The Deceitfulness of the Flesh
Transcript
Well, all right, how we doing this morning? Whew! I forgot. I quit asking that. Good morning! My name's Chet.
I'm one of the pastors here. We are in the book of Genesis. We will be in Genesis chapter 25 this morning. We've been following along with this whole book, and we've been following along this story of God's beginning into redemption. So He makes the world.
It's beautiful. It's good. He makes humans. We're awesome for like half a page. And then we rebel. We fall into sin.
And the big question and the tension in the story of Genesis is, what is God going to do with sinful humanity? And is sin going to wreck His good plans? And is sin going to destroy His good design? And so we see that He picks up with His family. He picks Abraham. And we've been following this story through Abraham.
And now we move to Isaac last week. We kind of saw the story shift from Abraham and Sarah to Isaac and Rebecca. And today we'll see some new people enter this story. When we read stories, we've been trained to look for main characters. We've been trained to look for the hero. That's one of the things that happens.
When you start watching a movie, you start looking and saying, okay, who am I going to relate to? Who am I going to follow? Who am I going to root for? If you've ever watched a movie that doesn't do a good job of kind of giving you a hero and a villain and some tension, it's not a very good movie. It may be artsy, but it's not a very good movie. And there are some movies that it holds out.
I remember watching Frozen for the first time. And it takes a while. At one point I was going, who's the villain in this movie? I don't think it's the sister that just went crazy and built an ice castle and a monster. It may be her. She may storm back down the mountain and attack everybody.
But I don't think it's her. I think she's one of the main characters that's on the good side. But you're watching kind of waiting to see, like, who's the bad guy? When I watched the second Guardians of the Galaxy, I was like halfway in that movie. And I was like, what am I watching? Like, who's the bad guy?
What's going to happen? And that's kind of what happens. We read these stories and we start going, okay, who's the hero? Who's the bad guy? Who am I rooting for? Who am I?
And this story is about people, real people who actually existed. And so we're going to get introduced to two brothers today. Jacob and Esau. So we're in Genesis chapter 25. And I hate to hurt your feelings. Neither one of them is the good guy.
There is a hero in this story, but it's not one of them. And so let's look at this. Let's read this together. And let's see how this story plays out in God's redemptive history as he walks with his family towards redeeming humanity and setting us free from the consequences of sin. And so let's pray and then we'll read this together. God, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for this time that we get to gather to worship the God who saved us from sin because you loved us. And so we pray that that is what would happen, that we would worship. That we wouldn't just learn or we wouldn't just study or we wouldn't just get to see people that we care about, but that we would worship you. And we pray that you would help us do that as we read your word together. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.
All right, so we're picking it up in verse 19. Now it says, These are the generations of Isaac. And in the book of Genesis, that means we've shifted the story. So it says, Abraham's son. This is generations of Abraham's son. It says that Abraham fathered Isaac.
And Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean of Padam Aram, and the sister of Laban, the Aramean, to be his wife. And it says, And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren. All right, now if you'll remember, God has promised this family that it is through Isaac that the promises are going to come true. He promised Abraham it's going to be through Isaac. Not Ishmael, who was Abraham's oldest son, and not Abraham's other sons that he eventually has that you can read about at the beginning of this chapter with his third wife. But it's going to be through Isaac that the promises are going to become true, that he's going to get the land, that he's going to be the great nation, that ultimately the promise made to Eve in the garden is going to come true, that through him he's going to bless the world.
And so he says it's through Isaac. Well, Isaac gets married to Rebekah, and Rebekah does not have children. She's barren. We actually find out later that she's barren for 20 years, that Isaac prays for 20 years. The text makes it seem like he prayed once, and God was like, I hear you. But he prays for 20 years that God would bless her with children, and God does.
Now one of the interesting things as we see this story is that Sarah is barren for a very long time, prior to having Isaac. And then Isaac and Rebekah. Rebekah is barren, unable to have children for a very long time. There's a lot of pain and tension there, and it shows that ultimately this blessing came through God, and not through the power of man, or what we would look to and say, the fruitfulness of man and the ability of humanity. And God one-ups himself in the New Testament when Mary, who is a virgin, gives birth to Jesus. And he continues the same pattern of miraculously answering prayers and allowing things to happen.
So it says, 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? That's not a great sentence. It's even worse in the original Hebrew. They tried to make it more of a sentence for English.
In Hebrew, it's, If thus, why me? Or, if thus, why? She says, The children struggled within her. So she's prayed and prayed and prayed. She finally finds out she's pregnant. She's excited.
They're excited. God's blessed. God's answered. And then it is a tumultuous, terrible pregnancy. Now, my wife has had, we've had two children, and I will tell you that even good pregnancies are terrible. It's not, it's not a picnic.
The curse that goes to Eve is real and active. And we have like medicine and doctors and the ability to check what's going on. She has nothing. She has two children inside of her. It says they struggled within her. Another way to translate that is they smashed each other.
There's, there's two children inside of her, and they don't like each other, and that makes it very uncomfortable, and very difficult. Like, at times in pregnancies, there's, you know, the mom will be like, oh, look, look, you can see a little hand, or you can see a foot, and you're like, yeah, and it's kind of cool and kind of creepy looking to see like a whole foot pushed up against. Well, with this pregnancy, there was like one of them smushing the other one's face repeatedly against the, it's, it's, it's bad. She doesn't know what's going on, but she goes to God and says, if thus, why? Like, what, if you were, if this is what pregnancy was going to be, why?
Why would you do this? Why me? Like, just send this promise to somebody else, if this is what this is going to be like. So it says that she goes to the Lord. So she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said to her, and this is, this is beautiful.
We don't know exactly how she went to inquire of the Lord, but we know that it is not important other than she was the one asking, and God's responding to her. It seems as if maybe she did this on her own. There's other places and other ways to inquire of the Lord, but she asked, he answers. He says, two nations are in your womb, and the two peoples from within you shall be divided, and one shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. Now, it is possible they had a clue that she was carrying multiple children. It's possible that even from this, she's still wondering like, okay, I'm actually having twins, or like, in the future, I'm going to have two children, but that's, she's kind of getting this as an answer.
Okay, there's two nations in my womb. Two people shall be divided. One will be stronger than the other. And then he says, and the older shall serve the younger. Now, that's unheard of. That's not a normal thing for this culture, that the older would serve the younger.
You see, the older one, it gets the birthright. The older one is the leader, is the head, will take on the family name, will become the patriarch, will lead everything, and the other ones will receive some inheritance, but the older one, the oldest son, always gets double the inheritance, and he carries on and leads the family. And this is still the truth there today in the Middle East, that the oldest son has a significant amount of weight. And so it says, the younger will serve, the older will serve the younger. Now, this is also very important for this family, specifically because God has promised that he's going to bless Abraham.
And then he says, I'm going to bless through Isaac, and I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to make you a great people. And so what she just got told was, there's two nations, meaning one child, one child is the child of promise. One child is the seed. One child is the nation. And the other child is not.
That's what's just told to her. And so then it continues. When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. So it was like, oh, okay, look, it was twins. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak. So they called his name Esau, which is a play on words.
It's very close to the word hair. So he comes out red and hairy. You know how every once in a while people show you the baby, and you're like, yeah, that's a baby. Look at you with a baby. That's what happened here. It actually probably most likely signifies that this one came out looking very, very healthy.
It's possible that it was red hair, which would have been odd for this. And usually red haired people, and some people who are red haired may feel like this continued, are looked down upon in society. But it's also possible that it actually means he was red, like he was ruddy, which is the way they describe David later. It's a picture that goes along with he looked heroic, because that was kind of in that time frame. So it seems like, and as you read the text more, that he came out healthy, heroic, and hairy.
He comes out a little wild. And some of that we're getting from the way it describes his brother. It says, afterward, his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel. So his name was called Jacob. Jacob means he grabs the heel. It feels a little bit, they named him like you would name puppies.
Like the way my brothers and I would be like, hey, this one's got like a circle on its eye, we'll call him patch. That one that keeps spinning in circles, we'll call it spaz. Almost like it was Isaac's Job to name them, and he completely forgot that he was supposed to have done this, like come up with names. And they're like, so what did you decide? And he's like, oh, yeah, Harry, foot grabber. Rebecca's like, you forgot you were supposed to name him, didn't you?
He's like, no, Harry's my great, great uncle's name. You don't know him. You've never met him. He's on my mom's side. Anyway, names mean things in this culture, and they intentionally are highlighting the significance of the birth here. But it says, he grabs the heel.
Now, that's a play on words. He grabs the heel. It can mean one of two things. It can mean, may God have your back. May he be the rear guard. So that no matter what happens, God protects and defends.
It also means trickster or deceiver. The interesting thing with Jacob's life is that both of those end up being true. That he is a deceiving trickster, and God has his back. God guards him and carries things out on his behalf. And it says, afterward, his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so that his name was called Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them.
So they'd been 20 years. So one comes out definitively red, definitively hairy. The other one comes out, would have been smooth, possibly smaller, it seems as if they're kind of highlighting the differences between them, even at birth. And then we get when the boys grew up. So it immediately jumps.
It says, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field. And he came out seeming wild. So he's a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. So it's highlighting the differences here. It says Esau, as we'll see, it kind of shows him as wild. He's probably healthier.
He's out. He lives in the wild. He would go hunt. He would come back every once in a while. And then it says, Jacob's quiet. He's simple.
He's small. He's thoughtful. So Esau, you get this picture of he's kind of big, he's kind of burly. A little bit, if you picture, if you're familiar with the Marvel movies that have been going on for the past 10 years, if you picture Thor and Loki, it looks a little bit like that in my head. One's big, muscular, kind of outspoken, loud. The other one's a little bit thin, weasley, tinty.
He's indoorsy. He likes HGTV, a nice cup of tea, and a good book. And his brother's like, look at what I killed. He's like, neat. And it says, Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebecca loved Jacob. Now that sentence gives us a very messed up family picture.
Isaac loved Esau. Specifically, he loved that one. That's the one I like. And he loves him because he ate his game. He loves him because of what he benefits from him. It doesn't even say like he loved his personality, they hung out.
Like as best we can tell, Isaac was also kind of calmer, tent dwelling, pastoral, like he tended sheep. But he loves that Esau brings him something that doesn't taste like sheep, like he's eating lamb all the time. He brings him a deer and it's great. And he's like, hey, keep this up and I'll love you. And as we read the story further, we're not going to get into it all today, but it feels as if Isaac and, Esau and Jacob are trying to overcome the fact that the other parent does not love them. That they both feel put off balance by this.
So if you are a parent, this is not the best way to go. I actually realized recently, I've got two sons, one's four, one's one. The one-year-old, I'm not a very smiley person, but my one-year-old is. He is happy. Even when he's head to toe covered in eczema, he's just happy. And when I would come in to see him, he just will smile like, my dad's here.
And so I got in the habit, I walk in the room and I'll be like, hey buddy. Like I just smile, I'm excited to see him. His older brother is not smiley. He looks like me all the time. He's just kind of paying attention to stuff. Like even when he was little and you would do fun things in front of him, he would just stare at you.
And I'm like, I don't know. And then you would get done and he'd go, do it again. So it's like, oh, you enjoyed it. Make your face make that. Well, I realized I'll walk in the room and I'll see my boy Ellis and I'll be like, hey buddy, it's good to see you. And then I look at his brother and go, what are you doing?
And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I've got to set the tone. And I can't let them set the tone. So I, when I became real intentional with this, I'll walk in the room. I'll say, hey to Ellis. And it tries to remind me to do the same to Archer.
And I look at Archer and I'll go, hey, how are you doing? And the first time I did it, he was like, hey. And so it is important that you don't do what Isaac and Rebecca did to their children. Now, we don't know why Rebecca loves Jacob. He was around the tent more. Easier to find.
And it's possible, very possible, that she's just leaning into the older shall serve, the younger. She's picking a winner. Either way, it's not a healthy situation and it doesn't play out well for their boys. Now we're getting another story. It says, once when Jacob was cooking. So now we're, we've moved on.
And again, it's highlighting this picture. Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. So this picture, Esau, covered in sweat, been gone for, for days, hunting, shows back up, walks in the tent. He's like, uh, uh. And, uh, Jacob's over a pot. It's really coming together.
He's cooking. He's in his tent. He's like, close, close, close the, close the flap. You're letting in the air. And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew for I am exhausted. All right.
So, uh, in, in reading up on this and some commentaries, one of the things that was pointed out, I don't read Hebrew, but other people do and I read what they wrote in English and it's helpful. Um, one of the things that's pointed out is in this conversation, everything that Jacob says is very short. It's very to the point. It goes along with him being quiet and kind of thoughtful. And as we'll find out, his quiet thoughtfulness is also scheminess. He's real blunt.
Uh, Esau's sentences are all over the place. And again, the text is highlighting for us what kind of man Jacob was. You can almost see him just being, you know, every one of his sentences is like a little arrow shot, just a little, little dagger right in the right place. And Esau's sentences are like a club that just like slap everything in the room. Like they're all over the place. His sentence is actually, let me get some of that red, red.
Like he, that red, red stuff is what some of the other translations will give. He's just like, Hey, I'm about to die. Let me get some of that red. Let me get a swallow of that red bread. Other translations say, let me gulp down. He's like, just give me the whole pot.
I'll just pour it on myself. It's going to be delicious. So he comes in, we're told he's exhausted. He's, he's like, I'm wore out to the floor out, brother. He says, let me get some of that red, red. And then it says, therefore, his name was called Edom.
Edom is red. So he said, let me get some of that Edom, Edom. And it says, therefore, his name was called Edom. Now, we're being told this story. Something significant is about to happen. And what happens marks Esau forever.
His two names, Harry and red. And here's what happens. He says, let me get some of that red stuff. And Jacob said, sell me your birthright now. What on earth? It's actually like, sell me birthright now.
Like it's just this, just this real, sell, sell birthright now. Now. So he comes in, he says, I'm about to starve. Can I have some of this soup that you're making? Some of this stew? And Jacob does not say, yes, brother.
I made plenty. He says, sell me your birthright. Now, it would seem as if Jacob, now who knows if they brought this up, if this happened often. It seems as if Jacob, at least has been thinking about this. It wasn't just out of nowhere. And he finds his opportunity.
His brother blunders into his tent. Seems exhausted. Seems at the end of his ability to kind of think well. He's hungry. He's tired. And instead of being gracious and generous, which is one of the things that we've seen throughout the book of Genesis, how people are gracious and generous and go out of their way for each other, he says, sell me your birthright.
Make it to where I'm the oldest brother now. Now, here's what's really interesting. And the birthright matters so much. And here's what's probably very painful for these two brothers. They're twins. Now, in our mind, twins are the same age.
In an Eastern mindset, in this time period, no, they're not. One is older, one is younger, and that matters a lot. There's a great Jewish thinker. His name's Jerry Seinfeld. And he, in one of his stand-up routines, is talking about the Olympics. And he says, it's really interesting in the Olympics, especially in the, like, the 100 yard, 100 meter, sorry, it's worldwide, meters, 100 meter dash.
He said, the winner, the first place and the second place, he says, it's a fraction of a, it's, like, he said, you sometimes have to rewind it and watch. And he said, and then what happens is, they stand on a podium, and you look at, the fastest man in the world. And half a step down, never heard of him, doesn't matter. And he was, fraction of a, Jacob comes out, holding on to the heel. He lost the last little bit of their struggle. He was smashed into the back part of the womb.
Esau said, I'm out of here. He was putting his foot in his face. Jacob grabbed it. He comes out, and it is Esau, the firstborn, the eldest, who will be the patriarch, who will get the birthright, who the promise will follow, as best as they understand in this mindset. And, Jacob, Esau's brother. Who at some point will get a gift, and get some stuff, but he won't have the name, and he'll move on.
And this, has plagued Jacob. He's still, grabbing at Esau's heel. Trying to, trying to, trying to, trip him up. Sell me your birthright, now. Esau said, I am about, to die, of what use, is a birthright, to me? Now, given his long, sentence structure, Esau is not about, to die.
I was playing football one time, I got really dehydrated, I went to tell the coach, I needed water. And I went to say water, and my tongue stuck, to the roof of my mouth. And I ran to my coach, and said, he said what? And I was like, pointing where the water was. Because it was, Esau's like, I'm gonna die, brother. He's like, he's pontificating, he's laying this out, he's not about to die.
Now, he's very exhausted, he is hungry. And he says, what use is a birthright? Basically, look, I'll die, it'll be yours anyway, so I might as well, get some soup, out of the deal, and not die. Jacob said, swear to me now. No, no, we're putting this in an oath, this is becoming legal, this is becoming real. There are other places, in history, where somebody sold their birthright.
This isn't unheard of, although it's crazy. It should be unheard of. Esau is acting very foolish. Jacob said, swear to me now, so he swore to him, and sold his birthright, to Jacob. Now, in their mindset, Jacob is now the oldest brother. The birthright is transferable.
Again, something we would be unfamiliar with. It's not, it's not a deal I could work out, with my brother Logan. Where it's like, hey, we're gonna, I want, I want to give you some soup. And now I'm three years older than you. It wouldn't work like that. But it does there.
So Jacob finally trips, says, brother. Then Jacob gave Esau bread, and lentil stew. And he ate, and drank, and rose, and went his way. He ate, drank, rose, went. It's over, very, very quickly. And then, the story tells us how to think.
This doesn't always happen in the book of Genesis. This doesn't always happen in the Bible. We want it to. We want, we want the Bible to tell us the story, and then tell us what we were supposed to get out of it. Don't we? Isn't it nice when it does that?
A lot of times it just tells you this big, long story about a lot of terrible things, and it's like, and then guess what happened? You're like, no, no, no, pause, pause, pause, pause. I need you to tell me who was the hero, and who was the bad guy, and what happened, and what was, what I'm supposed to take from that. And the main takeaway from this, although the text is clear, Jacob is not gracious to his brother, he is scheming. The main takeaway from this is this, thus, which means in this way, Esau despised his birthright. Now, I've got to explain a little bit about how the text uses despise, and how they understood it in that culture.
When we despise something, mostly we despise something, or we think about despising something as head on. Meaning that, we look at it, we hate it. We intentionally hate it. We're malicious towards it. That's how we think of despise. So if it's like, I despise that teacher, we mean, I very much dislike them.
They're the worst teacher ever. Now the text, the Bible, we'll use despise that way. It will talk about, it says that, when David's dancing one time, it says his wife looked at him, and despised him in her heart. Meaning that she looked head on at him, disliked what he was doing, had hatred towards him. The Bible uses it that way, but it also uses it as, back to. That we ignore.
That we turn our back on something. That we dishonor it. So that if, if it was used in that way for a teacher, and it said, he despised that teacher's wisdom. Which the Proverbs say it that way. It means, did not listen to, did not think about, did not care about, turned your back on. Now we don't usually use despise that way.
We think of despise as an active thing that you do. But the Bible tells us, no, you can do it actively, or you can do it passively. It's the same thing. That if you turn your back on God's wisdom, if you turn your back on God's blessing, it is as much as turning right to it, and hating it. And so what we understand here, is that Esau did not think, I hate my birthright, it's terrible, I don't want it. But Esau turned his back on it, and when he did, showed that he cared nothing for it.
Now, that's the point of that story. That it moves forward the promise made to Rebecca. But it also highlights for us Esau's foolishness. That's one of the things that the author of Hebrews says. He says, don't be godless like Esau. Don't be profane or unholy like Esau.
Esau, who traded his birthright for a single meal. So what the Hebrew author is saying is that, in this way that Esau was being godless, he wasn't understanding and appreciating what God had done, the position he was in. Not only to be the firstborn, but to be the firstborn to Isaac, the son of the promise. He's a grown man and doesn't understand these things, doesn't appreciate these things, doesn't care about these things. So much so that he would sell his birthright for soup.
Stew. Stew. Sorry. The text says stew, and we're very serious about the text here, and I can't say soup because stew is thicker. We had this discussion in teaching team because I kept actively saying soup. It is stew.
He just, he trades everything for something that he can see and smell and taste that's right in front of him. And you want to wring his neck. You want to jump in the text and smack him. You want to right at that moment when he says, I'm about to die. You want him to be like, really? No, you're not.
And how close are the other tents? Like, get some water. Get your head on your shoulders right. Walk to your dad's tent. Walk to your mom's tent. Now, who knows?
Rebecca, he might want to walk in there and she loves Jacob. She might have been like, sell Jacob your birthright now. We don't know. But at least give it a shot. God, you can't be that tired. But you can be that foolish.
And here's the thing. We do this. Like, as much as I want to be really mad at Esau, I see myself in Esau. You see, the way the Bible talks about despising the Lord and despising his commands means that there are moments in life where we just turn our back to them. We're not thinking, I hate that command or I hate the Lord because he wouldn't have said that. If you said, if Jacob said, don't you hate your birthright?
He'd be like, were you a fool? No, I don't. But he just, he comes on the other side of it and just gets him to turn away from it. He gets him to turn his back on it for something that he can have right now. And the truth is, that's all of sin for us. That in the moment that we sin, something smells sweeter. tastes better.
Feels like it will give us life more than the future promises of God. Now, are the future promises of God bigger and more glorious to be waited on? Yes. But in that moment, I just want some of that red stuff. See, God actually picks this up in Malachi. He talks to the people who are the priests that are in the temple and he says, you have despised me.
And they say, how? How have we despised you? And he immediately goes into, he says, it's by the way you're doing your sacrifices. It's by the way you're going about this that I've been lowered down. And see, honestly, I think if God were to look at us and say, you despise me, we'd be like, no, I don't. I'm here, I'm singing, I hang out with my group, I read my Bible a couple times a week.
I do like half the stuff in there. Mostly, try to. And then he would point to some specific thing and he'd say, here, you've turned your back and you hate me and you hate my word and you hate my promises. You're not doing it with your face towards it. You're not clenching your fists. Some of us are sometimes.
Most of the time, we're just enamored with something that smells and looks more beautiful and more tasty at the moment. I'll give you a few examples. All sin is an example of this. But I'll give you a few. I think money is one for us. Just culturally.
It's one that Jesus talks about a lot. That most of us would think, I handle my money, okay. I'm not trying to be crazy. But when we look at what the Bible tells us about money, about how we're supposed to think about eternity in light of how we spend our money now and how we're supposed to be generous now and how we're supposed to know that the kingdom is a treasure hidden in a field that we'd be willing to sell everything and give up everything for. The truth is, when we turn around with money and we think, well, it's mine and I can kind of do what I want and if I'm, you know, I don't really feel like I should have to give that much and I don't really feel like I should have to be that generous and I really like, I gotta enjoy these things that in some ways there could be, for us, for God, could look at our budget and say, you despise me.
And we'd say, how? I think another one is romance. We have so elevated romance and relationships and love in our culture that we have whole denominations that have just peeled out parts of the text because how could God say that you can't love this person or be with this person or have this relationship? And we do that all the time where it's like, well, and we say the same things he said. He says, I'm gonna die. What good is a birthright?
And we say, what's the point of following Jesus if I'm gonna be this lonely? What's the point of following Jesus if I have to go home and be sad? What's the point? And what we're saying is that's too far away. It's not glorious enough. It's not big enough.
It doesn't taste sweet enough and I just want some of this. I think another one is power, security, safety. See, we're told as Christians that we should align with the weak. We should go out of our way for those who are hurting and needy. But we don't want to.
We want to feel protected and we want to be the people in power and we want to be those and so maybe this happens in high school at a lunch table. You choose where you sit because as best you can, you want to be at the table where there's power and where you're protected and where you feel secure and where you feel good. Maybe it happens when somebody starts making fun of someone else and all you'd really have to do is say, hey man, I don't think that's a helpful way to talk about that person or I don't think that's good or not join in or point out something good but you just can't. You don't want to.
And in those moments, you just despise who Jesus is and what he was about. He wouldn't say that but he would. Maybe it happens in the break room because we don't really grow out of that stuff. Maybe it happens in how we vote, how we think about voting, how we talk to other people who hold different viewpoints than us because the real goal is power and the real goal is position and the real goal is to have as much as we can have and have other people who disagree with us not have anything. Okay. I don't know how you're doing this but I know that we are doing this.
That there's somewhere, somewhere that we look as foolish as Esau. that we've just turned our back on some glorious, beautiful promise that Jesus gives and we act like we hate him and we act like we hate his law and we act like it's not good and we act like it will harm us and we act like we'll be destroyed and we act like this thing that we've turned to will give us life, will revive us, will give us hope, will give us joy, will taste so sweet. And the problem is it says he ate, drank, got up, left and yeah, he didn't die but it doesn't seem like that soup was worth it. And here's the biggest problem with Esau. The text tells us Esau despised his birthright but later we're going to read that Esau thinks Jacob cheated him.
Now Jacob was not a good brother and did but Esau doesn't see himself in it at all. He just thinks he's a victim. He says he's cheated me. He can't see in this moment he can't see past the soup and later he still can't see what he's done and how he was the one who ultimately made the decision how it was in his hands to turn one way or the other and he made a terrible, terrible blunder. Now where's the hero?
Who are we supposed to be like? I mean I think we could try really hard and we could say well you could just read it and say don't be like Esau and that's a good thing that's Hebrew says that. I think we could try really hard and say well be like Jacob and just think about the future. And it's like okay. Jacob doesn't look like Christ at all. He doesn't look gracious he doesn't look loving he doesn't look and honestly it looks as if Jacob is thinking about the future but he's doing everything he can to have absolute control over it by any means necessary and in some way twist God's arm to put him in the right position.
The promise was already made that he would be. We don't know if he knows that. We don't know if Rebecca told anybody and in this family situation I'm not making any guesses because it's a mess. But it looks as if he's trying to manipulate things. So in some ways Esau is just rebellious and foolish and in some ways Jacob's real moral and religious and he's just trying to twist God and make God owe him.
Well we do get a hero in this story. It comes in Romans 9 and at first it doesn't really seem when you read it in Romans 9 very heroic. We'll have it on the screen. It's Paul's writing and he's talking about the nation of Israel. And he says that God chose Abraham out of nowhere and that God chose Isaac over Ishmael and then he says this and not only so not only did he choose Isaac it says but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man our forefather Isaac though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue not because of works but because of him who calls she was told the older will serve the younger.
So Paul says prior to them coming out and being the people they turned into God says I'm choosing Jacob. And then Paul as he continues this argument he kind of gets to the point and he says this so then it being salvation it being God's grace it being how this works depends not on human will or exertion but on God who has mercy. You see part of us wants there to be a hero if you'll just leave that up part of us wants there to be a hero because we want to be the hero. Like I I want to honestly I like Esau he comes out hairy and lives in the woods and it's like yeah sounds great then he shows up and he's like really hungry and can't see past his face he just wants to eat and I'm like I understand Esau I've felt that.
I've felt that. And then he just seems so foolish and some of you are like no Jacob Jacob he's thinking he's reading reading books and having deep thoughts he's into obscure other writer people and you'll see how much I connect with Jacob but some of you that's what you want that's what you want to see you want to have one of them be the hero you want to have somebody that you go that's who I'm supposed
To emulate that's who I'm supposed to be like I'm going to go I'm going to do this the problem is that we're all like Jacob Jacob and Esau twisted broken like Jacob and Esau we all fall into sin whether we're trying to be good and we're trying to manipulate God or whether we're just can't see past our nose and this is why this is so gracious
Because Jesus is the hero he's the one who shows up and saves sinners Jacob does not get better he doesn't it's not in the next couple chapters are we really going to fall in love with this guy but God has mercy you see what we want is for us to have human will or exertion what we want is to say I'm going to finally do this and for those of you
Who've really tried you understand that that eventually gives out for those of you who've said I'm going to be good now I'm really going to do this I'm going to have willpower for those of you who said alright willpower is over but right now I'm just going to exert myself I'm just going to do enough good things to have God owe me to be in his good grace and what it says is no you don't need that you need mercy
And Ephesians tells us that God is rich in mercy because of the great love that he has for us so that none of us are worth it none of us are worthy none of us are the hero and the real hero of the story has mercy that he dies in our place that he rises again conquering sin and death and hell and Satan all the things that would have destroyed us
And that he by his grace chooses to have mercy on some of us now Romans 10 if you flip the page is going to say that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved and there will be none who trust in him who will be put to shame Bianca is going to come back up here and here's what I want us to end on here's what I want us to understand you are not the hero and if you think you are
That sounds like bad news at first but for every person who does not feel like a hero to know that there is one that's glorious news you see that's why Jesus didn't get along with the Pharisees he was always arguing with them he was always saying hurtful things at one point he says he's at a meal he says really hurtful things to the Pharisees and one of the scribes says you hurt my feelings too
And it's almost as if he later should have thought I shouldn't have said anything because he just turns and is like I was trying to but let me say some specific scribe things because he's going after the people who think they're the hero the people who think they have it together the people who think they're good enough but every person who rolls up knowing I need a hero you see part of us always wants to be the person in the montage where it's like I need a hero and you're getting
Your crap together sorry your act together I'm going to be good enough I'm going to do it this time I'm going to read enough I'm going to be I'm not going to I'm not going to sleep with them anymore I'm not going to have this happen anymore I'm finally God I'm going to tell you I'm turning over a new leaf and I'm going to this time and I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people who are hanging out with our church and that's what they're saying to me
They're like this time I'm going to get it together and as much as I can graciously possibly say to them no you are not and if you were in here today thinking that this time you're getting it together let me graciously say to you no you are not and you will not and you are not the hero but there is a hero who has mercy and who leads us in triumph and all we have to do is go to him and ask for it there's a song my dad used to sing
To me when we were growing up at night and I sing it to my boys and it's softly and tenderly Jesus is calling and he says he's waiting at the portals of heaven and he says he's calling oh sinner come home and one of the lines in there is why would you linger and heed not his mercy mercy for you and for me you see there's a God who has mercy on sinners and all who call
On him will be saved and all who trust in his name will not be put to shame and there will be a day when they walk forward and are clothed in covered in smothered in mercy that we don't get what we deserve but we get forgiven for our sin and if you're here today and you have not trusted in Jesus for mercy that you are trying will and exertion you are trying to be the hero I want to ask you will you trust
In his mercy will you go to him and ask please God have mercy on me and so if you will I'd like to ask for everybody to start praying right now this is something we don't usually do but if you'll bow your heads and start praying and I just want to ask that if you are in here today and you have not trusted Jesus for his mercy that you would ask him that if you believe that he saves sinners and that you are a sinner that you would confess
Your sin and that you would ask not that he would make you the hero but that he would be the hero for you and that you might trust in his mercy and if you are in here today and you are in Christ I would ask that you once again remember that you were saved by mercy not your good works not your ability to keep it together that you are not the one that brings you to the finish line but Christ is and that you might confess sin and that you might remember
That you are clothed in smothered in mercy and forgiveness not human will or exertion and not good works that you will bring nothing to the table that displays to God that you deserve salvation but that you will bring your sin and receive mercy and if you have never brought Jesus your sin I ask that you would that you would run to the God who is abundant in mercy and grace and forgiveness
And know that every person who stands with the redeemed is redeemed out of sin into forgiveness into mercy into grace and stands there based off of Jesus' work not theirs and that you will be welcomed home in him Lord we ask that you would help us see our sin and that you would help us quickly come to the end of ourselves and know that we have despised you that we have hated
Your word that we wouldn't look at the few parts that we like and say we're doing well but that we would see all the parts that we have run from that we have disregarded and that we would know that we have been your enemies but that you save your enemies that at the right time you died for them and that in ourselves we cannot love you but that through you we can and we ask that your Holy Spirit would draw people to yourself this morning
That they might receive mercy and that they would leave here covered in it never to again try to atone for or fix their own sin in a moment band's gonna come back up here and continue to play and sing and we're gonna take communion which is us remembering that Jesus died that we might not receive what we deserved that he died that we might receive mercy and grace and abundant love and if you are in Christ or if today is the first time
That you've ever run to him and asked for mercy and he will save those who call on him and you will not be put to shame we'd ask for you to take communion for the first time and if you are not in Christ and have not yet received mercy and still think that you are the hero of the story we would ask that you do not take communion because you believe you do not need it but that all those who know they do and know they need a savior and know they need blood to cover them and know that they don't deserve it we pray that we ask that in a moment you would take communion
Joyously celebratorily knowing that you are covered in mercy because Jesus died in your place and he rose again that you might have be justified before God that you might be made right before God that you might be welcome before God we pray Lord that in this next moment that you would redeem that you would call and that all those who are redeemed would celebrate joyously in the mercy that you've offered the grace that you've given
And that we might make much of your name because you are the hero and we are the beneficiaries of your good promise that we like Jacob are tricksters we like Jacob are foolish we like Esau can't see past our nose but that you guard our back and that you bring us to the end in Jesus name Amen during this next song as they sing you're free to take communion when you feel ready