MAY 17 2026 | Genesis: Behind the Curtain S6E8 | The Blessing

Sea Change Church · Genesis: Behind the Curtain · "The Blessing" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · May 17, 2026
Genesis 27:30–38
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

So with that, open your Bibles, if you would, to Genesis 27. I'm going to invite my boy up, Andres. Andres, get up here, buddy. And we're going to have Andres read the Scripture. I actually don't have a mic for him, but I'm going to hand him mine. But come on up, Andres. Andres, I've been discipling Andres. Andres wants to be a pastor. And Andres is going to read the Scripture. I'm just going to stand by you, and you're going to read it.

If you have your Bibles, we've been trying to encourage you to bring your Bibles. Andres, read it up. It is Genesis 27, 30 through 38. And I'm just going to stand here real awkwardly close to you, and you're going to read it. Oh, we got a mic. We got a mic. Thank you, Chris. The snuggle is not part of the discipleship program, I can assure you. I got you. We just got to check, check, check, check, check, check. One, two, one, two. Check, check, check, check, check, check, Chris. There you go. Thanks a lot. Oh, it's on. Now it's on.

Hello? Hey. If you're brand new to our church, welcome. We want to thank you. Read it up, my man. Do it. Okay. As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had, I forgot that word, scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting. He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, let my father arise and eat of his son's game, that you may bless me.

His father's father's father's father's father's father's father. His father's father said to him, who are you? He answered, I am your son, your firstborn, Esau. Then Isaac trembled very violently and said, who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me? Good question. And I ate it all before you came and I have blessed him. Yes. And he shall be blessed. As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, bless me also, oh, my father.

But he said, your brother came deceitfully and he has taken away your blessing. Esau said, is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright and behold, now he's taken away my blessing. Then he said, have you not reserved a blessing for me? Isaac answered and said to Esau, behold, I have made him lord over you and all his brothers I have given to him for servants. And with grain and wine, I have sustained him.

And what then can I do for you, my son? Esau said to his father, that's it. Let's give it up right now if you can for Andres. Thank you. Take that to Chris. Verse 38, Esau said to his father, have you but one blessing, my father. Bless me, even me also. Oh, my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. A bunch of you, I probably had 25 people contact me after last week about the deception sermon. And I was deceived because I walked away and I was thinking, that's the worst sermon I've ever preached.

And then like 25 people got a hold of me. Man, that really just blessed me because you were able to look into that. We're going deeper into this family now. It's a family that has been ruled by deception. And it's now, it's getting in the way of blessing. And we will find that our generational curses, they might not even have to be generational curses. They can just be first generation. You started it. But it will get, that must have hit, that can get in the way of the blessing.

Today we're going to talk about activating blessing. Blessing is important. You can live in as much blessing as you want. And you can live in the shadow and the curse of death as much as you want. The scripture is clear on that. We're going to look at the difference between the Old Testament view of blessing. There's some similarities. But also the New Testament. At the end of the sermon, we're going to have this as we walk out.

I have an activated blessings list. I've got 30 blessings that you can immediately activate. I suggest you get it and start doing it. You can immediately start loading up your life. The key word for today is the word blessing. It's in the Hebrew. The word is barak. Can you all say it with me? Barak. We've heard that name before, haven't we? And it's God's active favor. What is it? It's God's active favor being spoken over.

Spoken over. God speaks. He brings life. He creates when he speaks. It's being spoken over. I talked about blessing and speaking blessing a few weeks ago. And poured into a person's life. Stop there. I want you to imagine a giant pitcher full of water. And you just have a cup. And it says, my cup what? Overflows, David said. When a king would want to bless somebody back in the day, you would bring your cup and they'd fill your cup.

And the amount they filled it would show how much favor you have. But if the king just really dug you, you'd bring your cup up there and you better have your waiters on because he's just going to keep pouring. And the cup will overflow with blessing. That is the New Testament blessing that we walk in. The blessing, the overflowing blessing. But it needs to be activated. It is God's active favor being spoken over, poured into a person's life, producing flourishing.

It produces wholeness and a divine presence. When you have the divine presence, you will be touched by God. And when God is near, when you are touching God, when he is within us, but we also do the things that he calls us to, it is almost like he is adorned with goodness and it just falls off on you. My dog, my 115-pound dog, the men will know this from the men's event last night. He's shedding. He's a great Pyrenees and you can just grab a hand of fur, it won't hurt him, and you just pull it out.

Like boom. And I was doing it. If you saw, I left the fur all over Fiesta Island last night. It was probably on some of your chairs. It just gets all over. I comb my dog. It's just all over me. My wife says, don't bring those clothes into the house after you comb the dog. It's the same thing with blessings of God. When you are near God, when you do the things of God, it just starts getting all over you. When people will notice that you were blessed.

I know that Christians have difficulty. They have sufferings. They have hard times. I don't know one believer who diligently follows God, whose life is not filled with blessing and you can see it on them. It's like the fur that's from my dog all up on me. It is the blessing that adorns your life. And it's easy to see people, believers or people who are not believers, who choose to walk in the shadow and the curse of death.

You can see that on their relationships. You can see that on their physical health often and the things that they get into. You can see it over and over again. Once again, the key word is barach. God's active favor being spoken over, poured into a person's life, producing flourishing, wholeness, and divine presence. Friends, this passage, I want you to read this week. I want to give you a little homework assignment. I want you to read chapter 27 of Genesis about this blessing.

And then I want you to go to Ephesians 1. You can read the whole book of Ephesians. But the corollary passage that will give you a New Testament insight and blessing is found in Ephesians 1. We're going to drop into that in just a second. But just write down Ephesians 1 and you're going to see the parlay. You're going to see the corollary. And you're going to see that you can activate every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm.

Here's your main idea today. This is really key. In the Old Testament, blessing was a single stream, often determined by birth. That's what's happening with Esau and Jacob here. In the New Testament, it is an ocean unleashed by rebirth in Jesus. It is an ocean tide. I kind of mixed my metaphor there. It's an ocean unleashed. But it's an ocean tide that is given, unleashed, by rebirth in Jesus. So in the Old Testament, you can see that there's this limited blessing.

Esau is showing up in this passage. And he's like, oh, there's no blessing left. And he's like, no, tapped out. One blessing. Jacob knows this. Jacob deceivingly goes after the blessing. He's going to pay. Oh, yeah, he's going to pay. Laban, his father, his mom's brother, his uncle, is going to make him pay. We're going to find that next year when we get back into it. But you can't walk in deceit and not be touched by the fruit of deceit.

If you are a liar, you will be susceptible to lies. Whatever you are into in the negative, in the death, it will lead to death even though you think you control it. And that is the deception of sin, that you can control it. You can't. It will control you. I put in the key point for today is that the blessed life is a fully loaded life or equipped. It's fully loaded with everything you need. It is all there for the taking.

In the 1970s, maybe it was the 60s things. I was born at the tail end of the 60s, 1969, so I miss most of the 60s. In the 70s, though, baked potatoes became a thing. I don't know if you know that. Maybe it was happening before. Now, you used to get a baked potato on a plate with a steak, you know what I mean, some butter and some salt. But in the 70s, when I was a kid, we'd say, we're doing baked potato night. Now, you know what that means, don't you?

Baked potato night means bacon, chili, cheese, sour cream, chipotle, I don't know, whatever you're going to put, all of peanut butter. I don't know, whatever you're going to put on, you're going to put no peanut butter on a potato. It is fully loaded, and I loved it. My brother and I would just be like, yes, I want that one. I want this. I want the chives. I want it all. Blessing's the same way. Blessing, you can have what you want.

Now, in Christ, I hope this metaphor works. I thought about it all week. In Christ, you're going to get a potato, right? Because you're in Christ. Everyone in Christ gets a potato, and you're blessed to have that potato. That potato saved Irish civilization. They lived on it for thousands of years. You're going to get a potato. But if you want the toppings, God has made it something that often needs to be activated. And the question is, are you going to reach across your brother, elbow him in the face, and get to those bacon bits, because they came out of a jar, which was weird, and take them.

Remember those bacon bits in a jar? Was it bacon? I'm not sure. If you don't see the metaphor that blessing is something that isn't like in this passage, Dad, where's my blessing? I'm tapped out. I've got nothing left. I'll give you a little squeak of a blessing. But that's all there is. In Jesus Christ, we have every blessing. Go to verse 34. As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, bless me also, even me, oh my father.

The blessing is coming from the father. That's key. But he said, your brother came and deceitfully, deceitfully, and has taken away your blessing. I want to stop there. No one can take your blessing. In Christ, no one can take your blessing. But you can give it away. You can give it away. You can just give it away. No one can take your blessing. The question is, do you want the blessing? And if you are passive and going after the blessings of God, you might as well give them away.

Because they are there ready. The table is full with every topping of blessing. The question is, do you want it? Are you just going to let it sit? Verse 35, but he said, your brother came deceitfully, and he said, he's taken away your blessing. Esau said, has he not rightly named Jacob? It means deceiver, heel grabber back in the day. For he has cheated me these two times. That's the deception. The first time he wasn't cheated, it was an honest deal, and he gave away, Esau gave away, he despised, the scripture says, it says in the New Testament as well, he despised his birthright and gave it to his brother.

But this time, he has been deceived himself. They live in a culture of deception in their family, and now he's saying something that's not true and living by a false reality. He's cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing. That is true. Then he said, have you not reserved a blessing for me? In the Old Testament, the blessing was this. It was linear. I mean, it was coming down from the Father.

It was limited. As you can see, there's only scraps left after he gives away the blessing, just scraps. And then it was labile. And labile, we'll look at what that means in a moment, but it says that it was something that could be removed. So linear. Linear is, you're going to see, is it's coming from the Father. And so one of the things you're seeing in this passage is there was a blessing that was given to a family in the Old Testament, and it could be handed to the Father.

It could be handed from the Father and handed down. Why that has changed and become no longer just through the line of your family is because now it goes through Jesus has opened up a way to whom? From the Father. Which Father? Your Father? No. The Father in heaven who has all spiritual blessings and is not limited in his blessing. Man is limited. God is not. And so our blessing now continues to come in a linear fashion, but in the linear fashion, it comes from the God of all.

It comes from the God who has every spiritual blessing, as you're going to see in the New Testament, has every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. So the first one, it is still linear, but it's linear. It bypasses now your Father, and it goes to heaven. I think that the blessing of a father, the blessing of a mother, that we speak blessing is important. But now when we bless, we are not just blessing from us. We are going to God, and we have a direct access to God.

Oftentimes in the Old Testament, things are not only linear, but they're limited. So Moses was the only one that could get a word from God, go see God, and then he would go tell everyone else. People often think, man, wouldn't it be great to be Moses? You could see God face to face, talk to him. Wouldn't that be awesome? I will tell you, every time out of 100 times, Moses would trade what you have, God dwelling in you, speaking from within you, not face to face, but from within you, from what he had, which was momentary.

Maybe it was 40 days up on a mountain. Okay, it's a long time to talk to God face to face. But when he went down, he was not the tabernacle. You see, he carried the tabernacle. We are the tabernacle. And our blessing now, when we have it, is not limited. It is coming from a place where the Holy Spirit who indwells you is the giver of gifts. God the Father is the giver of gifts, but they are called the gifts of what? Correct, thank you.

Gifts of the Spirit. Where did you go? Mary, I appreciate you. The gifts of the Spirit. And where does the Spirit dwell? He doesn't just adorn you. He dwells within you. And so it is no longer limited. In verse 34, you saw that it was linear. It says, bless me, O Father, even me also. Do you have no other blessing? He goes on to say. It is limited, verse 36. He said, have you not reserved a blessing for me? Just reserved just a little scrap for me.

As a believer in Christ, you do not live on the scraps. The devil will lie to you. He will deceive you and say that you are destined for the scraps under the table. There's not much left for you where God is saying no. Come dwell within me. Access the fullness of my blessing, which is in the heavenly realm. It is all there for you. How much do you want? And it was labile. Labile means this. It means something that is prone to easily change.

You're blessed one moment. Then God's favor. He doesn't like you anymore and he's mad at you. This is one of the main deceptions that I deal with. Is that God's like for me is constantly based on my behavior. Oh, he's upset with me. I've got to keep myself away from God. I won't pray today because I feel guilty. Whatever it is. You know what I'm saying? That is a lie. And his favor, once you are in Christ, is not like, you know, he's not like the dysfunctional dad.

Of like, no favor for you today. I have silent treatment for, you know, six days. You know? No, it's not that. It's not labile. It's not something that is changing regularly. It is something that is secure. In verse 35, he says, your brother has came and he has deceitfully taken away your blessing. It was linear through the Father. It was limited and it was labile. It could be taken, deceitfully stolen. No one can steal your blessing.

Let me just say that. What we need to do then is to become aware of what the blessings are. Matter of fact, I was blown away. I went to seminary. I went to pastor school. And as I was reading through this, I was like, whoa. I didn't even know about, you know, a third of these, half of them. I'm like, wow, I need to activate these. So you can do as much school as you want, but the word of God is eternal and he'll continue to blow your way over and over again.

Here's putting it together. If we go to the Ephesians passage in the New Testament, I always want the Old Testament to enlighten the new. You're going to see four words that are going to be used for blessing. And those are in your notes. And those four words are makarios, which is a deep inner flourishing divine favor received. This is God to the believer. You're going to see the direction of these blessings. It is God giving you an inward flourishing.

It's really hard in this day and age to have an inward flourishing when we're focusing on outward chaos. It's really hard to have an inward flourishing, even though the blessing is offered to you, when you're focused on outward chaos. We live in a world of chaos. News chaos. We live in a world of social media chaos. We live in relationships. We're always up in someone's business. You go to the headlines, it'll say, oh, this person's having a problem in their marriage.

This celebrity, who cares? I mean, I'm sorry that that's happening. I don't even know about it. But we want to go look. Just a little more chaos. You know? Oh, this is happening in this part of the world, but there's nothing you can really do about it. Maybe pray about it. It's okay. You know about it. You can pray about it. But we're going to read nine articles on it. We're going to listen to two podcasts about that issue.

And it's just more chaos. It is difficult to live in inner flourishing when you're focused on outward chaos. You can either, one will lead to death, one will lead to faith and life. And so makarios is this word where he's giving this blessing from the inside. It's God to the believer. Ulegentos is an adjective. It's inherent and it's worthy of praise. Use only of God. I bless you, God. I speak your praise, God. God, you are worthy.

That word, ulegentos, is only for God. Ulegio is a verb to speak well of to actively bless. And that can be God to the believer. It can be believer to believer through God. That one's not mentioned on there. And then I spoke about that recently. And hopefully you have begun to bless others, to be a person of profuse blessing. When you will know a person who is a person who speaks blessing. My mom will be getting out of nursing care tomorrow.

Very stoked on that. Okay. The reason I tell you that. Thanks for all the prayers. She'll be moving closer to the church here. We're super excited. But I will tell you what I have noticed about people who speak blessing to other people. The nurses fight to have her on shift. The nurse came in. She said, I won today. I said, you won what? She said, I won the draw to see who gets to take care of your mother. I was like, I get it.

We do everything we can to be liked by people. We try to change our bodies. We try to change the way you perceive us. We do all these things. All you got to do is bless people and be nice and smile. It's not that hard, right? You know what? I find it super hard. Because I tend to like to focus on myself. And if you're going to be that person for other people, you got to be a person that focuses on other people. You know what I'm saying?

So that is a ulegio, that verb to speak well of, to actively bless. And then the one that we're looking at today, and I'm going to give you these verses at the end, is ulegia, which is a noun. The tangible substance of God's favor, a spiritual benefit. The tangible substance that you can look at their life, you can look at the things of their life, and not only see an inward flourishing, but God has touched everything that he has given them dominion over.

He's touched their children. It's tangible. And you are blessed because of your children. Reading in Proverbs 17 today, that a shameful son brings dishonor to his father. And regret, or something close to the term, to his mother. You will see a tangible blessing on their children. You will see, and I'm not saying everyone's going to be rich. But they will have their daily bread met. The Lord's been challenging me on that.

He's all, are you happy with your daily bread? Is that enough for you? I'm like, no. I need like 10 years out, bro. He's like, let's just focus on daily bread. And if you do that, you know, I'm going to give you that blessing. But you will see the tangible blessing of God upon their relationships, and upon all that he has given them dominion over. And when they go to their favorite coffee house and they invest in it, you will see influence in the people in the place in the same way that my mom has influence.

Now, they're going to be sad to see her go, right? We're not sad to leave. But we're sad to see her go. But because she has taken dominion and influence and blessed that blessing, and God has given her the tangible substance of that blessing. Now, in Ephesians 1, which is the scripture I told you that I want you to listen and read, Paul uses all three of the ulo, if you can, words in Ephesians 1, 3. This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible.

And you can try to figure out which one is which, which usage of it. But he said, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Which one would he be using there according to the... The ulegatos, which is used only for God. Blessed be the God and Lord of our Father. Used only of God, that one. So he's using that there. Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Who has blessed us. And I believe that's ulegio.

And then the final one is, I am sure about this, ulegia. And the final one with what? With some spiritual blessings? Some? Every. Do you know what they are? I would, and this was a challenge to me. I would encourage you to learn what all the blessings are. There's, I've mentioned this one before. There's a freebie in the book of Revelation that says, if you just read it aloud, you're blessed. Blessed is the person who reads this book aloud.

That's a freebie. That's just a, go get that one. I don't know what that blessing is. But I immediately went and read it aloud. And maybe you can do it multiple times and get multiply blessed. But just read the book of Revelation aloud. I read it to my kid. Once he was 13, we went through it. That's just one. You see that he says, we have blessed. He said, blessed be God. So we're giving blessing to God. We're blessing him of our Lord Jesus, who has blessed us eternally with the spirit, right?

With every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. How much blessing is on your life? Sometimes you're not even aware that we're being blessed. Because we're all going to get a potato. And God is like, and that potato is good. You know what I'm saying? Like, there is a blessing that comes. You have protection over your life that you wouldn't have had. You have all types of stuff that just comes from being within Christ.

But I want more. And I want you to want more. And I want our church to want more. To be a church that goes after the blessings. So God will just adorn us. Like a Christmas tree will just be adorned. You know those Christmas trees? They just overdid it a little bit. There's like no taste. There's no tact. You're just throwing stuff on it. That's how I want to look in the spiritual realm. I want to walk in and be like, that's gaudy as heck, but it's blessed.

Still never done a theme tree. I need to do a theme tree. Ephesians 1.11 says, in him we have what? Now this goes back to this inheritance passage of this scripture. Remember? We have Esau who has this inheritance. And part of the inheritance is the blessing. And the person who gets the blessing is the one who inherits the lion's share. He will get a double portion, if not more, of what anybody else gets. He'll always sit at the best spot at the table.

He'll always get twice as much food on his plate. You will know that he is the one who is blessed. Right? We see that here. And you have to, one of the things about inheritance in the old day, when do you get your inheritance? Right? Someone's got to do what? Die. Well, someone died for our inheritance. Who was it? Correct. Correct. He has died and now opened up the inheritance that you don't have to wait for it anymore.

And you're going to see that here in Ephesians 1.11. In him we have what? Waited for? Obtained. An inheritance. Having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his well. Are you waiting for your inheritance? You have obtained it. The question is, are you going to go get it? Have you ever seen those stories of somebody left an inheritance and the person didn't know about it?

Right? Then that person dies and they don't get it or they get it laid or whatever. In order, it's a legal, this is a legal transaction in heaven. And when you obtain your blessing according to the inheritance in Christ, you go to the courts of heaven like it speaks about in Hebrews. And you can demand your blessing going boldly before the throne of God. God, I would speak, you know, in a way and say, God, through Jesus Christ, what he has given me, I ask that you would bless me.

And I'm going to live righteously. You're going to live according to the scripture. But I ask that you would bless me. I expect God to watch over my finance because I honor him with my finance. And I expect that he will watch over it and care for it. That doesn't mean there's going to be issues and things of that nature. But those are things that we can do because it is a legal transaction. Jesus died on the cross and he is now legally giving you that inheritance in all ways.

So what's the practical takeaway here? How do we do that? How do we legally find what those things are? Well, I said this is it for your week. God's word is a compass that leads to blessing. God's word is a compass that leads to blessing. Activate your blessing. Our inheritance and blessing in Christ is no longer waited for, but it's available now. And it says in Proverbs, I'll just give a couple of these, and then I printed this out afterwards.

You can go get this list of activated blessings. I need to put that online somehow too so that people online can see it. But here's just a couple that you'll see. Psalm 1. Here's one in Psalm 1. Psalm 1 says, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. If you walk with the righteous, you will be blessed. Now, it doesn't always tangibly tell you what that blessing is, because Scripture doesn't do a lot of A plus B equals C.

But you can be assured that there is a blessing that comes with walking with the righteous. And it'll be wisdom. It'll be counsel. Who you walk with is going to determine a lot of who you become and the choices you make. Luke 11, 28. And this is, you know, Jesus says, blessed are, as he did the Sermon on the Mount. That's a great place to start. Just start doing all those, right? He's just blessed is this, blessed is that, blessed are you, blessed is this.

He says in Luke 28, but he said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and do what? Keep it. So you want a blessing? Keep the word of God. Find out what the word of God is and keep it. Matthew 5, 9, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called what? Sons of God. That's a blessing. When you go make peace with someone, right? When you make peace with them, it says that God will speak of you as his children.

You will have the blessing of God's children. You will initiate that blessing. I got a whole bunch more. Like I said, I got 30. You can get them on the way out. The ushers will have them on the way out. But, and they're all followed with scripture. I love this one. Honor God and he will honor you. 1 Samuel 2, 30. How do I honor God? I speak about him in public. I honor him with my life. I honor him with my actions. I honor him with my thoughts.

Just by honoring God, he says that you will be honored. Look, there's a lot of people seeking honors. We just had some award show. I forgot what it was like a couple weeks ago. It was one of them. And everyone's getting their honor and they're up there with their little statue. You know what I want? I want the God of the universe to say, I honor my child, Adam. I honor Eden. You know what I mean? I honor Andres. You know, all through.

Put your name there. If you honor him, you will be honored. That's a blessing. Forgiveness will give you freedom and restoration. The blessing of freedom and restoration you'll find on this. Mercy. You will receive mercy. You want mercy? Then be merciful. That is a blessing. Do you want mercy or do you want judgment? It goes on and on. Faithfulness and a little regret. It talks about giving. Obviously, tithing is one of the ones that's always spoken about.

Wisdom, fear of the Lord, and beyond. So here's the thing. You all got a potato, right? You all got a potato. The question is, how much do you want on it? The blessed life is the fully loaded life. Stop waiting for your blessing. Go find your blessing and dive into it and see what happens. Because you will not only have an internal, internal, which is one of the Greek words you can study from the notes again. But you will have an external where people will see it upon you.

You'll walk in. They'll look at you and they'll say, that person is blessed. Why? Because the presence of the Lord is upon them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.