As these messages sound within the walls of my
own church, I am humbled and grateful. Of late the call to the American church
has been one of repentance and return to God. It is a call to return to the
basics of the faith and one of clear discipleship – which of course is a call
to equip and nurture the knowledge of the gospel and the Word in its entire
context in others, and accountability to sincerity and obedience before a holy
and omnipresent God. That “basics” thing
is so profoundly important. We simply cannot share what we do not have.
As
I have studied the Book of Genesis this month, the Lord has been speaking to me
loudly about Jacob. It’s clear in the
name. Names are utterly significant to God. Jacob’s name meant “supplanter” and
in Jacob’s nature, you could clearly see the evil in his character. True to its definition, as a supplanter,
Jacob always had the greatest interest in himself, with a keen eye out for a
blessing that would benefit him and that he likely thought he was “entitled”
to. Jacob was skilled in manipulation,
deceit, and quick to engage in coercion to get what he wanted. Although it said
that Jacob loved God and Esau loved killing, that love was not clearly evident
in Jacob’s behavior.
They say that even thieves have honor between them, in this case the younger
brother would go so far as to steal from his brother the blessing that Isaac
had clearly intended for Esau. To be
fair, Esau wasn’t focused on his heritage when he traded his birthright for a
bowl of soup either. The father loved Esau, yet a house divided against itself will
fall because of the brokenness within it.
A son without honor for father or brother is not exempt from the natural
consequences of sinful behavior. I
suppose the saddest aspect of the story is that this was a family deeply and firmly
rooted in God’s faithfulness. The family
patriarch was Abraham, the father was Isaac.
Wouldn’t you assume that both sons were tutored in some serious
knowledge of God?
It
is a sad story, a story filled with manipulation and rebellion. I wept over Jacob’s
greed and Esau’s foolishness, and I’m sure God did too. I’m sure both sons did some weeping too in
the secret places. While the blessing would come through Jacob, the Father
loved Esau, and my Bible tells me that God isn’t finished with Esau’s
descendents yet. There is a time coming when the seed of Esau will once again
come into the Father’s house, but let me get back to my story . . .
Jacob sinned against his brother, with his own mother being the strategist and planner. Yet Esau added sin on sin and became an
active participant in what was to follow. His reaction was hatred and
unforgiveness which lead him into rejection of his Father’s household, full blown
rebellion, and making his camp in enemy territory where he would marry foreign
wives and entertain foreign Gods. That’s a sure fire way to muddle up the
family tree!
In
the years that followed Isaac’s deception by his son, the natural consequences
of Jacob’s sin would come back to visit him and his generations. We all indeed
reap of the sin we’ve sown, and there are natural consequences as a result of
it. The same deception Jacob practiced would
visit him when Laban gave Leah to be
married for Jacob’s servitude instead of Rachel as Jacob expected. He would
labor 14 hard years before finally being allowed to take Rachel as his
bride. She was his beloved.
Rachel
would bear Jacob no sons initially, though she would become the mother of Jacob’s
beloved Joseph and Benjamin. She would
die in childbirth when Benjamin was born. The old family anger would come against Joseph, but God would redeem His people through the grace He prepared for Joseph.
I
wonder if these key characters considered the ramifications of their early choices,
knowing ultimately that their sin was against God. Jacob likely thought his blessing
would come easily, but it didn’t. Blessing doesn’t come until a deep work is
done. Deep works require breaking and a
humbling. We all sin. We recognize that Jesus paid the price for our sin, but are we willing to humble ourselves?
There
must have been a powerful yearning to be right” again with God. Enough so that Jacob’s
many failures would bring him to the place of wrestling with God for his
blessing. Jacob would come out of that
battle forever changed. The socket God
tore in his hip would leave him with a lifetime limp to remind him of his
brokenness before God. Enter grace . . . it was precisely that brokenness and finally
submission to His God that would be Jacob’s catalyst for a new name and a new
life. It is that same sweet grace that allows us to be partakers of the
Father’s blessing!
Jacob’s
name would be changed to Israel – God prevails.
His son’s – those birthed through Leah, Rachel, and their maidservants
would form the tribes of the nation that God would call His own. Through Jacob’s lineage, the Messiah would be
birthed from the tribe of Judah and the lineage of David. Because
of this same sweet grace, the brothers Jacob and Esau would embrace each other
again and forgiveness would pave the path to a better way that would extend to
the Gentile nations!
The
story of Jacob and Esau - the redemption
by grace from a sin nature is a story of the glorious grace that is given by a
Father who loves us enough to send His only Son as payment for our sin. It is our story. The call of God to repent and get right with
Him, to come back to the basics is a cry critical to our times and to our
church. Will we hear it?
Cain
asked, am I my brother’s keeper? You bet we are. We are mandated by what God has done for us
to love, to disciple, to encourage, to forgive, to make amends when and where
we can. We were born to be agents of restoration. We cannot confiscate, we cannot earn, nor are
we entitled to God’s blessing. It’s purely
a “grace” thing. To be great in the
Kingdom of God means to be broken and submitted to His authority. To love God means that love of our brother is
not optional. When we submit to God and
realize that it is God who prevails . . . When we embrace our infirmities without
offense as a reminder of who God is, we can be used by Him. If we operate in
pride, impressed by our own knowledge, with expectation of titles and honors we
deserve, we are useless to God.
I
am reminded if the wisdom of that great saint who has gone before us, A.W.
Tozer, as he wrote on brokenness. Consider these words: God
rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our
resistance.” — Or pause and
contemplate on this truth . . . “It is
doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.”
In Tozer’s book, The Root of the
Righteous, he makes the following profound statement: “The flaming desire to be rid of every unholy thing and to put on the
likeness of Christ at any cost is not often found among us. We expect to enter
the everlasting kingdom of our Father and to sit down around the table with
sages, saints and martyrs; and through the grace of God, maybe we shall; yes
maybe we shall. But for the most of us it could prove at first an embarrassing
experience. Ours might be the silence of the untried soldier in the presence of
the battle-hardened heroes who have fought the fight and won the victory and
who have scars to prove that they were present when the battle was joined.
Do
we really consider standing before the Lord on that day when our actions, our
words, our obedience, our heart for God and others will be reviewed? Just Jesus and me? Just Jesus and you? Will we be found to have
lived our lives largely in our old sinful nature – even as we served in the
church – or will that precious grace that covered us, that same sweet mercy
that was extended inhabit and motivate the things we did in Jesus name?
It
appears to me that as we pledge to serve God, as we lead and as we disciple . .
we must pledge to be great servants of God. We must put on Christ and His
sufferings. We must be in submission to
God, Is He our authority? Am I asking
Him to lead? Do I wait to hear His
direction? Any attempts that we make to
control, to confiscate, to occupy what is rightly earned by us is total folly.
They only hinder God’s work among us and darken the lamp of Christ in us that
should be shining to those who don’t know Him. Do we truly understand that our
lives have eternal impact?
Let
us seek God as we’ve never sought Him before. Let us forgive whether or not our
anger may appear to be justified. Let us choose to love even those who are hard
to love. We must always remember that great grace that was extended to us. And if we have never been broken . . . let us
be prepared, because there is a work that God is doing in our midst. And what
God has purposed, He will complete! Let
us get back to the basics of our faith.
Let us cling to Jesus in the context of His Word and not to an idol that
we have created within our own imaginations. Let us be real. Help us Lord. Amen!
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