(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

So, as I said, this is just a very short sermon, just considering today. And as I said, I didn't want to really cover motherhood so much. But I titled this short sermon, this sermonette, The Sibling Advantage. The Sibling Advantage. So of course, we know that our sister has had the one child for the 12 years and now another one is on its way. What a great gift of God. And you know, having a sibling, it may look like here that, you know, just adding one more member to the family, from a family of three to a family of four, may not look like a big deal. But actually, there's a lot of advantages that go with having multiple children, you know. And so we're going to be looking at four major advantages of having a sibling. I don't think you've all got your Bibles here, but you can just listen in. I'll just read to you from John chapter 1 verse 35. It says again, the next day, after John stood, this is John the Baptist, and two of his disciples and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold, the Lamb of God. So you can see John the Baptist, he is instructing his disciples, you know, pointing them to Jesus Christ. And then in verse number 40, it says, one of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the messiahs, which is being interpreted the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus behold him, he said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jonah, thou shall be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone. So what do we see here? We see that Andrew heard about Jesus Christ, he heard about the Messiah, the Christ, okay. And he says, wow, this is the one we need to follow. This is the Christ. And that's the first thing that he does. He first goes to his brother. He goes to his brother. And I'm sorry, Andrew goes to his brother Simon. And of course, Simon is Peter, we know Simon Peter as one of the main apostles of Jesus Christ. And the great ministry that Simon Peter would eventually have, but it all started with his brother. His brother Andrew came and said, hey, we have found Jesus. Let me show you where Jesus is. Let me take you to Jesus Christ. So the first point that I have for the sibling advantage is that siblings can lead one to Christ. Siblings can lead one to Christ. And Liliana, she's our most recent convert, she got saved not too long ago, but the first one that approached her with the gospel was her brother Jonathan. Her brother Jonathan would come up to her and say, Lily, you need to make sure that you're going to heaven. You need to believe on Jesus Christ. I don't know how long ago was that, maybe a year ago, maybe more. But you see, when a sibling knows of Jesus Christ, when a sibling knows of salvation through him, it's going to be a natural desire for that sibling to go and tell their brother or sister about the great news of Jesus Christ. This is one great advantage. Sometimes as parents, we have an adult mindset. We're thinking about greater responsibilities. But when it comes to siblings, you know what their heart is? Their heart is, I just want to see my brother or sister saved. I just want to see them in heaven. We can be busy with other things, but when it comes to siblings, they have this natural love and desire for one another to be saved. So the first point is, siblings can lead one to Christ. Now I'm going to take you to another passage in the Bible, another great brother team, which is in Exodus chapter 4, verse number 10, Exodus chapter 4 and verse number 10. This is when God instructs Moses, right, to go back to Egypt and God will use Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, the great exodus, okay? In Exodus chapter 4, verse 10, it says, And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but I am slow of a speech and of a slow tongue. So God's telling Moses, look, Moses, I need you to go to Egypt and get the children out of that place. And Moses says, look, I can't do it, Lord. He was lacking confidence. He says, look, I can't speak, verse number 11. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? And who maketh the dumb or death or the seen or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. And he said, O my Lord, send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. And the anger of the Lord was kindred against Moses. And he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? So Moses just like, Lord, you know, don't let it be me. I can't speak. I can't lead these people, this nation out of Egypt. And the Lord says, don't you have a brother? Isn't Aaron the Levite your brother? And then God says this, I know that he can speak well. And also behold, he cometh forth to meet thee. And when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. And thou shalt speak unto him and put words in his mouth. And I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. And so the second point that I have here for the sibling advantage is that siblings can support each other in the service for God or to God. Siblings can support one another in service to God. Moses would not have gotten off his lazy behind and gone into Egypt if he did not have his older brother Aaron there to encourage him to speak on his behalf. And eventually we know as the story goes on, Moses eventually gets his courage. Moses eventually gets to that point where he knows he can speak. And then he's the one that is leading ultimately leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. But he needed his older brother Aaron. You know, God recognized this, I'll send your older brother Aaron, I'll send your sibling, he'll come and meet you, he'll be the one that is eloquent with his mouth, he'll be able to talk to Pharaoh and be a help to you. And so siblings are a wonderful thing. Siblings can lead one another to Christ, as I said, but secondly, siblings can support each other in the service to God. Because serving God is not always easy. Serving God sometimes you may have the world against you, you may have extended family against you, but when you have your brother or sister, you have a sibling next to you and you both desire to serve God, that's going to encourage you to be able to do great works for God. Moses was able to accomplish such a great job of birthing this new nation out of Egypt only because he had his brother Aaron to be a support to him. Now the next thing that I want you to think about here is, as I said, you know, just adding, you know, we might see, well, I'm just adding one more child to the family, but it's so much more than one more child. It's so much more. Because every time you have a child, you create additional relationships in the family, additional relationships in the family. Let me just read a passage to you here in Genesis 25 verse 27. This is about another two brothers. It says, And the boys grew, and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field, and Jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents. So we know Jacob and Esau, these are twin brothers, but they're totally different. One is a guy that loves to be outdoors hunting. He's very skillful at that. The other person is very, you know, he says he's a plain man dwelling in tents. He was more of an indoor person, right. He preferred just minding the sheep in the family's home rather than getting out there in the wild. Hey, these are twins and they're very, very different. And sometimes we can forget this when you have siblings. You know, you need to understand and you have, you know, multiple children, they're all going to be different. You know, I have twins and aren't they so different? You know, they're extremely, not only do they look different, they speak differently, they eat different things, they have different hobbies. And we need to remember, you know, as another child gets added to the family, it's not just, you know, a copy of child number one. Even twins, not just a copy one of another, it's a completely different personality that has been added to your family. You know, every child adds variety, okay. And then it says in verse number 28, and Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Now, this is one of the major mistakes that both Isaac and Rebekah make with their twin children, okay. Isaac had favourites. Esau was his favourite. And for Rebekah, Jacob was her favourite, okay. And you know, I won't go into the story now, but this caused major conflicts between the siblings because one parent loved the other more, you know, one more than the other. And this was obvious. This was very clear. You know, obviously this is something that we should strive not to do with our children. You know, every new child is a new relationship that you need to develop. It's not just automatic. It's not just I already had a child or now there's another one. Now you've got to develop a relationship with this child as well. You know, you cannot have favourites. This caused problems to the point where Esau wanted to kill Jacob and Jacob had to leave the family for fear of his life. Now thank God eventually these two many, many years later were able to sort out their differences, but nevertheless the favouritism that was given by the parents caused, you know, major problems in the family. And so you're not just adding another child, you're creating relationships in that family unit. What do I mean by that? Well when you first get married, between husband and wife, there's one relationship. The one relationship between husband and wife, one, okay? Then you have your first child and now you're more than doubling. It doesn't go from one relationship to two. It goes from one to three because you've got that husband and wife relationship, which is one. Then you've got mother and child relationship, that's two. Then you have father and child relationship, that's three. You see how you've more than doubled the relationships that are in that family. And so currently, sister, you've got three relationships in your family. Now you're adding one more child, but how many relationships are we adding? Well, mum will have a new relationship with that child, that second child. Dad will have a new relationship with the second child. And the first child will have now a relationship with that next child. Okay, so you're adding three more relationships. You know, so your family at the moment, you've got three relationships. Now just with one more child, you're adding another three relationships. So your family, sister, will be made up of six relationships in that family, just by adding one more child. And I'll work this out for my family, where 78 relationships in my family, I have 13 children, it works out to be 78 relationships once you work each one out, right? So you work out mum and dad together, then you work out, okay, mum with each of the siblings, then you work out, okay, dad with each of the siblings, and then you work out each sibling with each and every sibling, it's 78 relationships that there are in that family, okay? So adding siblings creates many more relationships, okay? So it's almost like you're doubling the family completely, from three relationships to six, but you're only adding one more child. So you can see just another child adds so much more complexity and good variety in the family, okay? And so it's important that you understand that this child, the second child that comes, needs a relationship with mum, needs a relationship with dad, and also it's going to develop that relationship between brother and brother in this situation, okay? And then that adds other complications, because for mothers that have multiple children, you know that the kids don't always get along. Kids can sometimes argue and fight. And so now you're adding further, like I said, complexity to the family, and you're trying to maintain all these relationships together. It has many, many advantages. And you know, one advantage, for example, is for Michael Jr., being a, you know, and he's a great boy, but you know, being an only child for some time and then having another one added to that family, he's going to have to learn how to share his time. You know, before he was just, well, mum and dad are always there. I'm the one that, you know, has their attention. And so he has to learn how to be selfless and give his time over to a sibling. This is just going to be good for his character. This is going to be good for him. He's going to learn how to develop a sacrificial heart. You know, I can't have all the time, I can't have all the attention, I can't have all the goodies that come from mum and dad. Now I realise I have to set myself aside and allow my brother to enjoy being in this family as well. You know, and thirdly, one of the great advantages as well with these multiple families is that he'll be able to have the opportunity to teach his younger sibling the great things that he has learnt, you know, being a child of the family. And you know, this is one thing that we discovered. You know, sometimes when you have your first child, you know, Isabelle understands this that, you know, parents can sometimes be a little bit more strict. You know, and then the second child and, you know, maybe the strictness is there but you drop off a little bit and you drop off a little bit more. And it's not that you've changed direction but what happens is if you raise your first child very well, the second child basically just copies what the first child is doing. And so a lot of things that you taught the first child, you don't even need to teach them a second time because the second child is learning that from their older sibling. And the older sibling can teach the younger one, you know, great morals, great principles, you know, how to behave in the house, you know. And so, you know, Michael Jr. will have the opportunity to gain further learning simply by being another teacher as it were to his younger brother. And so there are a lot of great benefits to having siblings, the sibling advantage. You know, point number three was siblings add variety and that makes it exciting. You know, a household full of varieties, a household full of relationships makes it very exciting. And point number four, I've got to be mixed up here but as I said, siblings multiply the family relationships and this will help develop social skills because as I said, every child is different. Every, you know, some children are more outgoing, some are, you know, a little bit more quiet. And then as they grow, sometimes they even change completely. Sometimes the very outgoing child becomes a little bit more quiet and sometimes the more quiet child grows up and becomes a loudmouth. You know, relationships change and personalities change. And this helps with social skills. You know, before you go out in the world and, you know, work a job or before you get out there and, you know, make yourself of something, the great advantage of siblings is you've already developed the opportunity to tamper or tailor your personality to different types of people. And so when you go out, you're much, you've got much more of a richer experience with dealing with different personalities. So that's the advantage of multiple family relationships. Now I'm just going to end it here in Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse 9. And quite often this passage we read it in context of maybe sometimes marriage. You know, when people are getting married we'll read this passage. But let's think about this in terms of siblings right now. It says in Ecclesiastes 4, 9, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up. So what a great advantage of siblings. If one falls, the other can pick them up, okay. Two are better than one, okay. And so let me just go and finish up on what those four advantages are once again. Number one, siblings can lead one another to Christ. Number two, siblings can support each other in service to God. Number three, siblings add variety. And number four, siblings multiply family relationships. Okay, let's pray.