Today I am working on an upcoming sermon for Sunday Morning – October 19th to be precise. I’ll be preaching out of Genesis 49, which is a huge scripture for understanding the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures, and some of the New Testament.
What Jacob says to his sons in Genesis 49 will impact their families for generations. And most of what Jacob says is in relations to his sons’ actions, the things that they have done. So it got me thinking about legacy, and how important what we do today is for our tomorrows. I think Jacob was probably very sad giving these prophetic words to his sons, because it kind of shows how Jacob himself failed as a father. Jacob, was blessed with 11 sons and 9 of them did some pretty horrible things. Somewhere along the line Jacob neglected his role of instruction and correction. Read Genesis 35.22 – Jacob did nothing in response to Reuben’s actions.
It’s easier to just let things go, to let your kids do their thing, but we can’t do that. I have a two year old, and I clearly see at this point that I can’t just let him do whatever he wants because he would end up a serial killer (he’s super cute but we are all depraved sinners). So I need to work on instruction and discipline, I need to be his spiritual leader, I need to be his pastor, and it’s so hard to always be on like that. But that’s what our family needs.
Jacob’s words in Genesis 49 are not just his sons’ legacies, they His Legacy. At the end of the Chapter Jacob dies, and I can see why, It must have been really hard to realize that he was a horrible father in a lot of ways.
So dads let’s not let that happen to us. Let’s build our legacy in such a way that on our death bed we die with a smile on our face, because we have family around us, and we can be proud and happen with the direction that their lives took. We know that our name will be remembered kindly, and our sons and daughters names too.
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