Navigating Through Conflict the Lord's Way Genesis 31:33-55

Eureka Baptist Church

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We all have those people in our life who teach us how to do things.

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We may learn some things on our own, but the truth is, we need someone to send us down the right path so that we can be competent in whatever we are doing.

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This is why it is so important to have teachers. Good teachers not only teach you information and how to do something, they also set the example.

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In my own life, I can think about those who taught me about the sport of running. Now you may wonder, what is there to learn about running?

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Isn't just putting one foot in front of the other? Well, there's much more to running than you might imagine.

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I had two coaches who were greatly influential in teaching me about running, my high school coach and college.

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My high school coach instilled in me a love for running. When most people think of running, they think of pain.

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Remember when Sean mentioned to me, I don't like running, right? Because of pain, right? There's an old quote that says, my sport is your sport's punishment.

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But the truth is, there is joy to running, and you not only find joy in the act of running, but God even made it that the chemicals are actually released so you actually feel really good after it is over.

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Endorphins are released. Now, while my first coach taught me the joy of running, my second coach taught me how to go from an okay runner to a very good runner.

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One of my favorite memories from college was when my coach consistently gave me the workout repeat 600s.

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This would be one lap around the track and then 200 more meters. And he made it so that if I could do this workout, do those 600s, and keep up a hard pace the whole way through at mile pace, that I would be able to run one mile very fast.

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My coach's instruction helped me reach heights I never thought I could reach.

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So the instruction that these two coaches gave me enabled me to have a successful competitive running career after college, during my mid to late 20s as well.

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And they not only taught me, but they also set the example. My first coach had a great joy that he had in running, in his own running.

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The other coach actually did the very workouts that I did to be able to get to the level that I needed to get to, to be a good runner.

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And I wouldn't have been able to run fast or to be a coach later on, because I took my own running ability, improved as a result of this, and I was also able to coach, and I still coach to this day.

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And I wouldn't have been able to do that if someone didn't show me how to do it and to set the example. And the same goes for the life of godliness.

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We would not know many things we are to do unless God told us what to do and showed us how. And one neat part of Scripture is that God not only tells us to be holy, but he demonstrates how to be holy.

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We see that all throughout the narratives of Scripture. And by teaching us and showing us, we are better equipped to follow him, to live the life that he's called us to live.

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As we continue our sermon series through Genesis this morning, we are going to see the Lord teach us how to navigate through conflict and how we can trust him to carry us through safely.

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And we'll see this as he guides Jacob through his conflict with his father -in -law Laban. So I encourage you, as always, to turn with me to Genesis 31.

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We're going to be looking at verses 33 through 55. This sermon is titled,

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Navigating Through the Lord's Way. Navigating Through Conflict the Lord's Way.

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And our big idea, our proposition, is the Lord abundantly shows up for his people in times of conflict.

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And we're going to see two ways how. So the great teacher, the Lord, is teaching us something today about conflict.

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And the first way how that he shows up is by protecting his people from those who desire to harm.

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By protecting his people from those who desire to harm. And we'll see this in verses 33 through 42.

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But before we jump into the text this morning, I want to give you a little recap of last week's sermon, in case you weren't here or we just need to be reminded anyways, right?

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Last week we looked at the escape of Jacob and his family out of the captivity of Laban.

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The Lord commanded Jacob to leave earlier in chapter 31, and Jacob obediently took all that he had to go to the place he was supposed to go.

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The land of Canaan, the land of promise. And as they were traveling on this several hundred mile journey south to the land of promise,

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Laban followed close behind. And as Laban was on Jacob's trail, he fell asleep and the

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Lord spoke to him in a dream. He told Laban, in so many words, not to harm

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Jacob. Laban awoke and continued on Jacob's trail and he finally caught up to Jacob.

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And when he caught up to him, as you might expect, he wasn't happy. Laban saw himself as the victim in this episode and Jacob as the perpetrator.

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And what we saw in this narrative is that one could clearly see who was in the right and who was in the wrong.

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Jacob knew the Lord's command to leave this region and he made the right decision to leave without batting an eyelash.

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On the other hand, we saw that Laban was blind to his sinful actions. He told

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Jacob that he took his daughters captive, when in reality, the only one taking anyone captive was

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Laban. For 20 years, Laban held Jacob and his family captive in Paddan Aram.

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And the application for us was to have the light of truth with us. When God gives us the

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Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ, we are able to see what is right and what is wrong.

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We see life through the lens of Scripture, not through the lens of our sinful flesh and the world.

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Jacob had this sight, but Laban did not. And when God shines this light in your life, you see the beauty of truth and you see the ugliness of sin.

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You see sin for what it is. So this leads us to our text today. After Jacob's father -in -law,

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Laban, wrongly accused him of mistreating him, Jacob is going to set the record straight by responding.

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But before we get to Jacob's response to Laban, what we're going to do is we're going to see that Laban continues to search for these household gods.

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Remember these household gods that Rachel took? Jacob was completely unaware that Rachel had taken these household gods, these figurines, these metal or stone figurines that Laban had owned.

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And now Laban is going to search thoroughly for these figurines.

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Verses 33 and 34. So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find them.

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And he went out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's. Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle and sat on them.

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Laban felt all about the tent but did not find them. So Laban searches intently for these figurines, these household gods, and he starts by going into the person he's most upset at.

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He goes to Jacob's tent first, but he doesn't find them. Remember, Jacob doesn't know that Rachel even took these, and he doesn't have them.

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And after looking through Jacob's tent, he then goes to Leah's tent. We know that Leah did not take these, so Laban doesn't find them there either.

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Then he goes to the tent of the two female servants, Bilhah and Zilpah, but of course they don't have them, so he doesn't find them there.

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Lastly, he finally searches the tent of the one who took the figurines, his daughter

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Rachel. He looks through her tent but does not find them. Verse 34 tells us that he did not find them because she put the figurines in the camel's saddle and sat on them.

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So she's hiding them. And what we've seen in Laban's search for his figurines is that he's doing a thorough search.

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He's looking everywhere in these tents. And he noticed that Rachel was sitting on the camel's saddle.

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And verse 35 indicates that Laban wanted her to stand up. Verse 35,

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And she, Rachel, said to her father, Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.

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So he searched but did not find the household gods. So I just want to tell you,

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I can't avoid this. I know this is awkward. This is in the text of Scripture. The women in here know what

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Rachel is talking about. She lies to Laban by telling him that it's that time of month.

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So she can't stand up with him standing right there. She wants privacy. So Laban actually does something nice for once by respecting her.

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And he leaves her alone by giving her the privacy that she desires. Now Laban's search here is the equivalent of the police or the

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FBI getting a warrant and raiding someone's home because they suspect the person has something stolen in their possession.

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Now if governing authorities have a warrant but the person's house they raided did not take anything, we could understand why the party suspected would be upset, right?

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They're the innocent party. And so Jacob here is upset because he didn't do anything.

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And yet Laban just goes in and raids his tent thinking that these figurines are there.

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And let's see Jacob's angry response. This is righteous anger that we're going to hear from Jacob here in verses 36 and 37.

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Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen that they may decide between us two.

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So Jacob's very angry and rightfully that not only Laban tracked him down after he fled from him, but he's also upset that once he tracked him down, he raided his tent and everyone else's tent to find the household gods.

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And the text says that Jacob mentioned that Laban hotly pursued him, which is very accurate.

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Laban pursued Jacob with a mission. And since Jacob believes that Laban has falsely accused him and is in the wrong to have raided these tents, he calls the relatives together to see who they think is in the right.

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He calls his immediate family and Laban's immediate family to settle this fierce conflict.

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And these two parties, the families, would operate as judges between them.

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And in order to show everyone present that Laban's charge has no foundation, Jacob makes the case for his flawless record as a shepherd all of those years that he worked for Laban.

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And he makes the case for Laban's checkered record in verses 38 through 41.

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Jacob says, There I was.

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So Jacob makes his case by pointing to his spotless record as Laban's shepherd.

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First, he says that his lambs and female goats have not miscarried. And what Jacob is alluding to here is the

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Lord's provision over Laban's flock because of Jacob's association with him.

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Remember, even Laban knows that the only reason that his flock has multiplied is because of Jacob's presence there.

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The Lord has blessed Laban because of Jacob. Then Jacob explains that he did not eat the rams of his flocks.

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He did not take advantage of Laban by slaughtering and eating what he was not supposed to eat.

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Then Jacob explains that whenever a wild animal attacked one of his flock, either wounded or killed, he didn't require it.

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He bore the loss himself. Some of you who farm may have experienced an attack on your flock or cattle from maybe a bear, a wolf, a coyote.

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Jacob's talking about a carnivore coming in and either severely wounding or killing one of his flock.

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And if a sheep or goat were wounded, Jacob would not get paid for that. He would have made less because of this, even though it was his right to get paid for something that wasn't his fault, a wild animal coming in.

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Then in verse 40, Jacob explained his long work hours. He worked during the heat of day and the cold of night, and there were days when he did not get much sleep looking after Laban's flock.

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So you get the idea. Jacob has had a miserable 20 years. This is the 20 years you kind of want to just get rid of in your life, because it was so difficult.

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And everyone in this room can think of a period in their life where the work was hard, sleep was lacking, and you would never want to go through that time again.

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And, of course, the Lord wastes no time in our lives, even difficult years. Sometimes those are the best years with the

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Lord, and the Lord does much in that. But at the same time, you look back and you say, I wouldn't want to go through that again.

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And this is applicable to many of you. We have many blue -collar workers in this room, and you don't have one of those jobs where you just clock in and clock out.

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You work until the work is done, right? And sometimes this means working 60, 70 hours or more during a week.

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And so this is what Jacob has endured working under Laban for 20 years.

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Now in verse 41, Jacob says to Laban what he already said to Rachel and Leah in verse 7 of this chapter that Laban changed his wages ten times.

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Jacob is frustrated that Laban told him he was going to pay him one thing, but then changed the payment, always lowering it in some way.

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Leviticus 19 .13 says, You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until morning.

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It seems like whenever a bank or credit card company makes a mistake on your statement or an employer makes a mistake on your paycheck, isn't the error always lower, it seems like?

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It's funny, actually, this morning when Hansy came in, she gave me something. We actually paid too much taxes in last year, so we got a little more back.

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It usually doesn't work that way. But in those cases, it might just be a coincidence.

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But in this case, it's no coincidence at all. With Laban, he has knowingly cheated

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Jacob, and he is righteously angry at Laban for doing this.

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He always has lowered his wages. Now after explaining his spotless record and Laban's offenses,

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Jacob gives credit to the Lord for his protection of him from Laban's attacks. Verse 42, he says,

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If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty -handed.

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God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night. So Jacob makes clear to Laban that the

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Lord has been the one who prevented him from losing everything. Back in verses 5 -7 of this chapter,

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Jacob explained to Rachel and Leah that the Lord took care of him the past 20 years.

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And now he explains to Laban that if it were not for the Lord, you would have stripped me of all that I worked for.

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He would have gone back to the land of Cain and the land of promise with nothing. No Leah, no

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Rachel, no 12 children, no possessions. But Jacob says, the

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Lord has prevented this from happening and he prevented it from happening by appearing to you in a dream where he told you not to harm me.

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So we see the Lord's protection over Jacob here. Because if Laban harms

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Jacob, Laban knows he's in trouble with the Lord. And he's already seen the Lord's power in Jacob's life.

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And he doesn't want to cross the Lord in the wrong way. So you can see the Lord's wonderful protection over his people.

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And when you think about it, believers have many enemies. When Jesus preached the Sermon on the

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Mount in Matthew 5 -44, he says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

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What you notice here is that Christ assumes that you will have enemies. And this isn't enemies because you want to pursue conflict with people.

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That's not what Jesus is talking about here. That's what we want to avoid. He's just saying because you're following Jesus, because you're going against the ways of the world, you're not going with the flow, right?

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The Christian life is always upstream. You're always going in the opposite direction in so many ways.

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People don't like that. And so enemies come about as a result of that. But 2

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Timothy 3 -12 says that all those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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But the Lord protects you, and he even protects Christians even in the extreme cases.

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That's when another kills you for your faith in Christ. We live in a very peaceful place for the most part, and even a fairly peaceful time in history as a

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Christian in regards to martyrdom. But if you look at the history of the church, and this is even happening today, many have died for their faith in Christ.

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And so we can read these passages and say, how could this be? But it is.

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And the Lord protects a believer even when they die for their faith in Christ. In Matthew 10 -28,

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Jesus said, Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

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So he protects you by safely taking your soul to be with him forever in glory.

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And your enemies not only have flesh and blood, but you have demonic enemies as well.

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And we must understand the spiritual warfare that is all around us, that we don't even realize so often.

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Ephesians 6 -12, Paul wrote that our struggle is ultimately not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

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The Lord protects you from these attacks as well. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 3 -3 that the

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Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. We can also point to the account where Jesus told

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Peter that Satan wanted to sift him like wheat. But Jesus told

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Peter that he prayed for him. And he prayed that Peter's faith would not fail.

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And we know the story of Peter. His life ended well. His faith did not fail. And when the

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Lord plans for his will of desire to be accomplished in a believer, no power, no matter how strong, can stop him.

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We are protected as the Holy Spirit guards us over the long haul, over the life of faith.

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1 John 4 -4, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. So he protects his people from human and demonic adversaries.

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And this should be an encouragement to everyone here who knows the Lord. So the

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Lord abundantly shows up for his people in times of conflict. And the first way how that we have seen in this narrative with Jacob and Laban is by protecting his people from those who desire to harm.

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The second way how the Lord abundantly shows up for his people in times of conflict is by leading believers to pursue peace with offenders.

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And we'll see this in verses 43 -55. We will see this happen here as the

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Lord providentially sends Jacob and Laban toward a peaceful agreement. So let's look at these two verses here, 43 and 44.

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Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine.

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But what can I do this day for these my daughters, or for their children whom they have born?

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Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me.

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What we see here is that Laban is digging his heels in. He tells Jacob that everything here is mine, when of course we know that's not the case.

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Laban is again showing his controlling and oppressive character. And what we've seen here is that his hard -heartedness is full on display for everyone to see.

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But in verse 44, Laban is left with no choice. He tells Jacob that they need to make a covenant.

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And as I just explained, this should not be taken as a virtuous act by Laban.

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His hands are tied behind his back. He has no option. He still wants things to go well for him.

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And he knows that if he harms Jacob, he's in trouble from the Lord. And he also knows that Jacob is standing firm since he rightly believes that Laban owes him, not the other way around.

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And so he's stuck in this position here. And in verse 52, as we will see here in a little bit,

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Laban indicates that he feared what Jacob might do to him. So he fears God's power, and he fears

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Jacob's power, as he's seen Jacob prosper as well. And he knows that he can't win, so the only thing he can do is make a covenant with Jacob that they would both agree on.

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Jacob is glad to make this covenant, and so he goes along with Laban. He's looking forward to being at peace with his father -in -law, who has been nothing but a nuisance for 20 years.

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So let's see how they made the covenant and the specific agreement they made. Verses 45 through 50.

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So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar, and Jacob said to his kinsmen, Gather stones.

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And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. Laban called it

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Jagar -sahaduthah, but Jacob called it Galid. So they set up a pillar and took stones and made a large heap.

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And not only did they gather stones, but they ate together by the stones. So you can see the purpose of this.

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This fellowship would have indicated the peace between two parties. Scripture often demonstrates eating a meal as the ultimate example of fellowship together.

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And so they're doing this to make peace with one another. And Laban says that the Lord would recognize this covenant and watch between the two parties when they go their different ways.

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Remember, Laban knows the power of the Lord. He's seen it firsthand in his life. And Laban says,

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If you take advantage of my daughters or take other wives to be yours, then God will know that there will be consequences coming for you.

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So this indicates that Laban, even though he has demonstrated himself to be a wicked man, he does have affection for his daughters.

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He wants their well -being. And he makes it so. He's saying you have to treat them well.

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And Jacob, remember at this point, he has a pretty high character. So even Laban's diagnosis of him here is wrong.

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He should trust Jacob to take care of Leah and Rachel. Now in the first part of the agreement,

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Laban explains that Jacob must care for his daughters. Now Laban makes the terms that they cannot cross one another's paths in the future.

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So he draws a line in the sand. Verses 51 through 54. Then Laban said to Jacob, See this heap and the pillar which

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I have set between you and me. This heap is a witness and the pillar is a witness that I will not pass over this heap to you and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me to do harm.

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The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us. So Jacob swore by the fear of his father

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Isaac and Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country and called his kinsmen to eat bread.

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They ate bread and spent the night in the hill country. So Laban told Jacob that the pillar and the heap represented a landmark that neither one of them would pass to the other to cause the other harm.

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Remember that Laban lived far to the north and Jacob lived far to the south in the land of promise.

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And Laban states that God is the witness to this. So Jacob swore to God and stated that he agreed with the covenant and Jacob offered a sacrifice.

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We've seen throughout Genesis, right, that when a sacrifice is offered this would inaugurate a covenant and that's the case here as well.

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So this narrative with Laban concludes sentimentally in verse 55. Early in the morning

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Laban arose and kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them.

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Then Laban departed and returned home. So Laban is saying goodbye to his family.

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And then he probably returned home and probably never saw them again. And we can feel for him a little bit here.

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He's a dad and a grandfather and they're going away forever.

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But he knows that he has to do this because the Lord has made it so that he has no choice.

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What we see here is that the Lord initiates this peace agreement. And we know this because the

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Lord put Laban in a position where he had no choice to do anything else but make a peace agreement with Jacob.

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The Lord shows His care for Jacob here in that He desires for him to be at peace with another.

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And He does the same with us as well. And what you'll notice here too is that Jacob is actually at peace with Laban even though they might not see each other ever again.

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Which is interesting. Sometimes we think of peace as you're going to be best friends after the peace is made. It doesn't always work that way.

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Sometimes you don't hold that bitterness in your heart toward another person. And that is considered peace.

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It doesn't mean necessarily that you're going to be best friends with the person that you resolve this conflict with.

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And the desire not to forgive someone is something that we must resist as followers of the

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Lord. Because what you do when you don't forgive someone is instead you hold one disfavorably in your heart because you don't want to give them the benefit.

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So it can give you a twisted pleasure of hurting someone else by saying, you know what,

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I'm going to keep holding this bitterness against you because you don't want to give the person an olive branch.

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You don't want to give any benefit to someone else. So sin is what keeps conflict between two parties alive.

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And this is not a good place to be. The Lord's way is that peace would be pursued.

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I shared this example several months back, but it's worth repeating. Remember this past summer when the

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Myron family came here and presented their ministry? The reason they were persuaded to go to Ireland to be missionaries there is because of a missionary family that they were good friends with that died in a tragic accident.

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Jameson and Catherine Pals, maybe you saw this on the news a few years back, they were training to be missionaries in Japan.

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And they had three children. And they had done all the preparation to go to Japan. And they were going to one final training seminar in Colorado.

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And as they were driving in Nebraska, a distracted driver who was driving a semi rammed into them and killed the entire family.

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Jameson, Catherine, and their three children. So the whole family is taken up to heaven in a moment.

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And this story, which is a great tragedy, turned into a beautiful story.

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Because what happened is the parents of Jameson and Catherine were forgiving to the man who did this.

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They forgave him. So if you think it's hard to forgive someone in your life, think about what they forgave from this man.

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And they did it because they're Christians. They're followers of Christ. They know the debt that they've been forgiven for their sins.

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Our holy God has forgiven them for their transgressions. And what's really neat about this story is that the semi driver became a

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Christian after this. And the Myron family, all these missionaries are going to the field.

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More missionaries are going to the field because of this. So you can see the Lord's wisdom in causing this tragedy to happen and making it for good.

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But the point I'm trying to make here is the peace that is pursued by the parents of Jameson and Catherine.

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They even wanted a reduced sentence for the man in his prison time. If you think about the ultimate example of forgiveness and pursuing peace, what a great example this is.

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And in our narrative here, in this scenario, the Lord desired for Jacob to have peace with Laban. This man who

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He would easily have bitterness against. He's mistreated him for 20 years. But the

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Lord made it so that Jacob would have peace with him. So you see the Lord setting the example here.

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He wants this peace for Jacob and He sets it up so that there would be peace. And we need to remember the

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Lord's great plans for Jacob. We've seen this throughout the book of Genesis. He promised him that he and his offspring would have the land of Canaan forever.

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And He wanted Jacob to return to the land of Canaan, which he has, and He wants him to be at peace with his father -in -law.

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He doesn't want him to have constant friction with him as he goes to the land here. And so the Lord leads these two men to have peace with one another.

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And this is remarkable since Laban is not the kind of guy who pursues peace. But the

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Lord providentially made it so that this would be the outcome where Laban had no choice but to pursue peace.

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And as Jacob is experiencing this, you can imagine how grateful he would be that the

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Lord has done this for him. And he responds gratefully. We need to follow the

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Lord's example of peacemaking. We must pursue peace at all times with everybody. Romans 12 .18

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says, If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. And at a cosmic level, the

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Lord has done this with us in salvation. As I already mentioned, everyone stands before Him guilty as sinners.

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Yet through Christ, through Jesus Christ, He reconciled the world to Himself so that anyone who believes in Jesus would be reconciled to a holy

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God and no longer in conflict with Him. God is holy. We are sinners.

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That's a conflict. But Jesus is the bridge between us and God. And when we believe in Him, God forgives us.

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And if you're here today and you haven't believed, I encourage you, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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He died for your sins so that you might have eternal life. And even practically, in our relationship with others, we should always be those who pursue peace.

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We should not be those who constantly hold bitterness and look for quarrels. That's the way of the world.

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Not God's way. Ephesians 4 .31 -32 says, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

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Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

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Right? God expects this of us. We should be the quickest of all people to forgive as followers of Jesus Christ because of what has been forgiven for what we have done against the holy

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God with our sin. And so what I mean by this is sometimes you're in conflict with someone because they don't want to let go.

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And there's nothing you can do about that. What God calls us to do is to do what we can.

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We need to have a forgiving spirit. We need to not hold bitterness against others. We can't control what the other person does.

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We should pray that they would pursue peace with us. But Romans 12 .18

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says as much as you can do, if possible, pursue peace with all people. And in this narrative, we see the

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Lord's desire that this conflict between these two parties be resolved. And what a great example

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He has given us here. And as I already mentioned, this is counterintuitive because the world doesn't operate this way.

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But God's way is always better than the world's way. The Lord's path is always the path of blessing. A life of not pursuing peace is miserable.

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But a life of pursuing peace is the path of joy. He wants this for you, and so He demonstrates this through His works and He commands throughout

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Scripture so that we would take this to heart and act in this manner. The Lord's the great teacher.

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He's teaching us here today about how to handle conflict and about His protection through conflict.

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So the Lord has shown us the path of peace in this narrative that we must live by. He has abundantly showed up here and He abundantly shows up for His people in times of conflict.

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And the second way how is by leading believers to pursue peace with offenders.

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So to recap what we've seen today, the Lord abundantly shows up for His people in times of conflict. And we've seen two ways how this morning.

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The first is by protecting Him from those who would cause you harm. The Lord always protects His people from those who would seek to harm you.

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Secondly, to pursue peace as the Lord has demonstrated here.

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What we must understand is that the Lord expects us to heed this call that He has given us.

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And in so doing, you will be blessed. And who of us does not want to pursue the path of blessing?

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So after seeing today Jacob's interaction with Laban for these past several weeks, now we're going to see a new character.

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I shouldn't say a new character. It's an old character who's going to re -enter the picture again as we'll see next

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Sunday. And that is Esau. Esau, of course, is Jacob's brother.

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And we'll see that as Esau and his men are actually coming to Jacob and Jacob is afraid.

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But then he looks to the Lord for help. And so we will look at this next Sunday. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, thank

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You for Your Word. Thank You for the treasure that it is. Think that the narratives of Scripture are meant to show us how to live the life of faith.

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All of us in this room are running the race of faith. And you enter the race of faith by coming to know

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Christ. And so I pray first of all, Lord, that everyone here would be in this race by coming to know Christ and that they would run faithfully with the help of the

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Holy Spirit through the life of faith. And that we would live out what You have taught us in Your Word.

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And so, Lord, I pray that You would accomplish much. You plant seeds every Sunday in people's hearts.

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And I pray that those seeds would be planted today and that they would produce. We want this church to be full of people who are the fourth seed in the parable of the sower.

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Those who hear the Word and produce a hundredfold of fruit.