Reaping and Weeping

Well this morning we want to consider Genesis 27 verses 30 through 40, so we're not quite out of the chapter yet Of course, we began it last week.

And as we said last week Nobody in Isaac's household comes out of this chapter looking very good there is sin at every turn the sin of Isaac the sin of his wife

Rebecca the sin of Jacob and even the sin of Esau and By contrast of course to the sin we see the grace of God and so we have this testimony

Before our eyes in Genesis 27 that where sin abounds the grace of God abounds much more

Isaac has resisted the will of God. He should have discerned from the demeanor of his eldest son

Esau That he was not following after God's own heart that he would not be a suitable heir of the

Abrahamic Covenant He should have noticed when he married himself to pagan wives

That he was pursuing his own will rather than the will of God. He should have been able to discern from Jacob that as deceitful as Twisted as Jacob was he was truly seeking

God's blessing He had a desire for the things of the Lord the things of his heritage the covenantal belongings of Abraham his grandfather

So Isaac is resisting the will of God Rebecca has resisted not only her husband

You can see the marital breakdown there, but also she has resisted God in her own way She's chosen to walk by sight and not by faith

So concerned was she that God's promise to Jacob was now in jeopardy that she undertook to sin

To deceive her husband and to force her own son to sin against God and his father

And so Rebecca has resisted the will of God Jacob, of course has resisted

Obedience and submission to his father. He has dishonored his father brought shame to his father He's resisted the way of God walking in the truth of God.

He's also walking by sight rather than by faith And so he like his mother deceives and he like his mother and like his father and like his brother

Resists the will of God. So as Gordon Wenham points out in the context of this behavior each member of the family

Self -centeredly seeking his own or her own interest. The narrator is not simply pointing out how fallible

God's people are but rather Reasserting the grace of God it is his mercy

That is the ultimate ground of salvation and that is certainly borne out in the lives of the patriarchs

And so there's a great comfort here There's a great comfort for the weary Christian There's a great comfort for the guilty believer that can feel the weight of their sin and the affliction of their conscience and and Struggles with the sinfulness they see within them as Paul struggled in Romans 7

There's a comfort that when God calls us he undertakes to bring his grace into our lives

To purge the sin within us To make us more like him step by step season by season trial by trial

There's a great comfort when we look at the life of Jacob when we are unfaithful God remains faithful He cannot deny himself.

That was a big focus. We had last week Jacob is blessed Despite his own sin

Jacob is blessed Despite the sin that God is going to work out of his life

Jacob is blessed We need this grace abounding mercy renewing

God of the twister and the deceiver to be our refuge as we said from Psalm 46 the

God of Jacob is our The God of Jacob being the God who embraces twisted people

Deceitful people selfish and self -willing people a stubborn and stiff -necked people

And he works their sin out in their lives by blessing and by trial and he's faithful But this morning as I mentioned last week last week, hopefully being an encouragement and a comfort

But we're not just looking at the life of Jacob in chapter 27. We're also looking at the life of Esau And so where perhaps there was comfort last week

We're looking perhaps more at conviction this morning Not the blessing of Esau, but really the blessing of Jacob, but really the curse of Esau And so we begin in verse 30

It happened as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob has scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his father

That Esau his brother came in from his hunting He also had made savory food and brought it to his father and said to his father

Let my father arise and eat of his son's game that your soul may bless me

You can picture the scene it's it's written so well that you can't help but think of what that would have looked like For me that looks like you know,

Esau the thrill of the hunt He kind of dressed that game whatever it might have been and took the time to prepare this meal

And he must have just been this this beacon of joy the exhilaration of what he was about to receive

If ever there was a bounce in someone's step Esau had it as he bounded toward the tent of his father and perhaps as we

Read just scarcely had Jacob left and perhaps just out of the corner of his eyes

What was what was that? You know goat hair dangling off his brother's body, and he's going what what in the world?

Anyway, he just keeps pressing forward into the tent You can picture the excitement

When he sets this meal down before his father you can you can almost hear it through the words

Let my father rise up his father's decrepit. He thinks he's about to die That's why he sent him out to get him his really his last meal

And he says rise up father so that your soul may bless me Right your your innermost being

The very core of your being may bless me you can picture the exhilaration of the moment and then that emotional high to being

Completely perplexed when Isaac says verse 32. Who are you? Who are you?

I'm your son You're firstborn Esau We have that firstborn imagery

Embedded again the firstborn And of course this question would have confused

Esau It wasn't that long Ago that Isaac had sent him out of the tent and it was to bring the meal and here's

Esau with the meal Who are you? Oh, no, dad's lost it again Area dementia's striking good thing.

I have this meal just in time for the blessing He would have been so confused and then even more confused verse 33 when he sees

Isaac trembling Who where's the one who hunted game and brought it to me?

I? All of it before you came I I blessed him and indeed he shall be blessed

Isaac trembled and in Hebrew. This is an emphatic clause. There's different ways. You can make something emphatic in Hebrew and This is a very elaborate way of making so if we could try to capture you translate it something like this with trembling

Isaac greatly trembled, you know with trembling trembling Isaac trembled.

It's just it's it's Emphatic he was shaken to the core. He's practically convulsing

So Esau is confused now and then he sees his father Convulsing and what we know

Esau doesn't know yet. It's not simply that he was in shock It was rather in response to the fact that he knew he had been fighting against the will of God and So the shock is more than just wait.

I thought I already gave a blessing. Who was that? That would have been surprised but the trembling the shaking to the core kind of trembling he knows

His will has been overruled by the will of God Spurgeon puts it this way as soon as Isaac perceives that he has been wrong in wishing to bless

Esau He does not persist in it. He does not think for a moment of retracting what he has done

He feels that the hand of God was in it Indeed, he shall be blessed. That's what he says

Isaac knew that the Lord was in it and So he could almost say

He saw I sought to bless you. I Really did that was the plan.

In fact, I I thought that I just blessed you Where's the one who actually did what I commanded you to do?

He's the one that's blessed and he's going to be blessed I'm not pulling back.

I'm not recanting. I'm not revoking. I'm not switching things around Isaac understands something of the will of God in this situation.

He will be blessed. So now Esau is completely puzzled Probably would have gone from confused to to fearful afraid of how his father was trembling and now

Devastated by the news and so he cries out verse 34 He cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry

So now we go from exceeding trembling to exceeding crying and it's a bitter crying bitterness having the connotation of a

Vengeful crying the Vulgate has it. He roared like a lion So it's not just self -pity here.

It's it's rage That's how Esau is weeping, but you notice something

Isaac is not moved by this roar He's not moved by this rage or by this pity

He's not moved by the tears and the moans and the groans of Esau He's not moved by his attachment or his affection for Esau He's not moved by the meal that he loves that Esau just sat down before him

Isaac is unmoved by any of this He's resolved now to the will of God for Jacob's blessing.

And so he says verse 35 your brother came with deceit He has taken away your blessing

He put it together And Esau retorts and here you can see this vengeful spirit.

Is he not rightly named? For he has supplanted me these two times You see

I'm the victim. This is not what we read in Genesis 25 This wasn't so much

Jacob's sin as Esau sin and yet Esau paints himself as the victim

He supplanted me Two times now probably only once this time you could say he supplanted you but not the first time

He took away my birthright and now look he's taken away my blessing. Have you not reserved the blessing for me?

Isn't there something? Notice here that Esau is unconcerned about the substance of the blessing that Jacob received

He just wants a blessing it shows again that his mind is tracking in material ways

I want to have material goods and comforts in this life. Is there any other blessing for me?

Jacob seemed to have been driven more by the spiritual connotations of the blessing the sense of lineage and of course

That's only going to be amplified as we move forward in the next chapter as Jacob begins to encounter the presence of God But here

Esau is simply seeking for his own immediate. Is there anything left for me? And Isaac said indeed

I've made him your master all his brethren. I've given to him as servants with grain and wine

I've sustained him. What can I do for you now my son? So Isaac is completely resolved in the will of God and notice there's really almost no sympathy there for Esau We go from a man who's been

Bound in his affection toward Esau to the point that it's driven him Against Jacob and really outside of God's purpose for his family

But here now that he's resolved in the way that God has moved. He he seems to lose any pity for Esau What can

I do for you now? What can I do for you my son and Esau said to his father?

Have you only one blessing? Bless me also. Oh my father and then he lifted up his voice and he wept

And so Isaac finally responds with this blessing behold Your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven from above By your sword you shall live and you shall serve your brother

But it will come to pass when you become restless. Then you shall break his yoke from this

Blessing really is an anti blessing It's really no blessing at all

And so the way that Isaac has already pulled away sympathy from Esau now He almost doubles down this this is more like a curse than a blessing.

It's not immediately obvious, but compounded within these words is the reversal of fortune in Contrast to Jacob's blessing

Esau now must dwell in a completely derivative way He will not be the source of abundance as Jacob's blessing promises to him

But rather he will depend upon that source of blessing. He will have to live a dependent life

The connotation is he's going to be a wanderer and he's going to live in a derivative way in a violent way

He's not going to be blessed by the bounty of the earth so much as he'll have to get it by tooth and claw

Using the sword it's going to be a hard life Gaining provisions will be difficult not natural

The preposition we have in our translation of the Hebrew preposition men we read

Of the earth of the dew of heaven It could be translated of it also could be translated and is better translated from or perhaps even away from So the idea is your dwelling will be away from from the fatness of the earth derivative

Even removed from it. You're gonna have to sort of get the crumbs of it. What's left of it?

So it's a derivative life and then it's gonna be through the sword by your sword You shall live and so here this is not a blessing at all

It's not this fountain of abundance this creational blessing that is bestowed on Jacob.

It's it's something derivative It's something difficult It's something arid and dry as as Edom turns out to be another way

We see this is we have a reversal of the words do and fatness it was the other way around and Jacob's blessing, but here the reversal is meant to say it's derivative and so where where Jacob has

Abundance like the dew and of the fatness of that he is sustained for Esau. It's the other way around.

It's been reversed another thing we have here is

Really a generational Curse Now again, it's a blessing but as we've said it's sort of an anti blessing because Esau Like Jacob and like all of us as we've been reminded as Hogan reminded of us from Wiley because we're dots not dots but lines

Then this blessing this anti blessing will apply to Esau not as a dot but as a line his blessing in other words

It's gonna have generational consequences It won't just be he who lives in a derivative way

It will not just be he who lives under the yoke of his brother Israel It will not just be he who who has to live by the sword

It will be the generations of Edom the Edomites under the yoke of Israel living in a derivative way dependent upon their blessing and As we read in second

Kings 8 when the time comes that they grow restless they break the yoke of their brother Now apparently

Esau takes this as a pretext tomorrow. Well, I'm already restless. I hate my brother And so I'm gonna break that yoke right now.

I'm gonna kill him. That's what we get in verse 41 But this is actually playing out generationally and it seems that this is being fulfilled as we move on and there's abundant references and in Numbers and 2nd

Chronicles as well as 2nd Kings to Edom and the Edomites And so we have this generational consequence and then we also have this imagery of of Cain and Abel like Cain Whose offering was rejected by the

Lord Esau wants to kill his brother Esau has this

Cain like vengeance in his heart. I've been rejected by God I am outside of the blessing of God and I'm going to kill my brother and you remember the curse

That came upon Cain as a result of that fratricide This was the curse Genesis 4 12 when you cultivate the ground.

It will not yield its strength to you. You will be a vagrant You will be a wanderer on the earth that same preposition can mean not just away from but across from and So the idea of exile is there as well as Cain was exiled from the presence of God And then of course what

Esau should have heard is what Cain heard from the Lord the warning the rebuke Why are you angry

Esau? Why has your countenance fallen Esau if you do well Esau?

Will you not be lifted up if you do not do well Esau sin is crouching at the door

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. And of course

Esau chooses to do none of these things And that's why we have the testimony of Hebrews 12 don't we as we'll see in a moment

So that's what we have in our passage verses 30 through 40 and I want to circle back to verse 34 in particular

When Esau heard the words of his father He cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and he said to his father bless me me also.

Oh my father There seems to be a genuine change in the understanding and outlook of Isaac Isaac seems to have genuinely changed in the way.

He had been thinking about his blessing his generation the covenantal heritage and his sons

Jacob and Esau We don't have the sense that Esau's Undergone any genuine change in his understanding of the situation his understanding of the blessing or the covenantal heritage

He doesn't have any new outlook. It's the same Esau we've seen all along What about me?

What about my needs something in in the immediate moment? There's no real change here for Esau Certainly, there's no sense of repentance as we would define repentance biblically

There's remorse everywhere regret everywhere, but if there's nothing There's no repentance

Repentance is not bitter crying. It's not exceeding crying. It's not saying

I wish I did have this bless me now my father It's not wishing for what has been forfeited by sin.

None of that is repentance No true sense of repentance can be found in the bitter voice

Coming from Esau's throat or the vengeful murderous spirit within his heart

He seems to have no understanding or appreciation For the situation at all.

This is a knee -jerk reaction to something that's been taken from him Esau's tears were the tears of Frustration selfishness lack of regret for his own sin completely self -awareness self victimization

Blame on his brother hate for his brother. He He has reference toward everyone really but himself when it comes to wrongs

And of course he has been wrong. We don't want to take away from the sin of Jacob Jacob sinned against his brother

Jacob wronged his brother Jacob did evil to Esau. We don't take away from that for a moment

But we cannot ignore what scripture itself says about Esau When we feel sorry for this pathetic howling from Esau and it plucks on our heartstrings and we say, you know

I kind of feel bad for the guy can't you know, can't you somehow split the covenant between them? Yeah, isn't there a way that we can redeem him?

We have to remember that. This is someone who despised the way of God He despised his birthright

He willfully chose to live his life against God's will what is it that my grandfather was always saying about marriage?

What did he do for you Isaac my father? How he arranged that whole marriage so that it wouldn't be with the four women of the lands that their hearts would not be turned

Away from the Lord God. Yeah, I'm not doing that I'm gonna double down. I'm marrying pagan pagan wives

The same man who rebelliously sold his birthright the same man who seeks now to murder his brother

It's not the man that we should feel pity for Hebrews 12 as We've read before Hebrews 12 beginning in verse 13 pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the

Lord Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God Lest any root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by this many become defiled lest there be any fornicator remember we said a sort of immoral

Godless or profane person like Esau who for one morsel of food sold his birthright

For you know this that afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected

So do you see the connection that Hebrews 12 makes between the despising of the birthright and the rejection of the blessing?

Afterward when he wanted to he now has a desire for the blessing He was rejected the connotation there not just rejected by Isaac his father, but rejected by God Why?

He found no place for repentance, even though he sought it Earnestly zealously with tears great tears exceeding tears.

He cried his heart out He wept his soul out. He screamed his passion out

No one could weep more for what he had lost than he saw and yet he found no place for it

No place for repentance Scripture says he was rejected specifically because he found no place for some have interpreted the the place of repentance as Isaac's choice

He found no place for repentance repentance meaning fundamentally a turning a change

He found no place for Isaac changing his mind. He found no place for Isaac's repentance toward him

That's that's possible, but it's unlikely. It's more likely The writer of Hebrews is saying he found no place for repentance within himself

Everyone else needs to change my father needs to change My brother needs to change this whole situation needs to change that all needs to change

But I don't need to change He found no place for repentance He felt remorse he felt regret

But the regret that he felt the remorse that was painting him. It was only over the consequences

It was only as a result of what had taken place of what had been lost it. It wasn't his role within it

We see this I mean we see this almost monthly don't wait on The news headlines where some scandal is exposed and you know

Some politician is trotted out to give some public apology and we see the crocodile tears and we know there's there's no real repentance here

Where there is sorrow, it's sorrow that they got caught. There's no real repentance and then they think the public apology

Justifies them to stay in the same position and kind of let's just all move on now And sadly that leaks even into the church where there's these tremendous scandals and the leader is trotted out like a

Politician and gives their public apology and weeps a few tears and maybe these are genuine spirit rot tears even but they feel like well now

That's all dealt with right? Now there's no consequence, right? Even Jacob has a consequence for a sin.

Even Rebecca has a gun. Is there not a consequence for sin? He sought the blessing with tears, but tears don't bring it back

He sought the blessing with Howling and rage but howling and rage don't bring the blessing back.

He appealed to his father But his father won't bring it back nothing short of repentance will bring it back and the connotation of Hebrews 12 is if he had

Found a place for repentance He would have received an incredible blessing from God Because remember what we just read

When he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected because he found no place for repentance

The idea is if he hadn't If he he wouldn't have been rejected if he had found a place for repentance.

You see it's possible For a man to have a great deal of remorse because he feels the loss that his sin has brought about it's possible for a man

From that place of misery and crying and and even real guilt

To have incredible opportunities to make all sorts of changes in his life And even we take take a step back and look at that we go.

This is wonderful Look at all the changes he made there seems to be a genuine movement toward the things of the

Lord now It's very exciting for Christians. We think there's a real change here. The Lord's clearly at work in his life

It's possible for a man to go from that place of guilt to make incredible changes To have opportunities to make more changes and it may even be during this time that the

Holy Spirit has brought a certain amount of light Certainly Christians in that in that man's life or surrounding him with truth and instruction and he's he's clinging to that and saying yes

This is true. Maybe the Spirit's presence even allows some measure of conviction but it's still possible for that man to never find a place for repentance and so even when

Esau is breaking down in tears himself convulsing with sorrow And we feel some pity for him.

We remember the testimony of Hebrews 12 And we remember that he never came to repentance and if he had come to repentance

He would have received a blessing from God Something more that he even sought in that moment and what would that have looked like?

Since we're chasing a hypothetical what would repentance have looked like for Esau at the very least it would have looked like this

It would have looked like a humbling of himself and saying My sins have come upon my own head my brother wronged me, but Really, this is just the outflow of what

I've done. I Hated my birthright. I thought so little of it my whole life up to this point.

I I treated it as some joke Every major decision I've made in my life even down to my marriage has been governed by the uselessness of this birthright to me and Now I see that I was pursuing the wrong things and how

I see that my brother is Wrong and as twisted as he was he actually was pursuing the things. I should have he had more sense than I did and Now I realize if God's blessings on him then okay, and so I'm gonna humble myself and I'm gonna try to seek

God's blessing in Serving Jacob as the blessing has come to Jacob and in serving

Jacob and and in trying to pursue the Lord I I think then the Lord will bless me and establish me

But instead of this We just have this rage the spirit of Cain this bitter vindictive godless profane man

And you see that he's ready to murder Jacob So much does he still despise the blessing of God?

Last week we said as sort of a refrain for the sermon Jacob is blessed Despite his sin

Jacob is blessed Despite his sin which God is going to work out Jacob is blessed and if there's any message this morning for us

It's this Don't don't assume you are Jacob Don't assume you're

Jacob Why not assume you're Esau? Don't make the mistake of always reading the narrative as though you're the character that God is blessing and forgiving and No one should be able then to take despite his sin

Jacob is blessing. Oh, that's so wonderful. You know Oh that that was a great comfort. I love that I can have both

What we ought to do is humble ourselves and say Lord am I blessed like Jacob or am

I resistant like Esau Have I actually found a place for repentance?

I recognize in preaching So often in in a tone and on a topic like this you have what what we could call friendly fire

People are gunned down that you didn't want to gun down and I'm just saying this as sort of a footnote to the whole sermon you know, not that I have anyone in my mind that I'm drawing an arrow toward but inevitably you're shooting well away from the

People who trust are genuinely Convicted by the Spirit and are blessed like Jacob despite their sin and yet they're the ones that are one.

Oh, I've been shot And then the people that you you have concerns about and you have this in your own life with people that name

The name above every names and yet their lives seem to go on oblivious to him And they're the ones that almost seem unfazed by sermons like this.

This is just the nature of it. I recognize that but still

Don't assume you're Jacob. Don't assume you're Jacob. Don't in other words assume you've found a place for repentance

Don't assume that despite your sin you're being blessed when you may just be warranting the consequences of your sin and As you're doing so deadening your conscience and your

Sensitivity towards sin and Esau we see the inevitable consequence of unrepentant sin in a person's life

I'll say that again in Esau. We see the inevitable consequence of unrepentant sin in a person's life

Lost opportunities are rarely if ever regained Did he blow it here?

Or had he blown it a long time before he got to this place Was it only here that he lacked a place for repentance or had he never found a place for repentance throughout his life?

He always justified his actions his sinfulness He always found a way to make himself the victim and that he did not need to change

But everyone and everything around him and outside of him needed to change everything, but him needed repentance

And he might own up to a few warts and blemishes, but nothing more than that Nothing more than what everyone struggles with We all are like this, aren't we?

That's not the way a justified sinner thinks of himself Don't assume you are

Jacob Lost opportunities are often never regained and those who despise

God's grace in their youth Will often never obtain it when they're older We learn this from Esau And I say this to a congregation that has a lot of young people

When you despise God's grace in your youth Don't think it'll be around for you when you're older Esau is an illustration of this

Esau had the blessing had the birthright. He had it all in front of him

He had it but when he had it he didn't want it and Now he wants it

But he cannot have it and there's people in this church that they they have it they have it just walking it

But you don't want it And you think I want it. I do want it. I want it just not now just not yet Someday, I'm when

I'm ready when I you know, there's things that have to happen. I want to be sure that it's really of me I want to be sure it's of myself and when that day finally comes and I'll have it

I'm saying to you no, no, you don't want it and The day will come when you when you want it didn't you can't have it

And you'll cry like he saw cries and you'll howl like he saw howls, but the father's will is unmoved

It's possible to sit under the Word of God to hear the testimony of the gospel of God and to treat that that blessing like soup

And so he saw as an admission in admonition for all of us to give The first place in our lives to the things of the

Lord to not neglect the things that the Spirit is bringing to us What is the Spirit convicting me of?

How is the Lord moving through my conscience? What is the what is the Lord placing upon my heart? What is he exposing in my life his presence his light his illumination?

What effect what difference does it make? Have I found a place for repentance?

Or am I forfeiting the blessing of God am I neglecting the things of the Lord? Esau clearly had not cared for any kind of heavenly blessing.

No spiritual birthright. No covenantal heritage He assumed that the blessing could as easily come as it could easily go and that when he was ready he could receive it

That was a mistake He assumed that there was going to be a loophole for him

Right other people deserve what they get but there's always a loophole for me There's always a way back for me other people lose control, but not me.

I'm always in control. I never let things go out of hand I'm always able to catch myself. I'm unique in this entire earth of human image bearers.

I'm actually entirely unique I'm always able to catch myself and I never let things get too out of hand.

Don't worry about me I'll be able to repent when I need to He had it, but he didn't want it now.

He wants it. He can't have it He neglected it. I Looking up.

This is a sort of a Marty Anderson move in spirit of Marty today. I looked up the dictionary entry for neglect and neglect is defined as a failure to care for a failure to provide for an abandonment and I think that's an app description of Esau in fact if I was

John Bunyan and I was writing Esau as a character I might name him neglect He failed to care for the grace of God He failed to provide for ways and means in his life to obtain the grace of God He abandoned the grace of God And we must be careful

We must not fail to care for the grace of God fail To provide the means of grace to to use the means of grace that we might obtain it

We must not abandon the way of life that God has opened to us This is what scripture says as a rhetorical question

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

Now take that rhetorical question and make it a positive statement We shall not escape if we neglect so great a salvation.

That's the testimony of Scripture That's the testimony of Esau He does not escape the curse because he chose willfully to neglect the grace of God when it was made available to him

When he had it he didn't want it now he wants it he can do not be deceived

God is not mocked What a man sows That also will he reap

This is the sermon title right reaping and weeping We are reading in chapter 27

The harvest of a man's life that had been sown in resistance to the will and way of God The stubbornness that might have been easily camouflaged from others in the household but But now the harvest is clear

It might have been If you look at Esau's manliness his vigor his spirit

It might have been for a long time that I say Rebecca thought God's blessing was on Esau Clearly Isaac up until this very day thought

God's blessing was going to be for Esau and maybe they could see that Jacob was too clingy too

Dependent too deceitful a sort of Sociopathic liar And yet where is

God's grace rested That happens often in a Christian home You get sort of a troubled child

But just all the prayers of the family in the church are for that one. And then there's the sort of pharisaic child

Everything's going great. They've got their arm bound up and they've got the box on their head and everyone's just say Oh, we don't even bother praying for them.

They're great And then there's this reversal And that one who had been the object of so much concern and anxiety

Is actually the one who obtains the grace in favor of God and the one who seemed to be walking in it Harvest what they've sown and hidden well throughout their whole life

They were never walking in the way of God Do not assume you're

Jacob Because what a man Sows he's going to reap

God is not mocked Don't think that because you listen to a sermon or read good books about repentance that You've somehow vicariously repented.

It's a danger. We all fall into right? If I read Psalm 51, I have somehow repented because I agree with what

Psalm 51 says That's not real repentance, right? If repentance is a turning around then agreeing with what someone says about repentance is not actually me turning around So repentance cannot just be me agreeing mentally with with what repentance is or what repentance looks like or how repentance is described in Scripture, it means

I must actually repent. I must actually do what is described and presented in front of me

And so when we we hear it We need to be sure that even then we're not assuming repentance when we're feeling conviction.

We must not mistake conviction for repentance Conviction is the doorway to repentance

But it is not repentance itself and a lot of people leave week by week or live day by day

Thinking they've repented because they've experienced conviction, but conviction is not repentance When John the

Baptist was out preparing the way of Jesus with a baptism of repentance and The people were making the journey out to the

Jordan and and they were just consumed by this sense of guilt But also this hope that God is doing something something's coming now and we're gonna go this prophets gonna wash us

We're gonna go visibly manifest our repentance and they actually they actually made changes

They took a journey to undergo this process to show the reality of what they had been

But what good would it have been for an Israelite to go? Yeah, I've heard about John's preaching. That's amazing Yeah, I'm I'm really convicted.

I really want to go. I really should go Tell me about it when you get back, you know, I agree with it all

I Just yeah busy. I can't really go out to the Jordan What good would that have been to that Israelite?

We cannot vicariously repent remember how Bonhoeffer famously called out cheap grace in his own day

Well, certainly we live in a day of cheap repentance we think we're

We think we've repented of sin because we're convicted of sin. We think we've repented of sin because we can identify sin

Because we can define it in our lives that somehow that means we've repented of it That's just the beginning just that you can identify.

It doesn't mean you've turned from it It's wondrous when someone actually owns up to and identifies sins and sins beneath sins and say actually

I see that only was This sinful in this relationship, but it was because of my sinful pride or my sinful selfishness or then we're like, oh praise

God Are you showing you that that's not the issue here? Have you actually have you actually sought the grace of God to have victory over the sin if you put that sin to death

Jesus defines mortification right mortification being the putting to death of sin or vices and This is of course part of repentance that you've repented when you've you've been battling against that sin when you've turned from it

Not not perfectly But you've begun the fight and maybe you've called your brothers -at -arms to come help you in that fight and you're resisting and you're fighting now

You're attempting to put it to death. So the battles ensuing and Jesus says that's that's what repentance looks like It's not the mental ascent, but it's the maiming

He equates it to the plucking of the eye or the lopping off of the arm that that's repentance full -born

So we often are content to identify sin or be convicted about sin and read a good blog post about sin

Begin to look up something to address it and then sit back and feel that we've actually repented When we have not actually repented

That's just self -help The world does that The world does self -help

Identify something see the consequences of it feel bad about it Look up advice or guidance to try to address it and then feel good about that That's not

Christianity. That's just self -help What Christianity would have is more in line with Psalm 51 there's a world of difference between Well, everyone struggles with this and you know, this is my struggle and it's

I guess it's time to address it now And I found some really good a difference between that and against you you only have

I sinned I've done this evil in your sight You see the difference between those two attitudes

One is passively dismissing of blame. It's not actually reckoning with the evil of what they've done

Just like yeah, or I'll struggle somewhere and this is my struggle How different Psalm 51 would be if it was written by a worldly man rather than by a man who's seeking

God's own heart? There's a world of difference between I'm always gonna struggle with this because this has always been an issue for me

It's part of how I grew up and so it's just baggage that's there I mean, you don't struggle with it. I know and so you really can't relate to me

I mean if you walked the shoes that I walked in maybe then you could relate but you really can't judge I'm admitting it's a struggle.

It's a struggle. It's my struggle though, and you really don't there's a difference between that and Created me a clean heart

God Put a right spirit in me Do you see the difference

Don't cast me away from your presence David cries out I Remember hearing

John Piper. He was talking about the impact that Jonathan Edwards had made on him and and how he

Approached issues of sin and grace and he was talking about just the way that Edwards would like in a typical

Puritan fashion him being a Puritan born out of time perhaps They would always try to get to the root

You know very methodical so they would never even allow Repentance to just be assumed as we're saying and this is what he said about humility

This is Jonathan Edwards sort of paraphrased by Piper. Do you think you're humble? Well, what if you're boasting in your humility?

Man you got me the proverbial humble brag Well, then maybe you admit.

Yes. I probably am boasting in my humility. Okay now we're done right no Edwards would ask well

What if your confession that you're boasting in your humility is really just a pose and you're still actually posting in the humility

So even the confession that I'm boasting in humility is part of my boasting and humility Do you see how deep the rabbit hole goes and this is

Edwards trying to get at do we do? We really have a place for repentance. Do we get to the place where David is no longer blaming anything but himself

No longer seeking anything from anyone else But from God alone against you only have

I sinned against you have I done this evil and from you I need a clean spirit from you. I must be restored to your presence

That's repentance. That's not self -help Unless you're walking in true repentance, you're probably

Assuming repentance or even completely resisting repentance. There's really no

No other option right where you're either repenting turning Walking through the conviction of the

Spirit obtaining the grace of God to resist the sin and put it to death in our lives We're either doing that or we're assuming that we've done it or perhaps in identifying sin and feeling guilty about it

We're just refusing to do it to assume repentance to neglect the grace of God is the most unimaginable paralysis in a

Christian's life There's people that can be comatose spiritually speaking for years

Because they've never properly found a place for repentance And our prayer is that God breaks them

Brings them to that place Perhaps you're the type that naturally shrinks back from repentance.

If you're that type you're a human being we all shrink back from repentance Who runs headlong into repentance?

We begin with self -justification. We begin with trying to say we're not that bad. It's not that bad

We begin to try to find some confidence in ourselves. I don't really need that much help This doesn't need to be shared with anyone.

I've got it Yeah, I've been bound to it for years now, but I've got it things are gonna change

Repentance Is not something that is the product of becoming more holy like I want to repent

I just need to get more holy and get things back and then I'll You're not

Repenting because you're more holy you're more holy because you're repenting a Lot of people wait to repent because they feel like I'm not worthy to cry out to God yet.

I got to clean this up I got to take control and when I take control and when I get things worked out and then

I will Address God then I will cry out to God you never will You never will

Repentance is a gift from God Jesus says in Luke 5.

I've not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance You're essentially saying I'm already righteous in struggling with this sin if I refuse to cry out in repentance

Jesus came to call sinners to repentance And so when he's surveying the

Scribes and the Pharisees the ones that we could say assume their repentance In a ritual way, they would have thought out of all

Israel. They were the most repentant Morning and evening season by season festival by festival.

They were repenting If anyone repents in Israel, we repent we're the

Pharisees. We're the pre we repent for Israel. You kidding me? And what does Jesus say when he addresses them?

Tax collectors prostitutes. They're in the kingdom ahead of you You got it all wrong all backwards

And so Christians like those in John's day are called to bear fruit worthy of repentance

Because God is a God who is not mocked and we reap what we sow we're to Sow repentance that we might reap the fruits of repentance to bear fruit worthy

There's so many like Esau today perhaps in a room the size there must be right

They know what God requires of them they've heard it They have more

Responsibility for what they've heard than they could possibly ever know How many people throughout the world today have not had the kind of access and Explanation and testimony and witness than some people in this room today

How many people throughout the scope of human history have not had a splinter of what you have in a day?

Growing up in the household you're growing up in being a part of the fellowship. You're a part of not even a splinter of it

You're responsible for every Accountable for every word you have it in front of you, but you don't want it and You think the day will come that you'll want it and it will be there and I'm telling you look at Esau it won't

And you might feel awful about that. You might hate that and you'll have lots of tears and howling, but you'll find no place or repentance

And then we're reminded of the great hope that we have in the gospel All that howling all that crying it's completely ineffective for him to obtain the grace of God That repentance is unaffected

Because it's a worldly repentance a worldly sorrow not one that sprint stems from godliness. It's not given by God And frankly brothers and sisters all our cries all our tears they're not effective either

As Individuals as believers our crying our tears our convictions and our guilt our howling before God is

Utterly ineffective to move his will It's completely ineffective Whenever we sing that great hymn by Horatius Bonar, we celebrate this fact not all my sighs and tears

Not all of my sighs and tears Can somehow be effective to the will of God can somehow move him

To give grace to my life So then why cry so then why repent? because we do so in the

Lord we do so in Christ and Our crying and our howling and our guilt and our shame are expressed through his cries

His intercession and that is effective for us to obtain grace

When I cry out because of the shame of my sin, and it's not so much my voice that reaches the father's ear

But my voice within the cry of my Savior that reaches the father's ear and the cry of the

Savior Brings grace and health and hope into my life And so my repentance is completely ineffectual if it's outside of Christ, but through Christ My repentance will bring about God's grace and there's great hope

When we look to the Lord Jesus knowing that there is no other way for us to obtain the grace of God But then to cry out to him and through him unto

God our Father When we cry in this way, it's it's the cry of Romans 8.

It's the cry of Abba father It's the Son who gives us sonship. It's the Spirit who reconciles us to the

Father It's not a bitter cry. It has no vengeance within it It's it's a self -aware

Guilt -owning guilt -confessing Shameful recognition of who we are and what we've done before God There's no bitterness within it.

There's just hope and That hope when it's fixed upon Christ is sure and surely obtains grace if we say we have no sin if we say this morning

There's nothing for us to turn from to maim or to lop off or to gouge out if we say we have no sin

We're deceiving ourselves But if we confess our sins If we acknowledge them if we repent

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins to cleanse us from all unrighteousness

You know, let me Just bring up one thing that I I don't know I'd have opportunity to pass by there's a an incredible parallel between this episode in Genesis 27 and Luke 15 the prodigal son and Some years ago

Kenneth Bailey wrote an incredible book called Jacob and the prodigal you know 300 pages where he's going through all of the

Similarities and all of the differences and how each are used to highlight something of God grace and whatnot

And so you get the sense that this parable of the prodigal son is in part Utilizing Genesis 27 to make its points

It's retelling the Isaac Jacob Esau story for the hearers

And this is just a handful of the similarities, but I want to make the point about it in both stories.

There are three major figures the father and his two sons in Both stories the blessing and the inheritance are that issue.

That's the critical point, isn't it? Remember that young Son goes in and he says give me what's mine, which is essentially saying

I wish you were dead Despise you despise my birthright despises home. I'm leaving

Give me what's mine? In both stories then the younger son seeks an advantage from the father and he does it dishonorably

In both stories the younger son becomes estranged from the father, right? He goes out into the far country, but also from the older brother.

You see this rift between The older and younger brother when the younger brother returns Younger son goes out to the far country.

He's in exile as it were as we'll see with Jacob going into Padma Ram The older son nonetheless is at home at least for the time being and so it is in Luke 15

The younger son becomes a herder in the far country. He's slowly dwindling. That's a contrast right

Jacob is greatly increased But eventually that younger son decides to return home and in returning home, he's terrified about how he'll be received

Chapter 33 Both younger sons show really no remorse

Both have this sort of divine visitation If we say the father in Luke 15 is

God the father in both stories the younger son receives this this sort of running Falling on the neck and kissing we see that between the brothers in Genesis 33

But here's really the takeoff point when that younger son returns

Just like we have here in chapter 27. The older brother is jealous spiteful vengeful

He hates his younger brother and he watches as this younger brother is reconciled to the family right the robe is put out the ring is put on the fatted calf is slain this feast is being prepared and When we've gone in in Luke 15 and we've seen all the emphasis on the father just the the willingness of him to be so dishonorably treated and disgraced and yet that never for a moment

Mars his love and his desire for the younger son to be reconciled So much so that he runs out to embrace him and cuts him off from confessing anything and welcomes him into the feast

The younger son is completely bewildered by all of this and so is the older brother. He's burning with rage

How did he obtain the blessing? I've been here. How did he obtain the blessing and Then the question that is open -ended at the end of Luke 15 is what happens with the older brother?

What happens with Esau will he go into the feast will he find a place for repentance

Will he be humbled by the blessing that has been bestowed on his younger brother in Humbling himself to that will he go in and enjoy the feast of the father?

Will he stay outside in exile from that feast? And that's the question really today I've said don't assume you're

Jacob. So the question is if you're assuming you're Esau Will you enter that feast?

Will you find that place for repentance Will you look at all the reasons you have not to go in all the things that would keep you from that Do you hear the father's joyful invitation?

All I have is yours Come All I have is yours come

Or will you stay outside Because you don't want it father we pray you

Do the work that only you can do in our hearts Lord show each one here a place for repentance

Let us not rest on mere conviction mere acknowledgement mere agreement

Let us by faith in the Son of God through his effectual intercession turn from those things that entangle us

That ensnare us that defile us Bring us to true repentance Lord Let us enter the feast gladly

If there's strangers here to your grace Lord may this be the day that they're no longer strangers no longer

Esau's outside of the bounds but Bring them to the end of themselves embrace them clothe them bring them into the feast as you did the younger son this we ask