be given to you. And when you receive that blessing through you and one of your sons, that blessing from God is going to be passed on from generation to generation until it affects the whole world. That'd be quite a... spending your whole life waiting for that.

What we see in the Middle East today, they're fighting over that blessing.

Ishmael thought it was going to come to him. And then one day he was told, I made a mistake. You don't get it. I read something interesting this week. They did some genetic studies of people in Gaza and in the West Bank. And they were shocked. Were they related to the Jews? Of course they are.

These are all kinds of tribes from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, but they also had different mothers. They had different mothers. They're different tribes, but they're all related to Abraham. And every son and grandson, wherever they came from, from Ishmael, Esau, doesn't matter. They came from Lot's family. Moab, Ammon. So we're looking at the people of modern-day Jordan, the descendants of Lot. In Qatar, they claim they're the descendants of Qatora, Abraham and Qatora, which was one of his wives after Saturday. It's possible they are.

All these guys, all these people, and thousands of years later, these women, these men, these children are waiting for a blessing God was supposed to give to them. But only one of the sons got it, and it passed on through his family. This is how important this blessing was. They will fight each other until Christ comes back, because that blessing from God is supposed to be mine.

And they'll say that. They'll say that. No. If you talk to Arabs, our cousins over there, talk about the Israelis. Our cousins, according to the Qur'an, stole the blessing.

That blessing was supposed to give to us through Ishmael, and they stole it. And of course, you get to Jacob. It appears he did steal it, but of course he didn't. You know the story. Jacob wanted the blessing. God had actually chosen Jacob instead of Esau, even though Esau was the oldest, because Esau had some issues. And he was going to work through Jacob. And Esau sold him the blessing, but then later expected to show up and receive it. That shows you the character problems that Esau had. I sold you the blessing to get what I wanted, but I'm going to keep it. I would just lie into you.

So we know what happens. Let's pick it up in verse 26.

So Jacob comes in. Isaac is blind.

And so Jacob and his mother connive to trick him. He puts on clothing so he smells like Esau. He tries to do something with his voice. He brings in the type of food that Esau brought to his dad, who he really liked. So they bring in the food that Esau would make for him. Then his father, Isaac, said to him, Come near now and kiss me, my son. And he came near and kissed him and smelled him, and the smell of his clothing, and blessed him, and said, Surely the smell of my son is like the smell of a field, which the Lord has blessed. Therefore may God give you of the dew of the heaven, of the fatness of the earth, the plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you, and nations bow down to you, and be master over your brethren. And let your mother's sons bow down to you, and curse me everyone who curses you, and bless me those who bless you.

And he gets out and runs away, because he knows his brother is going to want to kill him, which says that's exactly what happened. So let's skip down to verse 30 here. Now it happened as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac as father, that Esau his brother came in from hunting. And he brought this food, and he brings it to him, and he says in verse 31, Let my father arise and eat of his son's game, that your soul may bless me. Now I want you to understand, these aren't eight-year-old boys. These are grown men.

These are men who their entire lives had wanted the blessing. They lived for the blessing that was supposed to come from their father to them, because it came from God.

And he says, How come now to receive my blessing is the firstborn. Verse 33, then Isaac trembled, because he said, Who are you? And he says, Well, I'm Esau, your son. And he says, He trembled exceedingly and said, Who? Where is the one who hunted game and brought it to me? I've already blessed him. Verse 34, Then Esau heard the words of his father, and he cried, with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, And said to his father, Bless me also, my father. You can imagine, here's a grown man, crying out, tears running down his face, And saying, But I want a blessing, a blessing that you, only you can give to me. I want this blessing.

He says, at the end of verse 36, Have you not reserved a blessing for me? Verse 38, Esau said to his father, Have you only one blessing? Is it only one? My father, bless me, me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and he wept. That's, that verse 38 explains the entire Arab-Israeli wars that have been going on since basically that time.

O father, isn't there a blessing for me also? I want a blessing and it comes from my family, it comes from God into my family and to me.

And you can see the, I mean, you read that and you realize the absolute agony that Esau's experiencing. Because I now don't have a, now he did receive a blessing. Ishmael received a great blessing. Many nations would come from Ishmael and many Arab nations are actually from Ishmael, not all.

But he wanted that blessing, this family blessing. Now this was a special blessing because it's part of the Abrahamic covenant. But the truth is, every human being desires a blessing from their family. And God gives parents, all parents, a right to pass on a blessing, to give a blessing to their children. Of course, many of you are saying, well, I didn't get a blessing from my family. What am I supposed to do? We're going to talk about that. This need for a blessing that comes from God, not the Abrahamic covenant, although we are going to show how all of you are blessed, no matter who you are, because of the Abrahamic covenant. Because he said the whole world will be blessed. But how we can pass on a blessing to our children and our grandchildren, but you have to receive it first. He said, I didn't receive it. A number of years ago, a very interesting book, just called The Blessing, is written by Gary Smalley and John Trent. They were two professional counselors, family counselors, who approached marriage and family from the Bible viewpoint. I bought a couple of their books back years ago because it was just a fascinating understanding of certain aspects of marriage and family in the scripture. They looked at this Abrahamic covenant being passed on from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Joseph. They said there are some very important things that actually happened when they did this. First of all, there was meaningful touch. They actually laid hands on them. There was meaningful touch that when they kneeled down and they laid hands on them, and you see Isaac doing it with Ephraim and Manasseh, or Jacob doing it with Ephraim and Manasseh, laying hands on them. They laid hands. There was meaningful touch. There was a spoken message. They verbalized, you are a blessing. You're receiving a blessing from God. And so you are blessed. Now, the blessing is you receive favor from God. God's given you something. It's not like you earned it. God has given you something that you did not have. They attached high value to it. The parents giving it and the children receiving it. I mean, you think of grown men, a grown man, a tough man. I mean, Esau was known as a warrior and a hunter, and this man is crying, broken man. Where's my blessing from my father? Where is it? I can't receive it.

It also pictured a special future, the blessing involved, and God's going to do this in your life and your descendants. God's going to work with you. But then there was a fifth thing they came up with, which is very interesting, and you'll see it when you read all through Genesis. There was an active commitment then to fulfilling the blessing.

That's what Jacob did that Esau would not have done. Jacob lived his life trying to live by the blessing. Esau was too independent of a man to do so. So you see Jacob, which had to go through a lot of trials because of his character issues he had to deal with, but you see a man who always submitted to the blessing from God.

And it was passed on. So that's all part of the Abrahamic covenant. But it's interesting, meaningful touch, a spoken message. It's verbally given, attaching high value to the blessing itself and to the person receiving it. Picturing, describing a special future, an active commitment. Once you received it, you lived your life fulfilling that blessing. It was your destiny, and it was what you were dedicated to, to fulfilling the blessing that God had given to you. Okay. And your life. Did your family give you a lot of meaningful touch? Did you hear words of encouragement? Was there a special future that you were told that you could have? Did they bless you with the knowledge of the value that they had, that they put on you, that your parents put value on you? That you're special to them?

Did they paint a picture of a positive future?

Did they participate in the development of you receiving the blessing?

Did they teach you about how this blessing comes from God? Not the Abrahamic blessing. I'm talking about a family blessing. And to some degree, some of us received a family blessing. I know I did. I mean, nobody receives 100% family blessing, because the blessing has to come from God. But your parents reinforce what's happening. They give you a blessing.

I talk to people all the time who receive no blessing as a child. None. All the time.

They grew up in a home where, at the extreme, they had to endure constant verbal abuse, sometimes physical abuse, sometimes sexual abuse from their own parents. It wasn't a blessing. It was a cursing.

Maybe they just saw mom and dad fight all the time, shouting, angry, and they received a curse from that in their lives. Anxiety, self-loathing, all kinds of things that happened because of what they're witnessing in their parents. They never heard any words of encouragement. Instead, they were told they were dumb or constantly submitted to tirades of anger.

They believe, how can I have a special future when I'm stupid? Unfortunately, for many people, God was never in the picture. God is either not there, or God is only seen as some genie in a bottle who gives you things, if you're good, or God is seen as just this angry being that's just waiting for you to mess up so you can be smashed. That's the concept of God, and it came from their families. The purpose of marriage and for the family is for parents to pass a blessing on to their children that comes from God. Not the Abrahamic covenant, but a personal family blessing. That's the purpose of it. It's to teach them a blessing from God, that they are a blessing from God.

Parents have to see the children as, this is a blessing from God to me, I have to pass that on to them. They're to understand, oh, you're bad sometimes. We're not talking about never correcting them. If you love them, you'll correct them. If they are a blessing to you, you will try to teach them to fulfill the blessing. You understand? Just like the Abrahamic covenant, they had to teach those men, you now are totally committed to the blessing that has been given to you. And so they have to learn, yeah, I have to grow, I have to change, I'll be punished. Why? Because I'm being trained to be the blessing. The blessing that comes from God. Every child has a need to be blessed by their parents. It's innate in every one of us. When it's not there, we'll fulfill it all kinds of ways. You know the main reason for violent gangs?

No dads. Do you know what boys will do? If we can't measure ourselves by our dad, we'll measure ourselves by other guys. So when the guy says, go in there and rob that convenience store and you'll be one of us, here's a gun. He'll do it. He'll do it because he's got to measure up to somebody. He's going to measure up to what the gang says.

Blessings from dads help keep that from happening.

When a child receives a family blessing, they tend to have better relationships. I have to say, you can be the perfect parent and your child not fallen. Free will is part of this and you can never hijack free will. Even God doesn't take away our free will. So there isn't a magic formula to produce a perfect human being. It's not possible. Satan's there. There's no perfect parent. There's no perfect environment. So guess what? You could do your job and your child can still decide, nah, that's not what I want. So we're not there. Understand that. But we're talking about how if we receive that blessing from God, we pass that blessing on. You still may have an Esau.

But we are to equip them the best we can to receive the blessing. The more the family passes on the right kind of blessing, once again, not just, oh, you're wonderful, you're better, and everybody else, you're smarter. Now you just make a selfish person. They deal with the reality of who they are and they're blessed. And the blessing comes from God and you're giving it to them. The more apt they are to have better relationships with others, the more valued they'll put on human beings, and the easier it is for them to be responsive to God. I say easier because it's never easy for a human being to respond to God because we still want to hang on to our human nature. But it's easier. For those who don't receive the blessing, it's a higher possibility that they'll just have very shallow relationships, even with friendships. It's much higher that they'll get divorced. They'll be less committed to family. They'll be less committed to church. They'll be less committed to a community. And they will be less likely to value other human beings in the way that we're supposed to. Years ago at the Feast of Tabernacles, and I told this story a long time ago, and I'll tell it again, because it taught me such a lesson. As we waited to go up on the stage to give the sermon at the feast, there's thousands of people out there. There's like 50 kids in the choir. Little kid, you know, the children's choir. And I'm standing there, and they're all singing. Well, they start to come off, and I realize, well, I'm sort of trapped here. I can't get out there to the podium. So I'm standing here, and the first one comes by, and this little guy smiles at me, and I tap him on the head, and I said, he did a good job. He walked around, and the next one stopped.

Good job! What? Next one? All 50 of them stopped. All 50. They stopped and smiled. I was supposed to give them a blessing. I was supposed to tell them, you did a good job, and I had to touch them. Some of them just put out their hand to be shaken, you know, but everyone had to be touched, and everyone had to say, I really, you did great. Every single one. Now, they didn't know me, but hey, I get up and I talk to everybody, so I must be important. Give me a blessing! So, I was a little late getting up there to talk, as I had to touch and bless every child. That taught me something. How much we need that, and how much they need that. We need to be blessed by God. How did they learn that? Because there's human beings that bless them. That's how. How do we create a family blessing? How do we do that? Well, let's go back to the five points that in the book, The Blessing, they found in those, in the Abrahamic blessing that was passed on in that family for four generations. Meaningful touch. That doesn't mean you have to lay your hands on your child and pray to receive a blessing. It does mean that we have to, depending on their each personality, it's different. We have to give them meaningful touch in life that develops them in a certain way. Now, our three children were totally different. Our middle child, every once in a while she needed a hug. Every once in a while she needed a little comforting. The rest of the time it was, nah, I could do it myself. On everything. She didn't need as much touch as the other two. But she still needed touch. We need to touch children in ways, you know, the hug, the pat on the head, the smile, the give me a five. See that look on a child's face when you look at them and say, hey, it has great, give me a five. And they do! Because why? You're blessing them. You're telling them, I appreciate what you did. I think you'll be having fun.

They're all different. Izzy, our three-year-old granddaughter, she just comes and sits on my lap. And talks. That girl talks.

She's three. Now, the five-year-old, here's what she'll do with touch. She'll come up and say, hey, grandpa, I'm a mermaid and you're a shark, and then she'll run. Because I have to catch her and then hug her, you know. Because she doesn't like to come up and hug me. I have to hug her. So she has to make a game out of it. Ah, so I run around and I pretend to be a shark and I hug her and I pretend to eat her.

Izzy's the type. I pretended to be the shark with her one time. Picture her, I pretend to eat her and I sit her down and she said, eat me some more! Okay. But they need meaningful touch. How about a spoken message? It was a spoken blessing that they know we consider you a blessing to us. Because God gave you to us and you're a blessing to us. It's a spoken message. Proverbs 18, verse 21. See, in two weeks when we do the blessing of little children, of course we do it all the time. We do it, sometimes people say, you know, I just brought the baby home, come bless the baby. We do it at church, we do it in hospitals, we do it in people's homes. Sometimes families will say, come bless the child. You know, if we just do it at church because we all like it, because you know why? That child's a blessing to us. That's why. We understand that there's a blessing that God is giving that child and we like to be part of it. But it's, you know, Jesus did it on the street.

Maybe He's in somebody's home, but they were bringing children to Him. Proverbs 18, 21. There are many plans. No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's 19. Okay, 21 of 18. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Words of life come from God, and we need to be giving our children words of life all the time. Now that includes encouragement, it includes instruction, it includes, by the way, correction.

Because the words of God contains all those things. It includes love. But we have to be giving them words all the time. Hey, don't do that. Come here, let me tell you why.

Or as my five-year-old last night said, I want you to do this. No, I can't right now. Then I put you on a timeout. Sorry, girl. I can put you on a timeout. You can't do that to me. Okay. So words of correction is words of life. Let me tell you how life works. Let me tell you why this is going to end up badly if you keep doing this.

So it doesn't just mean saying nicety things all the time. It's teaching them. It's loving them. Words of death put down. Meanness. Manipulation. You know, when you manipulate your child, don't be surprised when they get older and they manipulate you. If you're mean to your child, don't be surprised when they get older if they're mean to you. We're giving them words of death, and they're going to use those words of death.

We're actually creating a curse. Words of life. Attaching high value. Once again, we're back to them. You're a gift from God. You're a gift from God.

You know, I was very little when my mother told me I was a gift from God, and I believed it. I didn't want it mint. I just believed it. And I've wondered, how did that impact my life? Did I remember it? I didn't even think we were in the church. I think we're Methodist at the time. You know, you're a gift from God. Oh, wow, that's pretty special. Now, son, you're in trouble. Oh, okay. In other words, it was like you're a gift from God. You're perfect. No. But you are a gift. You are a blessing to me from God, and I want to make you a blessing. You become a blessing to others, and you become a blessing to God.

Attaching high value. Picturing a special future.

You know, to have a special future, you have to work for it. For Jacob to have a special future, he had to go through a life of trials. Of course, it was most of it was his own fault. Isaac, on the other hand, didn't seem to have many, many trials at all. Isaac was just a... Isaac was one of the few men in the Bible who nothing negative is said about. Now, he did go blind late in his life, but it's just mentioned, not as a... It's just mentioned that towards the end of his life, he went blind.

But there's nothing bad said about him. Joseph had to go through all kinds of trials to receive the blessings that would be passed on.

Abraham made all kinds of mistakes in receiving the blessing, and they're still fighting over it today. We have to picture a special future for them. That means we have to encourage them from early on to seek God's guidance, to believe in God, to understand who Jesus Christ is. And those are real to that person, to that child. These are real, and you interact with them. Is he yesterday? I don't think Is he gets a lot. And then she said to me yesterday... er, two days ago, she said, You know why mosquitoes bite us? So that they drink blood. No. God didn't make them that way. Satan messed everything up. Got Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden to meet. Oh, I didn't expect a theological discussion with a three-year-old. And she said it so... I mean, she said, she believes it, and it came out. This is what happened. And this is why we have these mosquitoes biting us. Okay. I can't argue with that.

Active commitment to seeing that blessing come about. That means parents spend their lives sacrificing part of their lives. Teaching their children not only about God, but how to be productive adults. And how to pursue a career. Their life's work. We help them develop into their life's work, whatever it is. And it may be something totally different than what you want them to do.

It's who they're supposed to be, who they can be. And you help them develop it. God wants to give our children a wonderful future.

And it's interesting, there's another blessing that we see given in the Bible. We won't turn here, but I'll mention it to you.

But this blessing didn't turn out well. God made Samuel the high priest.

But it's because of Eli. Now it's interesting. Eli was made priest by God. Eli's sons were supposed to be. That was supposed to come to the high priest. If you read what happened in 1 Samuel, Eli let his sons, he would not correct them. You're blessed. You're going to be the high priest. But there was no work towards the blessing. The result was, they were literally, as people brought in their sacrifices, certain sacrifices were supposed to be eaten by the Levites, certain were totally burned up, and certain part of the different sacrifices were to be given to the people. They were taking the meat from the people and eating it themselves. And they were actually having women come in to offer sacrifices to God and say, we'll do that if you come into back room with us.

They were using their, to get sexual favors in order to worship God. And God told Eli, because you have honored them more than me, they will not survive. And they both were killed in battle, and Eli, in shock, fell off his chair. He was making a heavy man and broke his own neck.

There's no descendants of Eli, in which this blessing of being the high priest was passed on to.

Samuel became the high priest. So passing on the blessing, if we don't pass it on, there can be generational effects. Once again, passing on a blessing doesn't mean the person will respond to God because of free will. It means our job is to prepare them for the blessing. That's all we can do, is to prepare them for the blessing. But we have to understand the enormity of this. And once again, it's so difficult because most people receive very little blessing from their families. Now some did, many did not. So where do you get your blessing? Let's go back to the Abrahamic covenant, Genesis 12. I think that this simple principle is so important for the church to understand. When you read 1 Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, there's a theme that runs through those books, those letters, that we don't always understand in the church. And we need to understand, both in our families, but in how God is dealing with the world today. This is where God starts the Abrahamic covenant. He adds to it. It's not finalized yet. Here's what he says. This is what's going to happen. We make this agreement. Here's what I want you to do. The agreement would be, he had things added on to it until he finally said, okay, this agreement is now between you and me forever. Here's how he starts it. The Lord said to Abram, get out of your country from your family, from your father's house, to a land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse them who curses you. Wow, what a blessing! I'm going to turn you into a whole history of people. There's going to be a great people come from you throughout history. But notice, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So that Abrahamic blessing, this doesn't go to the descendants of Abraham. The Abrahamic blessing, that you are a blessing from God, and God is involved in your life, can be given to all people. How does that happen? Right? Galatians. Paul explains it. And this is the... I don't know how many of you are... I have a number of how many people listen to the Wednesday Night Bible studies, but I don't know how many are local. How many listen to the Wednesday Night Bible studies? Okay, a few. Yeah, I'm starting to realize that 60% of the people aren't in Nashville and Murphy's World, so... I don't know. Maybe I'll stop doing them, I'll see.

Galatians 3.

Because there's usually about 100 or more people, but...

Most of them aren't from the local area. Galatians 3. Because this is what we're going through. You can't understand the book of Ephesians. You can't understand it unless you understand this. That's why, so much of the time, there's maybe a third of Ephesians that's quoted in sermons. Two-thirds of Ephesians is not quoted in sermons.

Because we're missing what Paul's saying there.

He starts in Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians. He really develops it. He develops it. There's three entire chapters in the book of Romans dedicated to this. So, verse 13, Galatians 3.

See, God, through Christ, removed the law. That's not what it says. The curse of the law is the punishment of the law. He even explains it. Those who hang on a tree. In other words, those who are killed. Those who are punished. Those who were punished. That's the curse of the law. How do we escape the punishment that God's law absolutely requires through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? This is his point. Even in the Protestant world, John Calvin, one of the early Protestant reformers, said, you know, if there is no law, because he tried to do whatever the law is, he says, if there is no law, there is no sin. If there's no sin, there's no need to repent and turn to Christ. If there's no need for Christ, then Christianity is meaningless. So there must be law. This logic brought him to that. He understood it. He said, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. That is, it's written, cursed as ever when he hangs on a tree. Now listen what he says here. That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles. All that means is non-Israelite. That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus. That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Now, it's very interesting. When we go back to that original promise, it was land. He promised him land. When Christ returns, the physical descendants of Israel will be all gathered together, and they will possess the land from the Euphrates to the Nile. That's the promise, the physical Israel. They'll be gathered forever. They're scattered all over the world, brought in and given that land to serve Christ as the king in Jerusalem. That's the promise given to them. That's not the promise he's talking about here. It's not like, well, everybody gets to go to the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

That's not the promise he's talking about, because this promise includes the promise of the Spirit. There's a whole other concept inside the Abrahamic covenant that God's promise for people to become his people expands to the whole world.

There's a whole other piece there. In you, all nations of the earth will be blessed. Verse 15, Brother, I speak in the manner of men, though it's only a man's covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annals it or adds to it. In other words, let me tell you about the Abrahamic covenant. Even a human covenant, once it's confirmed, you can't add to it. Well, that one was confirmed by God to Abraham. And here, the peace of it is through all nations will be blessed through Abraham. How does that happen? Verse 16, The blessing to the nations made to Abraham isn't the same blessings made to physical Israel. The best blessings to the nations is you too can become part of the family of God and receive the Spirit. Now, Israel was told that they would receive the Spirit in a new covenant. What this means is, as Gentiles, are participants in the new covenant. It means that the new covenant is open to everyone through the promises made to Abraham. Now, think about that passing on in that covenant through that family. With the idea, there is going to come a time when the Messiah comes into the world. Through who? The descendants of Abraham. Who were the first Christians? They're all Jews. For the most part, there were a few proselytes. The descendants of Abraham. And what did he tell them to do? Now, you go to the world and tell them about me.

The blessings of Abraham, and that's what Ephesians says, it was Colossians says, it's what Romans says, the blessings of Abraham, the spiritual blessings of Abraham, is open to everyone.

The spiritual blessings of Abraham is open to everyone through Christ, and that's what Paul sees here. That means if you did not receive a family blessing, the moment you repented, the moment you were baptized and hands were laid on you to receive the Spirit of God, you received the spiritual blessing of the Abrahamic covenant, the blessing of Jesus Christ, the blessing of the Spirit. Boy, Paul expands this out. He understood it.

He understood it. So you say, I didn't receive a blessing from my family. No, but you received one from the one who created the blessing to begin with. You received the blessing of the family of God through Abraham, through Christ, it's yours. And that's why our families are so important. That's why marriage is so important. That's why LGBTQ is so evil. It is evil because it does away with this.

It does away with the spiritual blessing that God once passed on family to family inside the church.

So you received the blessing. Maybe your dad didn't give it to you. Maybe it wasn't there. Maybe your mom didn't give it to you. She was an alcoholic. But you received it. You received it from God through Christ. And our families are to be passing on that blessing.

It's an important thing.

This blessing from God.

I got ahead of myself so much. I don't know where I am in my notes.

That's why over and over and over again in the New Testament it says, we are the children of God. It's a family. God's creating a family. He's the one that gives the blessing.

And it's a greater blessing. Our parents give us blessings by giving us a sense of value. They teach us some character. They may leave us a little money when they die. God says, I make you my child. I give you the blessing to be my child. And I give you life now worth living because I'll teach you what life's all about. I'll help you get through this. And then I will change you into being literally like me. And we'll spend eternity together. How's that? How's that for a blessing? How's that for a blessing? Just let me be your father and let Jesus be your brother. And that's all we want to do is bless you. We want to bless you with our family blessing.

And we can pass that on with our children, as much as we'll accept. We can do it with each other. You can pass on the family blessing with each other in the relationships you have with each other.

And you can pass it on, old people to young people, young people to old people. Everybody can pass this blessing on. This blessing can be given all the time. You know, you notice how the little boys will come up and wait? They want to shake your hand? That's meaningful touch. That's because you're accepted. When you shake the little boy's hand in his mind, you accept me.

You give him a blessing.

We give them blessings all the time. They need those blessings. Those children need those blessings desperately, just like you do.

And God's given it to you. He's given you a father's blessing. So in two weeks, we'll have the blessing of little children.

And we'll have at least one here. Others will be getting their children blessed all over the place. Say, we need Nashville. Some went to churches, different congregations with their families there to have a blessing today. Everybody wants to have the child blessed. But remember where that blessing's coming from. Christ is our blessing. And when we do that in a church service, we're taking that child to God and asking God to give that child a blessing. More than just physical things, we're asking God to give that child the blessings of Abraham.