Genesis #33 - Unlikely Grace #5 - Grace in the Face of Spiritual Failure (Gen 27:41-28:22)

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Well, we've come for the ministry of God's Word and we are continuing on in the sermon series that we began, well this is message number five in this series, so about a month ago, entitled
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Unlikely Grace, Unlikely Grace, God's Grace in the Lives of Imperfect People.
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If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, take it and turn with me to Genesis chapter 27.
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Genesis chapter 27. We're actually going to finish off 27 and do the whole of chapter 28, but we're only going to read the beginning half of that, so Genesis chapter 27 beginning in verse 41.
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Genesis chapter 27 beginning in verse 41. If you have one of our red hardbacks we give away, that's on page 23.
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Page 23, Genesis chapter 27 beginning in verse 41.
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Page 23 in the red hardback Bibles we give away, and if you are able, can
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I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's Word. Genesis chapter 27 and we'll begin reading in verse 41.
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Genesis chapter 27 beginning in verse 41. Brothers and sisters, these are God's words.
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Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him, and Esau determined in his heart, the days of mourning for my father are approaching.
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Then I will kill my brother Jacob. When the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she summoned her younger son
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Jacob and said to him, listen, your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.
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So now my son, listen to me, flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran and stay with him for a few days until your brother's anger subsides.
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Until your brother's rage turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there.
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Why should I lose you both in one day? So Rebekah said to Isaac, I am sick of my life because of these
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Hethite girls. If Jacob marries someone from around here like these Hethite girls, what good is my life?
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So Isaac summoned Jacob, blessed him and commanded him, do not marry a
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Canaanite girl. Go at once to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father. Marry one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.
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May God almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you become an assembly of peoples.
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May God give you and your offspring the blessing of Abraham so that you may possess the land where you live as a foreigner, the land
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God gave to Abraham. So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan Aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the
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Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. Esau noticed that Isaac blessed
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Jacob and sent him to Paddan Aram to get a wife there. When he blessed him, Isaac commanded Jacob, do not marry a
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Canaanite girl. And Jacob listened to his father and mother and went to Paddan Aram. Esau realized that his father,
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Isaac, disapproved of the Canaanite women. So Esau went to Ishmael and married, in addition to his other wives,
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Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son. She was the daughter of Nebaioth.
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Pray that God will bless that reading of his word and give us understanding of it. Allow me to pray, ask for the Spirit's help and we will get to work in God's word this morning.
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Let's pray. Well, Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that every time that we come to it, that you speak to us as your people.
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And we ask that as we have come, that we would indeed hear from you, that your
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Spirit would do a work of making our hearts receptive and helping us to understand and helping us to put into practice that which we hear.
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Father, as you pray for ourselves this morning, we want to pray for our brothers and sisters over at Heritage Christian Fellowship, back in Medford as well.
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Thank you for Pastor Paul and for Pastor Jeremy, who labor in the word there, and for all the staff who minister to that body as they seek to make disciples.
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Pray for them as they begin their Advent series this morning. Pray that the ministry of your word, which is going on even now, would bear fruit in the lives of God's people there, that they would be encouraged, they would be equipped, that they would go forth and share this good news with a valley that so desperately needs it.
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Father, be with them and be with us now as you open up your word. And we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.
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Please be seated. Well, I want to speak to you for a few moments from the subject,
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Grace in the Face of Spiritual Failure. Grace in the
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Face of Spiritual Failure. Well, I don't know about you, but this saga of the life of Isaac has been one for the ages, has it not?
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The last time we more or less hit the Grand Canyon in this narrative, it was long, deep, and kind of dark at the bottom.
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We left things on something of a Debbie Downer note. Well, not so much we, the text did.
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We left this passage with a broken family, numerous lies, and a lot of disappointment to go around.
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And as I came to this passage that we're going to be in for this week, a question that kind of hung over the narrative like a dark cloud was, well, how does anyone recover from such an epic low like this?
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And then the question became personal. How do you, how do I, how does anyone recover in moments of spiritual failure?
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Because I think we can all agree that what happened last week was a classic example of spiritual failure on the part of pretty much every character involved.
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Like nobody comes out of this passage smelling of roses. And the reality is you and I may not have sinned in the same way that Jacob has in this passage, or in the passage we looked at last week.
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But if we're honest, if we've been walking with the Lord for any length of time, who here can say that they haven't experienced the moment where their faith took a wobble as it were, where it looked as though, unfortunately, they had made a wreck of things.
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Yes, none of us have done what Jacob did, but if you've walked with the Lord for any length of time, the reality is you will have either had moments like this, or I hate to break it to you, you will probably have a moment like this in the future.
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Kofi, that's a bit presumptuous. You can't say that. Yes, I can. Don't believe me?
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I seem to remember there was a character in the Bible, his name was Peter. Peter had some really great moments.
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Peter also had some very terrible moments. In fact, one of...
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Actually, there's two of them if you think about it. Jesus is about to die.
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Peter is giving it all of the big I am because that's what Peter does. And what does Peter say? Lord, I'm willing to go to the cross with you.
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And he's like, no, no, you're not. In fact, before the rooster crows, you're going to deny me three times.
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Jesus warned him and then it happened. Well, fast forward about 20 years later or so.
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Peter is visiting the churches in Galatia. And when he visits them, these are Gentile churches.
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He eats with them. He doesn't do anything differently than he would if he were on his own.
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He just kind of misses with them. And then some people come from Jerusalem who are bringing a different message. And Peter, out of fear of them, starts to compromise the gospel so much so that Paul has to call them out publicly.
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Oh, and by the way, that's immortalizing the word of God. We can't pretend that didn't happen. Not great moments in the life of Peter, we can presume.
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But here's the good news. Praise God, that wasn't the end of Peter's story. That happened.
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We can't say it didn't. The word of God says it did. But that wasn't the end of Peter's story. And in fact, by the end of this chapter, we're going to see that Jacob's story is far from over.
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Yes, I think we can all agree he's hit something of a rock bottom here. But the wonderful thing that this passage teaches,
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I told you last week that last week may not have been all sunshine and roses and very pretty. There's a lot more hope in this week's message.
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Because though Jacob hits rock bottom, what we're going to learn from this passage is that recovery from spiritual failure is not just possible, but it's readily available for even the most wary of God's people.
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Well, the question becomes, well, how does Jacob recover from this all time low? Because let's agree it's something of an all time low.
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So how does Jacob recover from this all time low? How can you recover when it feels like you've hit a spiritual rock bottom?
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Well, I think this passage is going to have some helpful insight for us along that vein.
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Allow me to give you my big idea for this message. Beloved, at your lowest moment, you can always depend on God to draw near with grace and reassurance.
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At your lowest moment, you can always depend on God to draw near with grace and reassurance.
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That's what we're going to see in this passage. That as Jacob hits something of a spiritual low, that's not when
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God withdraws from Jacob. That's when God actually draws closer to him.
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And I'm going to put it to you that that's actually when God draws closest to us. And that we can always depend on him to do so and to come to us with grace and to come to us with reassurance.
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The rest of our time, I want to consider three steps for recovery that you need to grapple with when you hit a spiritual low.
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Three steps for recovery that you need to grapple with when you hit a spiritual low.
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So how do we recover from moments of spiritual failure? How do we tap into the grace that is readily available for us in moments of spiritual failure?
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Well, it starts in a place that we might not want to visit, but we desperately need to.
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You see, beloved, recovering from spiritual failure begins when you, point number one, acknowledge sin's disastrous effects.
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Acknowledge sin's disastrous effects. As we come to the end of chapter 27, this is basically the fallout of Rebecca and Jacob's deception of Isaac and the cheating of Esau.
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And really there are two bits of fallout that we observe in this passage. First of all, there is relational fallout.
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There's relational fallout in verses 41 and 42. So open your Bible with me. Verse 41 of chapter 27.
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Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau determined in his heart, the days of mourning for my father are approaching.
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I would like to pause and say, sorry Esau, you've got about another 20 years to go. But he says, the days of mourning for my father are approaching.
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Then I will kill my brother Jacob. When the words of her oldest son
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Esau were reported to Rebecca, she summoned her younger son Jacob and said to him, listen, your brother
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Esau is consoling himself. You might want to mark that word consoling. I'm going to come back to that later on.
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Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.
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As I read this passage, I thought about times in my life where I've had fallings out with my siblings. I can say that with all the fallings out
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I've had with my siblings, none of them have gotten homicidal at any point. My brother might disagree at points, but by and large, they've never gotten to the point where we've actually wanted to kill one another.
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Given the magnitude of the deception that took place, Esau feels that the only way he can restore his honor is if his brother dies.
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In fact, it's kind of apparent that he's not trying to hide this because note what verse 42 says.
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It says, when the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebecca. In other words,
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Esau's not even trying to hide the fact that this is what he wants to do. He's telling anybody who will hear, because remember, in the ancient
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Near East, families didn't live there just like we do with just our nuclear family where we live together and you have extended family elsewhere.
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No, clans live together. This is a few people. It's not just Isaac and his immediate family here.
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And so you can get the picture. Esau is going around telling anybody who will hear, when the time comes,
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I'm going to kill Jacob. So there is relational fallout, but there's now personal fallout for Jacob as well in verses 43 to 45.
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So verse 43, Rebecca hears this, tells him, your brother's planning to kill you, verse 43.
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So now my son, listen to me, flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran and stay with him for a few days until your brother's anger subsides.
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Until your brother's rage turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there.
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Why should I lose you both in one day? Laban's an important character in the story of Jacob.
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So I'm not going to talk about him too much, although we have met him before back in chapter 24, but he's going to play a big role in Jacob's life.
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So I'm going to say too much about him for now. What I do want to focus on is the fact, well, first of all,
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I think Rebecca is being incredibly idealistic here. I don't think this is something that a few days of sleep and R &R are going to fix.
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You see what's important in this passage is that Jacob now has to leave the security and the safety of his clan and eke out a life of his own because of what he has done.
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It did not need to be this way, but it is. And it's interesting in this passage that it's proposed to Jacob as though this is going to be a short journey.
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Just go away for a few days. You know how long Jacob's going to be away? About 25 years. It will be upwards of a quarter century before he ever returns home.
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And here's the thing that gets me and got me this week in studying this passage. Humanly speaking, this is a smart suggestion by Rebecca.
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Esau has not exactly shown us impulse control as we've marched our way through this narrative so far.
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I think she's on a human level wise to say this, but catch this with me.
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She's not really addressing the issue on the ground though, is she? As one
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Bible teacher, Dr. Ian Duguid put it, uh, Jacob had to learn of his depravity and its consequences, not from the pages of a theology textbook, but from the fruit of his experience.
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You see, there's a reality that Jacob has to come to live with. The reality is that his sin had introduced the world of hurt because catch it beloved, that's what sin does.
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We can't dust sin on the rug and pretend it never happened. We can't do what is so popular, even in the church, unfortunately, you know, redefine it and give it a name with softer edges.
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So for example, you hear lots of people, I hear this in church circles all the time and honestly, it drives me nuts. Let's not talk about sin.
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You know, it's brokenness or I'm struggling.
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Now, let me pause. There is a genuine sense in which believers struggle. We never want to downplay that, but let's be honest.
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How many times have we heard people say, I'm struggling with something? What it really means is, I don't like the consequences of this, but I'm not really willing to deal with it.
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Call it struggling or brokenness or whatever nonsense we frankly try to concoct.
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That's not how you actually address sin. And of course, we definitely can't polyanna it away.
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You know, let's just be positive and never talk about it. People know that their sins, we don't need to tell them that.
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You see, the problem that we're encountering in these verses is that no one is actually addressing the issue, which ironically is how you address the issue.
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Can I put it to you, beloved, just as a point of application, what is not acknowledged cannot be healed.
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Let me say that again. What is not acknowledged cannot be healed.
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Kofi, where you see that in the Bible? Well, I'm glad you asked. Psalm 51, David is praying a prayer of repentance following the incident with Bathsheba.
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Psalm 51 verses three and four. Note what David says. He says, for I am conscious of my rebellion and my sin is always before me against you.
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You alone have I sinned and done this evil. Please note that he calls it rebellion. He calls it sin and he calls it evil.
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So you are right when you pass sentence, you are blameless when you judge.
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How about in the New Testament? If you're taking notes, 1 John 1 verses five through 10. This is the message that we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and there is absolutely no darkness in him.
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If we say we have fellowship with him, yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.
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If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin.
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Now note what John says. 1 John 1 verse eight. If we say we have no sin, if we choose not to address the issue.
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I love John's letters because John is just blunt into the point. He says, if we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves.
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You're lying to yourself and the truth is not in us. But here's the good news. Verse nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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Verse 10, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar. Why do we make
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God a liar? Because God's word says that we are all sinners. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
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The reality is beloved restoration can't begin. If we don't acknowledge what sin is, and acknowledge what sin does.
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Am I saying that it was wrong for Jacob to leave? No, I think that's, like I said, humanly speaking, it's wise. But note that nobody in this passage has brought up, you need to repent.
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Nobody has brought up in this passage that, Jacob, first of all, before you even wronged
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Esau, you wronged your father. That needs to be repented of. Whether or not
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God had given him the covenant promise, he wasn't supposed to steal it. You need to make that right with Esau.
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I'm not sure what that would look like. The text doesn't tell us, and it's not necessarily healthy for us to speculate.
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But it's very clear that nobody is taking accountability for what's happening here.
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And the reality is if there's going to be any restoration, it has to start with acknowledging what sin is, and acknowledging what it does.
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And that's the first step in recovering from spiritual failure. You've got to acknowledge just what a disaster sin causes.
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But the reality is you can't linger with just acknowledging the disastrous effects of sin.
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You see, there's a second step in recovering from spiritual failure. Yes, you have to acknowledge sin's disastrous effects, but point number two, beloved, you also need to respond rightly to God's revealed truth.
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You need to respond rightly to God's revealed truth.
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As we turn the corner into chapter 28, I've got to be honest, I don't know necessarily if verse 46,
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Isaac really buys Rebekah's reasoning. Again, think about the fallout of this.
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I would not blame Isaac if he didn't trust a single word that ever came out of Rebekah's mouth ever again. But I have to think that Isaac, being the head of the clan, has more than likely heard
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Esau's, you know, murderous rantings to anybody who would listen. And so regardless of whether he agrees with Rebekah or not, that's neither here nor there, he does seem to agree that Jacob probably should feed the nest for a while.
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Let's look at chapter 28 verse one. So Isaac summoned Jacob, blessed him and commanded him, do not marry a
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Canaanite girl. God wants to Paddan Aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, marry one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.
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I mean, there's no doubt that the failure of Esau in relation to marrying
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Canaanite women was weighing heavy on his mind, but I don't think that's necessarily the headline here. I want to give
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Isaac some credit because I want to believe that, and I think the text gives us some reason to think this, Isaac has finally gotten the memo that God tried to send when these boys were being born.
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Remember that back in chapter 25? Remember that God said the older would serve the younger. I think
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Isaac has finally gotten that this is what God wants. Isaac seems to have come around to the fact that Jacob was the son of the promise, that God's way was the way this was supposed to happen, even if it wasn't his way.
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Where do I get that from? Well, look at verse three. As he's sending him away, he repeats the blessing that he gave.
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So verse three, may God almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you become an assembly of peoples.
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May God give you and your offspring the blessing of Abraham so that you may possess the land where you live as a foreigner, the land
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God gave to Abraham. So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddanerom to Laban son of Bethuel the
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Aramean, the daughter of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.
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Here's the wonderful thing in these verses. We're not told how, and we're not necessarily told why, but the sort of conditional, remember we talked about this last week, this very conditional works -driven attitude that Isaac seemed to have, it seems to have given way to an attitude of acceptance of how it is that God works.
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He seems to have come around, and I think he should be commended for this. He seems to have come around to an acceptance of God's way of working.
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And yet, isn't it sad that it took all of this, it took all of this pain and heartache and distrust, it took all of this for Isaac to finally get the message.
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I mean, isn't it sad, just I'm gonna say this in passing, isn't it sad that it often takes pain, failure, and tragedy for us to often learn our need for God's grace?
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And yet, as sad as it is, as unpleasant as it is, doesn't
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Isaac's change of heart give us all some hope? Yes, it's gritty, unsophisticated, unpretty, but it's also very real -world hope.
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It gives us hope that we could grow in our understanding, that we can mature beyond the failings of the past, that God is still shaping and fashioning and making us into the people
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He desires for us to be for our good and for His glory.
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You see, in a very genuine way, Isaac has learned exactly how to respond to God's revealed truth.
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But unfortunately, that's not the only response in this text. There's a second response in this text,
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I think you can see, and it's not a good one. So look at verse six. Esau noticed that Isaac blessed
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Jacob and sent him to Paddan Aram to get a wife there. When he blessed him, Isaac commanded
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Jacob, do not marry a Canaanite girl. And Jacob listened to his father and mother and went to Paddan Aram.
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Esau realized that his father disapproved of the Canaanite women. So Esau went to Ishmael and married, in addition to his other wives,
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Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son. She was the sister of Nebaioth.
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Once again, Esau is presented in less than a glowing light. Two reasons why
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I say that. First of all, instead of repentance, remember what I told you to pay attention to that word, consoling himself.
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Instead of repentance, he just chooses to console himself with the thought of killing his brother. Here's what's interesting.
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The word that's translated consoling here, in chapter 27, verse 42, it can also be translated to repent.
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Coffee, where are you going with this? Very simple. Esau had two choices. He could repent or feel sorry for himself. And what did he choose to do?
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He chose to feel sorry for himself. Instead of devoting his energies to repentance, which by the way, remember, we looked at Hebrews 12 last
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Sunday, which is what the author to the Hebrew says that though he had room for repentance, he didn't.
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Instead of devoting his energies to repentance for his somewhat devil may care approach to God's covenant, he would much rather feel sorry for himself, wishing he could kill
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Jacob. But he doesn't just get mad. This is the, I read this as we can.
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It was actually kind of tragic to read this and to think about this because he doesn't just get mad. He also attempts to get back in his dad's good graces.
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He's worked out that mom and dad weren't exactly keen on these Canaanite marriages that he had gotten into.
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So, I mean, just let's follow Esau's thought process, if you can call it that for a moment.
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Mom and dad don't like these Canaanite women. So what better way for me to get back in dad's good graces than for me to marry someone who's not a
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Canaanite, somebody that mom and dad, especially dad will approve of. In a sense, it's tragic because all of Isaac's conditional thinking that he seems to constantly, at one point, seemed to constantly spout, he apparently got to Esau.
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He seems to think this is the way I curry favour with my father. He's bought into the myth that what he could do could earn his father's blessing.
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And can I put it to you that that is not how to respond to God's truth, that we don't come to God's truth with the mindset that says, well, as long as I do what
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God wants me to do, then God will love me. You see, in a sense,
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Esau suffers the same problem that a lot of people can fall prone to. He's developed a wrong picture of God.
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I mean, think about this with me for a moment. If your picture of God, do your thought experiment with me for a second.
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If your picture of God is basically, he is the stern taskmaster, that he is only pleased when you do what he asks and when you don't, he is just itching to smite you.
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If that's your picture of God, then what does that do for your walk with God? Let me tell you, what it ends up doing is it turns your walk with God into a never -ending hamster wheel of trying, occasionally succeeding, and we'll put succeeding in quote marks, but actually falling short.
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You end up becoming somewhat terrified of God and thinking God's always unhappy with me. But what if for a moment, your picture of God is not the stern taskmaster with a cane ready to whop you on.
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What if your picture of God is promise -driven? What if it's faith -driven? What if it's fueled and empowered by an understanding of the love of God shown to you in Christ?
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Can I put it to you that if that's how you view God, if that's the motive, then obedience and service and doing the things that please
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God, catch this, they stop being currency with God. This is what
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I give you to get something. And they actually become the product of a genuine relationship with God.
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Can I put it to you that the tragedy of Esau's response is that he bought into an entirely wrong view of God, and that led to a wrong response to God and his truth.
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And so not only do we need to acknowledge a sin's disastrous effects, but we have to respond rightly to God's revealed truth.
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How we respond to the promises and the commands of God is critical if we're going to find grace in the face of spiritual failure.
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But not only do we need to acknowledge sin's disastrous fallout, and not only do we need to respond rightly to God's revealed truth, there's a third step.
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There's a third step. And I want to put it to you that this is the most glorious step of all of them.
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Because if you're going to recover from when you hit spiritually rock bottom, then point number three, you're going to ultimately have to trust in God's reassuring presence.
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Trust in God's reassuring presence. As we dive back into our narrative,
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I put it to you that we're actually about to hit one of the most vivid and powerful scenes in all of the Old Testament. It's a wonderful scene if you understand all that's going on here, and I'll do my best.
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Really at the heart of this are two actions. Two actions. There's an action on God's part, and then there's a response on Jacob's part.
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So an action on God's part, and a response on Jacob's part. And I put it to you that both of these,
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God's action and Jacob's response, they have something to teach us about God's reassuring presence.
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So let's start with God's action first. In verses 10 through 15, God steps in with tried and true promises.
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So God steps in with tried and true promises. So verse 10 comes and Jacob hits the road, and this is no small journey.
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It's several hundred miles over rugged terrain. Oh, to give you some more context,
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Jacob, typically, in fact, when I was growing up in church, whenever they picture, you see
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Jacob, he looks like a guy in his 20s, doesn't look cool. Jacob's about 40 at this point. This is not a young man making this journey.
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This is a 40 -year -old man making a journey of several hundred miles across very rugged terrain. At some point, this nearly, well, if not 40 -year -old man is going to need to take a rest.
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And so he does. Where he rests isn't all that relevant. In fact, the text kind of makes that obvious.
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Look at verse 11. So it says, he, Jacob, reached a certain place. And spent the night there because the sun had set.
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He took one of the stones from the place, put it there at his head, and lay down in that place.
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Tess doesn't even think it's important to tell you where this place is. He just picked a spot and said, hey, we're going to set up camp for the night.
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You see, the place is very irrelevant to the story. But what takes place here is incredibly relevant.
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Because look at verse 12. Jacob's tired. So what do you do when you're tired? You sleep.
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Verse 12, and he dreamed. A stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching the sky.
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And God's angels were going up and down on it. Now, some of your
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Bibles might not use the word stairway. They might use the word ladder. Actually, the Hebrew term is very general.
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It could mean stairway. It could mean ladder. You don't want to get overly literal about this. Whether it's a ladder or stairway is not important.
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What is important is what's taking place on this stairway. I wish
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I had more time to look into this, but I think in the study guide, there should be a little box there that talks about angels in Genesis.
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There's a bunch of references there. I encourage you to read them in your own time. Angels actually do a lot of work in the book of Genesis.
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And with the exception of one time, every time they appear, especially in the story of the patriarchs, every time they appear, they're coming with a divine message.
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In fact, angels come to symbolize. In fact, the very word angel carries this idea of being a messenger, a courier, if you will.
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And so he has this dream where he's seeing a stairway set on the ground. Its top is reaching into heaven and God's angels are coming up and down on it.
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This is a dream that's about revelation. He's about to hear something. But here's what's interesting.
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The angels don't do any talking in this. Dream. But look who does.
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Verse 13. Text says, Yahweh was standing there beside him.
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Now, let me stop for a moment. Some of you will have Bibles that might say standing at the top of it or stood above it, referring to the stairway.
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I will not bore you with all the intricacies of Hebrew grammar. I'll simply say this. To say he stood above it or above the top of that doesn't work grammar wise.
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I can, I don't want to bore everyone with this. There are reasons you can translate it that way.
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Problem is every time this phrasing is used in Genesis, it's usually standing by something or someone.
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And so I think the CSB gets it right in translating this, that he was standing beside him, standing beside Jacob.
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Whatever Yahweh has to say in this moment is not a shout across the room conversation. We all know there are certain things that you can say across a room and there are certain things you should probably say close to someone.
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And if you're with someone who doesn't know the difference, don't tell them things. Some of you will get that on the way home.
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But for a moment, think about the blessing that this is for Jacob. Think about this.
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Here he is literally running for his life. His future is incredibly uncertain.
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You ever thought about that? He's left the safety, like I said, he's left the safety and the security of his clan.
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He's now on his own. Oh, he's got a murderous brother who at any point could say, you know,
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I know where he's going. I can find him. This is not necessarily the greatest time in the life of Jacob.
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And as he dreams, here is Yahweh, the God of his fathers, not just talking to him, but standing right next to him.
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And if that isn't comfort enough, it gets even more comforting when he starts to speak. Look at verse 13. Yahweh was standing beside him saying,
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I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your offspring the land on which you are lying.
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Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth and you will spread out towards the West, the East, the North and the South. All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
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Look, I am with you and we'll watch over you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what
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I have promised you. God steps in.
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And it's interesting, he doesn't step in with some newfangled up -to -date better than the last one message.
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No, he steps in and he reminds Jacob of some tried and true promises. But just as he was with grandfather
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Abraham and his father Isaac, he would be with Jacob, that his promises would come good and that he could be depended on.
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And faith family, can I put it to you when we are at our lowest, it's not a new message you need.
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Can I put it to you that what we need at the worst times in our lives is not something new.
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It's something old. Allow me to put it in New Testament terms.
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Christian, when you are struggling, catch this, you don't need a new message. You need the same old tried and true battle -tested message of the gospel.
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You need the good news of God becoming a man. It's Christmas. It's a good time for us to think about that.
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You need the good news of that man suffering all the limitations and weakness of weaknesses of being truly human so that he can sympathize with you.
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You need the good news of that man's perfect, spotless obedience to God's law and his thoughts in his word and in his deed.
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You need the good news of that man's all atoning, sacrificial death. You need the good news that death could not beat him and he rose victorious over the grave.
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And you need the good news that that man is in heaven interceding for you. Can I put it to you that I hear people use this language all the time.
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And the older I get, I turn 33 on Thursday, by the way. Happy birthday to me,
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I suppose. I hear people talk all the time. The older I get, the more I get more annoyed by it.
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I want to hear a fresh word from the Lord. I want something new.
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And I'm just like, I'm sorry. Just miss me with that. No, actually,
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I don't want something new. The older I get, the more
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I walk with the Lord, the more I want the same old good message.
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The more I want to be reminded of the goodness of God in the gospel, the more
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I forget, was it? I forget. Is it Lord of the Rings or Narnia where he talks about further up and further in?
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I forget which one. Okay, it's Narnia. I want to go further up and further into that good news.
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I don't really have time for new messages at this point. When things are tough, I don't know about you.
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I can only speak for myself. I need a word that I know is good. I need a word that is soft like a pillow and firm like a rock to hold me.
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And that's what God steps in with in moments where we hit our lowest. He doesn't come with something new.
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He comes with something that we desperately need to hear. Before I move on though, there's more to this story than just what we see here in Genesis chapter 28.
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Because when we read the New Testament, the New Testament takes us to a whole new level. And this
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I want you to see with me. So if you've got a Bible nearby, John chapter one in the
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Red Hardbacks, page 942. John chapter one, page 942 in the
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Red Hardbacks. John chapter one, this one I want you to see with me. Let me give you some context.
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This is three days after Jesus' baptism. He's back in Galilee, his home region.
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John chapter one, page 942. Jump down to verse 43. John chapter one, verse 43.
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Text says to us, the next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. He found
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Philip and told him, follow me. Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter.
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Philip found Nathanael and told him, we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law.
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And so did the prophets. Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Now, Philip is right.
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Jesus was indeed the one that Moses wrote about in the law. He was the Messiah the prophets look forward to.
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Verse 46, Nathanael's response is, can anything good come from Nazareth? Now, that might be lost on us.
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Nazareth was way up in the north. It was kind of considered the backwaters of Israel. But Nathanael's also wrong.
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Actually, two prophets came from Galilee. Jonah, you all heard the story with the big fish, which wasn't a fish, but we can talk about that another time.
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You all heard that story. If you look geographically, that's kind of where he's from. There's also the prophet
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Nahum. In fact, Capernaum that you read about in the gospels is named after that prophet because he's from that area.
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So Nathanael's wrong, but that's neither here nor there. Can anything good come from Nazareth?
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Nathanael asked him, come and see, Philip answered. Then Jesus saw
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Nathanael coming toward him and said, here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. How do you know me?
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Verse 48 Nathanael asked, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree,
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I saw you, Jesus answered. Apparently, Jesus saw this and Nathanael was nowhere near when that happened.
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It's another one of those moments in the gospel of John, where though the son of God takes himself a human nature, his divine nature is unlimited, but very obvious display in the book of John.
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But where I want to focus on, so verse 49 says, Rabbi, Nathanael replied, you are the son of God, the king of Israel.
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Nathanael's like, yeah, that's not normal. But where I want to focus on is verse 50.
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So John chapter one, verse 50, Jesus responded to him. Do you believe because I told you,
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I saw you under the fig tree? So that's, that's light work. You will see greater things than this.
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Then he said, truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God descending on the son of man.
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Did you catch what Jesus just did there? In case you didn't allow me to paint the picture.
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Jesus is making himself parallel with the vision that Jacob saw back in chapter 28 of Genesis.
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And actually, when you start to think about this, it makes some sense. Think about this, just like the pathway or ladder, whichever one you prefer, connected heaven and earth.
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Jesus is the mediator between heaven and humanity. Yahweh appeared to Jacob in that vision and stood behind, beside him, excuse me.
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And just as Jesus is God appearing in human and thus visible form, the content of Jacob's vision in chapter 28 is a repeat of God's covenant promises.
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The Bible makes us to understand, if you're taking notes, 2 Corinthians 1 .20, that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of all of God's promises.
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Paul says it like this, that in him, all of God's promises find their yes.
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And while we're at it, remember that image of angels coming up and down, pointing to divine revelation? Well, Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God.
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Deuteronomy 18 calls him the prophet who speak for God. Hebrews 1 says that he reveals the true
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God to us. As one writer puts it, Jesus' message to Nathanael and the other disciples is that he himself will be the place of much greater revelation than on previous occasions.
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That Jesus will mediate greater revelation than Abraham. So when you come to Genesis chapter 28, you're supposed to read this and read this recognizing that God is pointing to the fact that one day one would come who would be the ultimate revelation of God's promises.
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By the way, this is why when people say, as has been said recently in our culture, that we need to unhitch from the
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Old Testament, I'm sorry, they don't know what they're talking about. Because actually, if you read the
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Old Testament the right way, all roads lead to one place, or should
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I say to one person, and his name is Jesus. Well, come back with me to Genesis chapter 28, because we've seen
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God's action. He reminds Jacob of his gracious promises, but the recovery isn't complete here.
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There's still one more action we need to see. Yes, God steps in with tried and true promises, but we also get to give
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God genuine worship as a result. God steps in with his tried and true promises, and you respond by giving
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God genuine worship. Come back to our text.
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We're in verse 16 now. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, the text says, he said, surely
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Yahweh is in this place and I did not know it. This really inconsequential place is now really important.
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He was afraid, which is how humans generally are when they see God. He was afraid and said, what an awesome place this is.
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This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. Jacob might be exaggerating a little bit.
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We can forgive him this exaggeration, given what he's just experienced. And I think to his credit, he is in the genuine sense of the word, impressed by the weight of God's presence.
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And in light of that, he expresses his faith in two ways. Firstly, he sets up a memorial to this place where he met with God.
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So verse 18, early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that was near his head and set it up as a marker.
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He poured oil on the top of it and named the place Bethel, Bethel, the house of God.
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Though previously the city was named Luz. He sets up this memorial to this place where he had encountered
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God for himself. But not only does he do that, secondly, he commits himself to God's care.
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So look at verse 20. Then Jacob made a vow. If God will be with me and watch over me during this journey
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I'm making, if he provides me with food to eat and clothing to wear, if I return safely to my father's family, then
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Yahweh will be my God. This stone that I have set up as a marker will be
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God's house, and I will give you a tenth of all you give me. Now, there's some debate as to what's happening here.
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There are some who take the view that Jacob is actually not being, believing at this point, that Jacob is basically hedging with God.
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Look, God, if you take care of me, then you'll be my God. You know, I'm not sure about this here, but I just don't think that makes sense, given the context personally.
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I don't think Jacob is necessarily bargaining with God. I think this is a genuine demonstration of faith on his part.
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As you all know, if you've been with us long -term in our study of Genesis, when
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I don't understand something, I go ask my Bible reading buddy. His name is Matthew Henry. And so I went and asked
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Dr. Henry, Dr. Henry, what do you think about this? And this is what he had to say. Quote, by religious vows, we give glory to God, own our dependence upon him and lay a bond upon our own souls to engage and quicken our obedience to him.
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Jacob had now had a gracious visit, excuse me, from heaven. God had renewed his covenant with him and the covenant is mutual.
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When God ratifies his promises to us, it is proper for us to repeat our promises to him.
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I put it to you that Jacob in this moment is responding in dependence and he's responding in worship.
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And can I put it to you that that is, again, it's not currency with God. That should be our response to what
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God has done for us in Christ. I'm out of time.
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Beloved, spiritual failure is real. It's rough. It might not be what we would want necessarily, or what we desire, but it will happen.
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But here's the good news. That's not where our story has to end. That does not have to be what is the headline of our lives, as it were.
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Because beloved, as you acknowledge sin's disastrous effect, you respond to God's unchanging truth.
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And as you trust in his reassuring presence, here's the good news. And this is what
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I think God is doing in Jacob's life. And we can be encouraged he's doing in all of our lives. That God is at work.
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Taking those moments of failure, taking those moments of sin, taking those moments of unbelief, and he is using them to produce genuine dependence on him.
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It's like the psalmist says, it's good for me that I was afflicted so that I may learn your statutes.
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This isn't the end of Jacob's story. We've still got so much ground to cover in the life of Jacob. This isn't the end of his story.
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And praise God, the moments of failure and weakness in our life do not have to be the end of our story.
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And Heavenly Father, we thank you that that is indeed true. That we are not characterized by the failings of the past.
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That we are not characterized by moments of weakness. Those moments happen.
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They happen. We can't ignore them. We can't say they didn't happen. But yeah,
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Father, that's not the end of our story. And Father, since that's not the end of our story, we can trust in you that you are writing a better story than we could even if we tried.
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Father, help us to depend on you. Help us to not downplay the disaster that sin causes in our lives.
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But help us to respond rightly to your truth and to trust in your reassuring presence. Be with us now as we come before your table.