Good morning Today's scripture reading is from the book of Genesis chapter 48 verses 1 through 16 and can be found on page 51 in the Bibles underneath the seat in front of you Genesis 48 1 through 16 Sometime later Joseph was told your father is ill, so he took his two sons manassani for him along with him When Jacob was told your son Joseph has come to you Israel rallied his strength and sat up in bed Jacob said to Joseph God Almighty appeared to me at lose in the land of Canaan and There he blessed me and said to me. I'm going to make you fruitful and will increase your numbers I will make you a community of peoples and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you Now then your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine Ephraim and Manessa will be mine just as Rubin and Simeon are mine Any children born to you after them will be yours in the territory they inherit will be reckoned under the names of their brothers As I was returning from Patton to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan While we were still on our way a little distance from Ephraath So I buried her there beside the road to Ephraath that is Bethlehem When Israel saw the sons of Joseph he asked who are these? They are the sons God has given to me here Joseph said to his father Then Israel said bring them to me so that I may bless them Now Israel's eyes were failing because of his old age and he could hardly see So Joseph brought his sons close to him and his father kissed them and embraced them Israel said to Joseph I never expected to see your face again And now God has allowed me to see your children, too Then Joseph removed them from Israel's knees and bowed down with his face to the ground And Joseph took both of them Ephraim on his right toward Israel's left hand and Manessa on his left toward Israel's right hand and brought them close to him But Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim's head Though he was the younger and crossing his arms He put his left hand on Manessa's head even though Manessa was the firstborn And he blessed Joseph and said May the God before whom my father's Abraham and Isaac walked the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day The angel who has delivered me from all harm May he bless these boys May they be called by my name and the names of my father's Abraham and Isaac And may they increase greatly upon the earth This is the word of the Lord My wife and I have been reading the book called open. It's the autobiography of Andre Agassi Arguably one of the greatest tennis players of all time Andre Agassi is the only male tennis player to ever achieve a career golden slam If you don't know what that is it means that you win all four grand slam tournaments and the Olympic gold medal during your career He won eight grand slam singles tournaments and 17 ATP masters series tournaments Andre Agassi was described by the BBC as perhaps the greatest worldwide sports star in sports history Interestingly enough though that despite all of his accomplishments in the world of tennis Agassi still says today That he hated playing tennis He hated it then and he still hates it now And the reason that he felt that way toward the game had everything to do with his father Mike Agassi was his father name. He was an Iranian He was a boxer. He represented Iran at the 1948 and 1952 Olympic Games Mike Agassi was known for his hard driving overbearing ways He would often fly into a rage at his kids as well as other people He yelled at Andre all the time according to the book Before Andre was even born his father had decided that his son was going to excel at tennis no matter what He built a miniature training camp in his backyard for Andre complete with a full-size tennis court And a ball machine that he called the dragon that he had rigged up himself to throw balls faster than any ball machine on the market He taped a ping pong paddle to Andre's hand when Andre was just two years old He put tennis balls above his crib hanging down over him like a mobile So that the first thing that Andre's little two-year-old eyes would focus on was a tennis ball When Andre was seven His father raised the net six inches so that when Andre played at Wimbledon his shots would clear the net Eventually Agassi was practicing tennis every morning every afternoon every weekend all weekend long Not because he wanted to But because he had to By age 10 Agassi was playing Other up and coming tennis champs like Pete Samperson Michael Chang and winning But sadly One thing Andre Agassi didn't win Was his father's blessing See when you don't get your father's blessing You may spend the rest of your life looking for it And some of you know that only too well I want to talk with you this morning about your father's blessing So fitting thing to do on father's day I want it to be encouraging to the dads To understand the power we have as men and as fathers and as leaders To bless people particularly People of the younger generation We've been studying the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis in recent weeks and we've noticed that Joseph has gone from prison to palace Which is the theme of vacation Bible school which is starting tomorrow morning Joseph went from being a slave in Egypt to being A hero in Egypt who delivered the Egyptians from a terrible famine And when we come here to Genesis chapter 48 Joseph is I'm guessing about 60 years old He's still the prime minister of Egypt. He's still the number two man second only to Pharaoh king of Egypt in power And his whole family is together now They're living in a section of Egypt known as Goshen Jacob who is Joseph's father is nearly 150 years old They lived a long time back in those days But Jacob is sick. He is near death And in this chapter chapter that you just heard partly read and also the next chapter Jacob blesses his sons and his grandsons And I want to talk with you about the blessing. We're going to learn three things this morning I hope the first thing is that everybody needs blessing Secondly, that you need to give your blessing to others And the third thing I hope we learn is that you need more than the blessing of a human being So let's begin with that first thing I said everybody needs a blessing When Joseph knew that his father Jacob was about to die here's what happened He got his sons whose names were Manasseh and Ephraim together They were probably in their 20s or so And with them Joseph came to see his father Jacob on his deathbed Look with me at verses 8 and 9 of our text it says in verse 8 that when Israel and that was simply another name for Jacob When Israel saw the sons of Joseph he asked who are these And Joseph answered his father by saying they are the sons god has given me here And then Israel said bring them to me so that I may bless them Bless let's focus on that word for a little bit that is one of many Christianese words That we use so often in so many different ways that it's completely lost. It's meaning We say oh that was a blessed Bible study that that sermon blessed me so much And what we mean by that is simply that it was a great thing or an interesting Bible study or whatnot And that is about as far away from the real biblical meaning of bless as you can get Bless is the Hebrew word barak And it literally means to bend the knee See when we bless god what we do is that we bend the knee figuratively speaking in worship And we attribute worth or honor to god we recognize god as a being worthy of our praise and adoration Well, when you bless another person Like when a father blesses a child when a mother blesses her child when we bless a friend It's not that we're worshiping that person But figuratively speaking we're bending the knee attributing worth To that individual We're communicating that that person is precious and valuable in our sight Simply because of who or who he or she is in and of himself or herself A blessing is a formal pronouncement of favor It's a statement or it could be an action that says I love you I treasure you. I highly value you. I'm proud of you You are a person of great worth and a person of great glory That's what it is to bless another human being You might think for example of Jesus at his baptism. Do you remember what happened? It's spoken of in Matthew chapter 3 Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry Notice this before he ever preached a sermon Before he ever performed a miracle He was baptized by John the Baptist the the Holy Spirit came and descended upon him like a dove And then there was a voice out of heaven the voice of his father that said this is my beloved In whom I am well pleased Now that is the quintessential blessing And every single one of us needs to hear that You are my beloved In you I am well pleased Why does everybody need to hear that blessing? Well go back in your mind to the Garden of Eden In Genesis chapter 1 we read in verse 27 that God created man in his own image In the image of God he created him male and female he created them You know what the next verse says Genesis 128 and God Blessed them the first thing they experienced after their creation was the blessing of God Among the first words that Adam and Eve heard in the Garden of Eden was God's word Very good spoken Over them They got his pronouncement of favor They heard his steam his words of pride and joy spoken over them They felt whole and complete and loved and treasured by the one who had given them life They had a sense of glory a sense of purpose and of value They were secure in the love of God and had Adam and Eve not sinned They would have passed that security in God's love on down to the next generation and the next and the next And the next and the next by natural generation But Adam and Eve sinned against God They blew it rather than being content with their father's blessing They wanted something else they wanted to be like God They did basically what Esau did many years later They sold their birthright for a bit of fast food namely the forbidden fruit that God told them to avoid And so they threw their blessing away They they believed a lie instead of following after the truth And ever since then human beings are born broken and in complete every every single one of you Has a gaping hole in your heart the moment you're conceived Because of indwelling sin we have this gaping hole that Absolutely screams to be filled with a blessing a sense of worth a sense of glory We long to know that we have a place in the heart of God that we are loved that we are Feeling a valuable place in this world and that we're worth something to the maker of the universe Don't you feel it? Don't you feel it don't you get in touch with it a lot of times To know that God looks at you and says what he said to his son You're my beloved in you I am satisfied I am well pleased don't you connect with that longing The fact that some of you don't have that that sense of Purpose and that sense of being Satisfying to the God of heaven and earth doesn't it help explain why you have so much contempt for yourself Isn't it why some of you act like a know-it-all when you're with a group of people so that you won't look stupid and uninformed Isn't it why some of you put on your game face And pretend that you've got it all together when you're with a group of friends It and isn't it why some of you are perfectionists and others of you are Seductruses and some of you are workaholics
Because you desperately want to hear somebody say you are a person of great worth you mean something big to me You're somebody special With you. I'm well pleased I've shared with you before. I don't mind saying it again that I grew up thinking my father was pretty basically disgusted with me He had his thing about acne and I had a lot of it when I was a teenager And I'll never forget this is sort of one of the themes of my life Sort of a metaphor for what I've struggled with he had Bifocals and he would come up really close to me and look at my skin through the bottom part of his glasses Real close like he's examined in me examining me from head to toe and I come up Wanting and because that gaping hole never got filled with my father's blessing One of the things I've struggled with for much of my life is this persistent sense of inadequacy I so wanted my father to enjoy me To like me and I miss that And I know I'm not alone I'm sure I speak for a lot of you Everybody Needs blessing Well, we learn not only that in this story about Joseph in the blessing that his father gave him But the second thing I want us to get out of this chapter is that God wants you to give blessing to others and get this Particularly to the next generation Let me say it again God doesn't want only that you know you are blessed But he wants you to give your blessing away to other people People in your family your son your daughter if you have children your friends your employees People that you mentor Elders you who lead the church decons you who serve other ministry leaders God wants you to give your blessing away to others Particularly to the next generation Here in Genesis 48 Jacob gives his blessing to his son Joseph And also to Joseph's sons Manasseh and Ephraim in fact the chapter even teaches that Jacob adopts Manasseh and Ephraim as his own sons What a wonderful blessing that was to those two boys And then in chapter 49 which we don't have time to look look at in the detail You'll see that Jacob gives his blessing on to all 12 of his children Be sure to read that later on today But let's focus our attention on verses 15 and 16 This is where we read that Jacob gives his blessing to Joseph Manasseh and Ephraim It says in verse 15 that he blessed Joseph and said May the God before him my father's Abraham and Isaac walked the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day The angel who has delivered me from all harm May he bless these boys May they be called by my name and the names of my father's Abraham and Isaac and may they increase greatly Upon the earth what a wonderful blessing that was to these Three men standing there in the room and then skip down to verse 20 We didn't read this earlier, but this is where the blessing continues Verse 20 says that he blessed them that day and said in your name will Israel pronounce this blessing May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh All right, I want to be practical and give you some help with blessing other people by giving you five characteristics of a blessing Five marks of a blessing and I ask you and you leave here today to implement these five things In your vocabulary and in your behavior as you seek to be a blessing to other people and this applies to everybody Doesn't matter how old you are you are given by God a charge to be a blessing To people around you the first mark of a blessing is that it's verbal You need to use words You need to speak to and directly to people that you intend to bless That's the biblical pattern you read through the Old Testament particularly the book of Genesis and you see over and over again a blessing given in words Don't assume anything Don't assume your kids know how you feel Don't assume your spouse knows how you feel Say the words until they are sick of hearing it Second mark of a blessing is it's also physical a blessing ought to be physical look at verse 10 It says that Joseph brought his sons close to Jacob and his father kiss them and embrace them Men don't be embarrassed or ashamed to kiss and hug on your children A blessing ought to be physical the third characteristic of a blessing is that it's personal It's got to be uniquely tailored to the personality the traits the abilities and the gifts of the one you are blessing There's no such thing as a male order blessing Don't go on the internet and copy and paste somebody else's blessing and give it to someone be creative In fact many times in the Old Testament when a man would give a blessing to his son for example, he would give him a new name God did that in several instances In Genesis chapter 17 for example, he blessed Abraham Abraham and changed his name to Abraham In Genesis 35 when God blessed Jacob, he changed his name to Israel Perhaps you will give to someone you're blessing a special name a nickname something that strikes you About his or her character traits and you want to put a label on it a name on it and let that person carry Your new name with him or with her throughout his or her life The fourth characteristic of a blessing is that it should be unconditional A blessing is unconditional Did you notice in this story That Jacob refused to put his right hand on Manasseh Now let's take a moment and make sure you understand what's going on there because it could be a bit confusing In the ancient times of Israel the practice was to elevate the firstborn over all of the other children And Manasseh was Joseph's firstborn son He had Manasseh and then later he and his wife had Ephraim And so when Joseph brings Manasseh and Ephraim to Jacob to be blessed by him Naturally Joseph is thinking Okay, I got to get my son Manasseh on my left So that when Jacob is reaching out his right hand his right hand is going to go on Manasseh See the right hand was the symbol of what strength and authority And so Joseph brings Manasseh here Ephraim here And when Jacob reaches his hands out to bless these two grandsons He deliberately crosses his hands so that now his right hand is on Ephraim's head and his left hand is on Manasseh's head And Joseph is confused by that and the text says he's displeased He takes his father's hands he's thinking that's getting a little senile here I'll help him out and he tries to move his hands apart so that they're back on where he thought they should be And Jacob says no no no son. I know what I'm doing He puts his right hand on the younger man's head And his left hand upon the elder son And isn't that so often the pattern in the Bible? See this fits perfectly with what you see again and again and again particularly in the book of Genesis Abel was blessed by God rather than his older brother Kane Isaac was chosen over his older brother Ishmael Jacob got Isaac's blessing instead of his elder brother Issa getting it Ruben was Jacob's first born son but his place as you find out later in the Old Testament was taken by Manasseh and Ephraim What's the lesson behind all of that? The lesson is that blessing comes by grace Blessing comes by grace not birth order not works Not obedience to the law Not self-righteousness Blessing the blessing of God comes by sovereign grace In other words friend God loves you because he loves you Not because of stuff you do Not because of how good looking you are not because of how successful or wealthy or intelligent you are God's grace is an undeserved freely bestowed gift
So the blessing should be unconditional in your life as well You love them because you love them You accept them not because they meet your expectations and do everything right and cross every T and not every I you bless them Because of who they are intrinsically Created in the image of God different from all of your other kids different from all of the other human beings in the world You bless that person because you love them unconditionally verbal physical personal and unconditional and the fifth and last characteristic of a blessing is that it should be hopeful A blessing is hopeful because it looks forward with anticipation and optimism toward a better future for the person that you're blessing Verse 16 in his blessing Jacob says to Joseph E. Fierman Manassa he says may you increase greatly upon the earth in other words I hear Jacob saying to Joseph and his sons the same thing God said to Adam and Eve be fruitful and multiply Have dominion over the earth He is saying to them I see the future for you and it's a good future You have so much to contribute to this world I believe in you in other words is what we might say and down later in verse 20 Jacob says to them in your name will Israel pronounce this blessing make God make you like Manassa and E. Fierman Do you catch the confidence that Jacob has in his son and grandsons? You want to transfer or translate that confidence to another person in the form of a blessing Well, I want to let a couple of men share with you How blessing has operated in their lives. This will probably do it much better than my words would do it Vic Godlesky lane cohe if you two men would come up. I've asked these two gentlemen to share a little bit about what blessing means to them I told them either tell us how your father blessed you or how you attempt to bless your children Vic will let you start. Thanks Mike. Good morning
Growing up, I didn't have a blessing ceremony per se for my dad sort of an ongoing thing He showed his love for me by actions But he also used the words I love you frequently And this may come as a shock to you, but my behavior or my attitudes Actions decisions weren't always ideal and so despite my failings I never really doubted the love and commitment that my father had to me And you know in the way he treated me gave me a glimpse of The love our heavenly father has for us. So I can look to the cross I know that God's committed to me that he loves me despite My poor actions my poor attitudes and the list goes on and on and to Janice Laura Sarah Victor and David I love each of you and I'm committed to I wrote this up before I heard the sermon So I apologize for any redundancy Chase and kale and chain Well done I love you. I appreciate you I value you And I'm proud very proud To be your father Not just the things that you've done because there are there are many of those but most importantly Because of who you are and who you're becoming as young and And beyond that Because you have a father in heaven who delights in you He looks down upon you He sees you And he rejoices in you And he takes your right hand and he fights for you And he is jealous for you And I thank each and every one of our children need to hear those things Those unconditional words of acceptance From our parents from our human fathers Because as Mike said and from personal experience If you're someone who did not hear that growing up You will chase into the earthly corners of the world to hear it And many of us never find it Excellent What have we learned so far this morning we've learned that everybody needs a blessing and you need to give that blessing to other people Let me just make a couple of words of application I don't know that they're even needed now but fathers Let this be an encouragement to bless your children continually Touch them Hold them by their shoulders look at them in the eye kiss them Speak directly to them use words you've thought about maybe words you've even Written out. I know a man in our church Who on the day they graduated from high school gave each of his children and I think he had four A framed blessing that was written uniquely for each one of those kids Now, that's just a one-time deal But it made such an immense Impression upon those children But let me just not leave out the moms mothers you need to do the same This is a charge to parents To be a blessing to your sons and daughters Second word of application is more broad If you're 40 years of age and up and I'll just pick that that number out of the air Mail or female if you're 40 years of age and up let these things be a charge to you To spend time with the younger men and women of UPC To figure out how you are going to take the baton of faith and pass it on to the next generation to disciple younger people to mentor them to know them See we need some older men and women in our church to mentor the younger generations of this church both married and single alike For example start a de-group and invite a couple of younger Men or women into your de-group invite younger women men or couples into your life Group don't just hang out with people your own age. We need to bridge the generational lines that often in churches our sources of division This week at vacation bible school many of you are going to be obeying that mandate Many of you have been working for months in some cases to get ready to transfer the faith onto the next generation of our of our church if you are Looking for a job this week Just show up at UPC. We need you We need your help and your hands and your hearts To mentor and disciple these little children and then the third point of application. I'll add Is to those of you who feel you need a blessing? You need a mentor you need an older man or woman to speak into your life There are people here who would love to do that, but they can't read your mind Go up to them and ask would you care for me? Would you spend time with me would you meet with me once a month once a week whatever to speak into my life I need someone older in my life to look up to and to walk in the shadow of A lot of folks would love To do that the third thing I want to leave with you beyond these two from this text Not only does everybody need a blessing not only are we charged by god to give our blessing to others But the third thing I want you to know is that you need more than the blessing of a human being You need god's blessing You need god's blessing in Genesis 49 which as I said we're not going to look at Jacob blesses each one of his 12 sons And as you might expect The longest blessing of the list is reserved for who? Joseph It takes up versus 22 through 26 It's the most space given to any one of the sons of Jacob And we would expect that would we not because of what we've learned in this series We met Joseph first back in Genesis 37 and we found out there that he was Jacob's favorite son He was Jacob's favorite kid Jacob even made that Richly ornamented robe that coat of many colors and he gave it to Joseph And so it's no surprise that his blessing in Genesis 49 is longer than any of the other Sons But the interesting thing about it is That after Joseph dies in Genesis 50 You don't really hear much about him anymore in the whole Bible And as for his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh The ones from whom two of the tribes of Israel came Those people didn't remain faithful to God They ceased to exist as an identifiable entity in 722 BC When a Syria came in and evaded the northern kingdom and then pretty much after that You don't hear about he freemen manasseh anymore It was Judah Jacob's fourth son who would rise to prominence and his blessing is in verses 8 through 11 Or 12 actually of Genesis 49 it was Judah's descendants that became the godly kings and leaders of Israel It was a descendant of Judah that became the most famous king of Israel of them all namely king David And it was a descendant of Judah that would become the Messiah namely Jesus Christ the king of all kings and the Lord of all lords the point is That God's line of favor didn't go through the one you might expect Proving that we need more than just an earthly father's blessing An earthly friend and earthly mother We need a god whose love will never ever leave us or forsake us A love that is rooted not in our goodness or our record but a love that's rooted in the record of another Namely Jesus Christ I told you at the beginning this sermon about Andre Agassi. I told you that he never got his father's blessing But he did get it from this man his name is Gil Reyes He was Andre's fitness coach For 17 years Gil Reyes worked with Andre Agassi He got him to bench press for 135 pounds in 1989 to 350 pounds in 2003 But more than that Gil Reyes was Andre's closest friend closest advisor and confidant There was one phrase more than any other that Gil used in speaking with Andre you know what it was I'm proud of you I'm proud of you and that so rooted itself in Andre's heart That Andre became a champion Friends Jesus Christ from the line of Judah According to Genesis 49 washed his garments in wine He washed his robes in the blood of grapes. That means that he shed his blood on the cross That you might get the blessing Of the heavenly father Some of you have already learned that earthly father's blessing is not really going to last An earthly father earthly mother earthly mentor will let you down will disappoint you will fail you Only the blessing that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ will fill that gaping hole in your heart And if you're here this morning with that whole looking for some word that will really satisfy for the rest of your life I want you to know you've got to put your trust in Jesus Follow after him let him be your coach let him be your trainer let him be your friend and confidant listen to him when he speaks He'll give you the blessing that you're dying to hear I want to ask all the men of our church age 18 and up to stand I'm going to ask a prayer for you and for me and you're the men of the church you're the leaders of this church the leaders of your homes I'm not saying you're better than the women and the ladies in this church But you are the ones to whom God is looking Primarily to pass the blood the baton of the faith onto the next generation And so I'm going to pray a prayer that God will bless us that we might be a blessing to others. Let me pray Father for us who are standing today We want to confess to you how much we need you How much we stand in need of grace and forgiveness We pray, O Lord, that you will fill us with your Holy Spirit and make us to be a blessing We pray that we might be a blessing to our sons and daughters to our wives to our friends To our co-workers to those we lead here at this church to those we serve wherever we go We pray, O Lord, that you will also give us the grace to turn to you And let you be a blessing to us Father, we pray that through us as the men of UPC You will reach the nations with the blessing of gospel And we pray that when our sons and daughters are our age and they are standing they will be able to say Their fathers bless them their grandfather's bless them Help them to know Lord. We pray the blessing of the Father and we pray these things in Jesus name Amen. You may be seated