Jacob & Esau

0:00Good morning. Turn in your Bibles to Genesis. We're past the halfway point in our walk through Genesis. So because we're past the halfway point, maybe a little housekeeping is in order. We have 11 more weeks through Genesis. 11 more weeks, which takes us really through the rest of the summer. So just to think, when we are wrapping up Genesis, that first cool front will be just around the corner. I can't wait for that. Just joking. As much as I have enjoyed working topically through Ecclesiastes and now Genesis, not fully topically, but a little more topically, I am very much looking forward to getting to Hebrews in September, which we will be going through verse by verse through Hebrews. At this point, I don't know exactly how long we're going to be in Hebrews, but my guess is that that's Hebrews is probably going to be the longest journey that I have done thus far. At least a year, maybe a little more, we'll see what happens. But that's kind of where we're going, Lord willing. We'll finish 11 weeks through Genesis, then Hebrews. So yeah, that's where we're going. And since I'm doing a little housekeeping, one other thing. When we went through the book of Titus last year, we talked extensively about eldership, right? And at that time I asked the church to start to begin to pray and consider among who among us would be suited to fill that role of elder. And many of you gave me the same three names. And after a little bit of delay on my part, really just me being somewhat disorganized, we have officially begun the process of qualifying three men whom y'all nominated to Brother Dave and I, so that you are aware. We have been, Brother Dave and I have been meeting with them, those men, once a month. We're going through a book on eldership. And there's going to continue to be a lot of prayer, asking the Lord for guidance in that preparation. The next step for those men will be to put them forth to you as a church, assuming they make it through the gauntlet that they're presently being put through for a vote. And then upon approval from you all, they will be ordained as elders, and we'll likely have a separate service for that. This is our effort to be, again, as I said when we went through Titus, to be obedient to the Word of God, and to be obedient to the Word of God in our church government, and to install leadership to better serve God and our church. Through this, there's going to be a whole host of additional ministry efforts that will flow inevitably, and I trust that this will be apparent in our better service to you all, to the church. I think it will strengthen. I know it will strengthen our foundation in preparation for the numerical growth that we are continually asking the Lord to provide for us. So I'm excited about this direction and the men whom you all have recognized as called for this service. So more to come for now. That's it for now. So let's get to the Bible this morning. To open up our story, we will see this morning that Isaac is 40 years old. We talked about this last week. Isaac is 40 when he and Rebekah get married. And now 20 years pass in just these few verses that we're going to read. As Rebekah is barren, they're without children for 20 years. And this is a recurring theme that we are seeing now with the barrenness of the women with whom God has appointed to carry along this seed that ultimately leads to Christ. There is this reoccurring theme of barrenness. Maybe there is more to that than just simply bad luck, right? Has to be. It begs the question, though, why does God take, always take so long to fulfill his promises? Right? Why does he make Abraham wait as a foreigner for 62 years before he gives them land to possess? Why does he keep Sarah barren for 90 years? Why does he keep Rebekah here barren for 20 years after their marriage? I may turn your attention to a few verses. Psalm 27, verse 14, wait for the Lord. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. Isaiah 40 in verse 31 But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Lamentations 3.25. For him, to the soul who seeks him. Finally, Psalms 62, verse 5. For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence. For my hope is from Him. A second thing I want us to see this morning is that the children of Isaac and Rebekah were contentious from the womb. They were contentious from the womb. The Lord even tells Rebekah that this is so, which should demonstrate to us that the purposes of God transcend conscious human life. God has plans and has ordained plans that don't just begin when someone makes a decision for Christ, or when people are born, or even when people are conceived, but rather have been established since the foundations of the earth to bring about God's specific plans and purposes. Spoiler, that includes raising up a nation for himself and a nation that is consistently against his holy name. Okay, finally, I want us to see how quickly people will abandon their inheritance for a quick momentary relief or gratification. Do we wait on the Lord? Or do we sell our birthright to fill our hungry stomachs? That is a question that I think I'll only begin to answer and mind the depths of this morning, but that is perhaps more than enough for introduction. So why don't you stand with me? And we're gonna read Genesis 25. We're gonna start in verse 19, and we're gonna read through the end of verse 25. Sorry, yeah, through chapter 25. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean of Padenerum, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren, and the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, If it is thus, why is this happening to me? So she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided, the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger. When her days to give birth were completed, behold, the twins were in her uh the twin there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out, hold his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate his of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted, and Esau said to Jacob, Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted. Therefore his name was called Edom. Jacob said, Sell me your birthright now. Esau said, I'm about to die. Of what use is a birthright to me? Jacob said, Swear to me now. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Thank you again, Lord, for your word, for giving us your word, and we pray now that I would speak, Lord, on behalf of Christ. And it is in his name that I pray. Amen. One of the reasons why we can be assured that the Bible is true, aside from the confidence given to us by the Spirit, is that the Bible never dresses up its characters, right? The Bible always exposes its characters and all their flaws and sins and doubts and even deceptions at times. Even those whom the word calls blameless, and certainly not without, or certainly not without blame, right? In this case, well, we'll talk about that in just a minute with regard to Jacob. In their actions, so we should always see the grace of God, right? This is the point. We always see the grace of God and his divine election, which is always the basis of our blamelessness. Okay? The grace of God and his divine election is always the basis of our blamelessness. We see that again playing out with Jacob. As our story begins, we see that there is a struggle between these two from conception. A struggle from conception. These two in the womb are fighting with one another. And this is a great struggle for Rebecca. Imagine waiting twenty years to get pregnant. And when you finally do, the pregnancy is so tumultuous and painful that you are pleading with God to answer why he is doing this to you. If this is a blessing from you, God, why is this happening to me? This is Rebecca's plea. And it's difficult to get a sense of her desperation here, but this must have been extremely difficult for her. The text says that we read that the two struggled within her, but a more literal reading would say that the two were smashing together inside of her. I've never been pregnant, never will be. But I can only imagine how painful and difficult that would be to have a literal war going on inside of you all the time. So Rebecca goes to the Lord, as we all should, when we are struggling, and she asks for an answer. Why is this happening to me? She does get an answer, but it's probably not what she wanted to hear. The Lord tells her that the reason that these two children are so at odds with one another in the womb is that there are actually two nations inside of her. There are two peoples in her. This tumultuous pregnancy is a foreshadowing of the division that God is setting up between nations, between peoples. On the one hand, you have the older Esau, the firstborn, who we saw was nicknamed Edom, representative of the nation of Edom. On the other, you have Jacob, who is nicknamed Israel, of course, representative of Israel, the nation of God. The biblical witness tells us that the war between Israel and Edom, the nations, was long and persistent. When Moses and the Israelites were fleeing from Egypt, they tried to go get to safety through Edom. They were not given safe passage by the Edomite king. He refused to let them through. Saul fought Edom, David fought Edom, and Edom continually rebelled against Israel all the way through 2 Kings. God declared that Edom's end would be a wasteland occupied only by wild animals. It's a very interesting judgment from God there. Because when Esau, who was representative of Edom, was born, the text said he was covered in red hair. So the beginning of Edom would have the appearance of a mangy wild animal. And this, of course, matched the end of Edom, where only animals would inhabit. I've said it before that God did not leave out any detail when he wrote this story. Also, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, we get further insight into this story between Jacob and Esau and the war between nations from Romans 9, when Paul explains that this feud between brothers is really a feud between peoples that was established before the world began. A people of God under his grace, and a people not of God under his judgment. The people of God were divided from conception, right? The war began in the womb, is what the text says. Further, this was established before they were born, right? As representation of those divided nations, before they were born, so that we cannot say, well, they just didn't get along, right? These nations, they just didn't get along. Or maybe some people just made some bad choices. He is behind all of it. Of course, Paul rhetorically anticipates our objections to that thought, right? Is there injustice in God then? How does he find fault if this is all his doing? And what is our answer to those questions from Paul? Brother Stephen read it on Wednesday night from Romans 9, but who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Further, Paul says at the end of Romans 9, and this is him quoting Isaiah, that had God not sovereignly ordained an offspring, we would have all become like Sodom and Gomorrah. Meaning, if God had just left it all up to us, we would all be lost. So it is theologically important to establish that the struggle between the nations, the peoples, was ordained by God from conception. Okay? From the womb. The story continues. And the twins are born, Esau first, and then Jacob grabbing his heel, the text said. The name Jacob, in fact, means heel grabber, which is weird that you have a name for heel grabber, but whatever. Much of Jacob's life is defined by his heel grabbing, okay? It is Esau to whom the birthright belongs, right? But Jacob leverages him into selling it for some soup. It is Esau to whom the blessing belongs, but Jacob and Rebekah trick Isaac and he ends up giving the blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. And that's, I think two weeks we're going to be in that passage. So how is it that Jacob is characterized as a quiet man, which this description as a quiet man could also be translated as blameless? How is it that Jacob is characterized in that way, yet his inheritance and his blessing was gained by trickery and deceit? How is that possible? I'll point out three things. First, the Bible never indicates that God approves of the actions of Jacob, right? And this is where we go wrong quite often when we assume that simply because the Bible describes an event, it necessarily approves the behavior involved in that event. And that's just not necessarily the case. Jacob is blameless, right? And is the chosen vessel of God to continue the fulfillment of God's promise, not because he was deceitful, but he was chosen and blameless despite his apparent deceitfulness. Jacob was the appointed vessel of God's grace, and this marvelous grace is far greater than Jacob's sin and deceit. So then we continue to sin that grace may abound. By no means. We have died to sin and should never aspire to still live in it, but in the infinite mercy of God, he works in us even through our sin. He is truly marvelous. Secondly, this should communicate to us that Jacob is clearly not the final seed of the woman that we are looking for. Even though Jacob is a child of God, he has been called to fulfill his purpose, God's purpose. He is not the Messiah that we are looking for. Jacob, a type of Israel, a type of God's people, is still deceitful. He clearly still needs redemption. The church, Israel, God's people still need redemption. The actions of Jacob show us that he is not the one. But that God's people are still looking for something greater. Someone who is truly blameless. And someone who through whom we may actually receive the same blamelessness that we seek. I don't know you two. We still haven't found what we're looking for. Not in Jacob anyway. Third, we must not assume that because of Jacob's deceit, I'll say that again. We must not assume that because of Jacob's deceit, that this necessarily makes Esau an innocent party here, right? Because Jacob was deceitful, that does not make Esau innocent. Nothing could be further from the truth. Esau is hasty. He's selfish. He cares little for the long term, but rather only lives to satisfy his immediate desires. His vision sees nothing beyond his immediate needs. That's what the text tells us. When Esau says, I'm about to die, what use is my birthright to me? There is more to him than just making a deal to preserve his life. Okay? He cares little for the significance of his inheritance beyond simply the things that his inheritance provides to him. I'll say that again. He cares little for the significance of his inheritance beyond simply the things that his inheritance provides to him. We know this because after he sold it, his birthright to Jacob, he ate, he drank, and he went his way. One commentator noted that the choppy language, that short, quick, choppy language is used here to allude to Esau's demeanor. He's short, he's careless. He just eats and leaves. These actions show that he despised his birthright. The word despise there means to consider something to be worthless. His birthright was worthless to him. So to exchange it for some soup to meet his very temporary needs didn't take much consideration for him. He didn't really care about it anyway. I won't do it, but I could preach probably several sermons on the various ways in which modern Christianity shows how much it despises its birthright. How willing it is to sell out for a bowl of soup called cultural acceptance, perhaps. We don't desire to be quiet, reflective types living in tents, metaphorically. To live in a tent, actually. You can if you want to. We want to be loud, influential, rich, fast, famous. Someone has to live in the mansions, right? I contend that in many ways we already do all of those things. And that that represents us more than we care to admit. So to feel sorry for Esau because he got swindled is perhaps misplace our feelings. Or even to cast pearls before swine. Furtherwhile, we know that Jacob was the chosen instrument of God, there are consequences to his actions, right? Jacob was, as we've said, the instrument of God, but there were consequences to his actions. The justice of God doesn't just let Jacob off the hook here. We'll read in a few chapters. He himself is swindled. He's put into bondage to Laban for 20 years in order to marry Rachel and get his livestock. So Jacob's behavior is not approved of, and he certainly pays for his deceitfulness. Okay, so let's connect all those dots then and return again to my main introductory point, which was waiting on the Lord. Not only does God continually in his word make his people wait long periods of time to teach patience. He always chooses the younger, seemingly weaker vessels through which to fulfill his promise. One commentator says this: God has a history of choosing the younger over the older. He chose Abel over Cain, the younger Isaac over Ishmael, here he chooses Jacob over Esau, next the younger Joseph over his brothers, then the younger Epaphron over Epaphram over Manasseh, the younger David over his brothers, the younger Solomon over Adonijah. End quote. God does this to communicate to us that he prefer, sorry, he doesn't communicate this to us. He doesn't do this to communicate that he prefers the younger sibling over the older sibling, right? But to establish that God does things according to his will, not human customs and traditions. He does this so that we see that it was him who did it, not us. And so that our spiritual vision is ultimately corrected then to see Christ, and that is the point, right? And it makes perfect sense when we see the humble nature with which Christ came into the world, right? Obscure and unexpected, perhaps. The humble life that Christ lived, characterized by thoughtful service and sacrifice, the humiliation that Christ suffered on the cross to save us from our sins. God in his grace set all of that up for us, revealing the true nature of his character so that we would see him when he became flesh and dwelt among us. But did we see him? What fools we were. Because despite the revelation of himself, when he shows up in humility, just as he has revealed himself countless times before, humanity's response is to reject him. Because he is exactly who God has revealed himself to be, right? Let me turn your attention to a parable of Jesus. You can turn here if you want. Matthew 20 1 through 16. Matthew 20, 1 to 16. It's the laborers in the vineyard. I'm just going to read this. I'm just going to read this whole parable. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, You going into the vineyard too, sorry, and he said to them, You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give to you. So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour, and the ninth hour he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he said to them, Why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, Because no one has hired us. He said to them, You go into the vineyard too. And when the evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to the foreman, Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last up to the first. And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, they each of them received a denarius. Now, when those he hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, Those last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. But he replied to one of them, Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I chose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last. Church, I need you to see that we are the younger sibling. We are the younger sibling with no right to the inheritance of God. But in his grace, he has chosen to give it to us. We are the workers without work all day, standing around poor and hopeless, and at the eleventh hour the master shows up and says, Come and work for me. The wage he pays is the same day's wage, which for us is an infinite inheritance. And for us to not see the riches of his glorious grace is to begrudge his generosity. We serve a God who consistently shows us that he goes to the back of the line first to take hold of the needy, the humble, those in want. Romans 4, 4 to 5. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Romans 4, verse 16. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring. If our inheritance is owed to us because of some natural birthright, we despise it. If it is owed to us because of a work, then we grumble about it. When someone is given the same thing as a gift, right? If it is owed to us because of a work, then we grumble when someone else is given the same wage as a gift. If we work for a wage, then compensation is not a gift. But that's our due. And then we despise generosity shown to anyone who we feel like doesn't deserve it as much as we do. But what if we are the younger with no birthright? What if we are the workers without a wage? What if we are in the back of the line wanting and waiting, hoping that the supplies don't run out? This is exactly where faith shows up. Because it is there that the promise must rest on grace. Why does it take so long for God to fulfill his promises? So that we may rest on grace. Why does he so often call us to wait? So that we may rest on grace. Why does he choose the younger? So that we may rest on grace. Why did God himself do all of the work to save us? So that we may rest on grace. Why is our salvation not our due, but his generosity? So that we may rest on grace. What do we even say in response to such generosity and kindness? I pray we give thanks. Number one. We worship him and we serve him because of his inexpressible gift. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for the grace that you have shown us here in this story, Lord. I pray and ask, Lord, that through this through this story you would help us to depend upon you, who has done all things according to the counsel of your will. When we don't understand them, Lord, when we can't figure them out, I pray and ask, Lord, please, that we just rest on your grace. When you put us through trials or call us to wait, I pray and ask that we just rest on your grace, Lord. We thank you for it. And we testify to that grace that is shown to us. Lord, in the death of Jesus Christ, whom we proclaim now by the taking of his body and his blood, Lord, in this ordinance. Lord, bless this. We thank you so very much for our Savior. In Jesus' name. Amen.