Reconciled

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 33 and hold your place at verse 1.
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I want to begin today, before we read, with a question.
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Can you remember, in your own life, a time when you were at odds with another person? Maybe it was over a misunderstanding, or maybe it was that they had sinned against you, or maybe even it was you who had sinned against them.
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And for whatever reason, there was enmity between you and that person, and it seemed like you could never find peace.
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Now, I want to ask a second question.
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Do you remember a time when you were in that state, where you did reconcile with that individual? The enmity between you was lifted, and through genuine repentance and forgiveness, reconciliation was achieved.
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Now, if you've ever gone through that, you know the pain that an unreconciled relationship can bring, and the joy that reunification can bring.
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Well, that's what we're going to see today.
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Jacob left his father's house 20 years ago in our narrative.
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He fled in fear of his brother's murderous rage.
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You'll remember his brother said, as soon as my father dies, I'm going to kill him.
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He has now returned.
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He has prayed to God to grant reconciliation in the relationship, and God has gone before him to make the way for that reconciliation.
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So with that in our mind, we are going to read chapter 33.
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We're going to begin at verse 1.
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We're not going to read the whole chapter, because I am convinced that verse 18 and following actually belongs in the next text, because it involves what happens after the reconciliation, which leads to Jacob ending up in Succoth, and there is the resulting problem there.
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So we're going to deal with that next week.
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So let us stand, and we're going to read Genesis 33, verses 1 to 17.
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And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and 400 men with him.
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So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two female servants, and he put the servants with their children in the front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all.
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He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother.
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But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept.
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When Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, Who are these with you? Jacob said, The children whom God has graciously given your servant.
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Then the servants drew near, they and their children, and bowed down.
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Leah, likewise, with her children, drew near and bowed down.
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And last, Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down.
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Esau said, What do you mean by all this company that I have met? Jacob answered, To find favor in the sight of my Lord.
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But Esau said, I have enough, my brother.
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Keep what you have for yourself.
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Jacob said, No, please.
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If I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand.
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For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God.
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And you have accepted me.
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Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me and because I have enough.
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Thus he urged him and he took it.
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Then Esau said, Let us journey on our way and I will go ahead of you.
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But Jacob said to him, My Lord knows that the children are frail and that the nursing flocks and herds are a care to me.
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If they are driven hard for one day, all the flocks will die.
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Let my Lord pass on ahead of his servant and I will lead on slowly at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me and at the pace of the children until I come to my Lord at Seir.
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So Esau said, Let me leave with you some of my people who are with me.
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But he said, What need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my Lord.
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So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.
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But Jacob journeyed to Succoth and built himself a house and made booths for his livestock.
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Therefore, the name of the place is called Succoth.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I pray that even now that you would prepare our hearts to hear your word.
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And I pray, Lord, that you would fill me with your spirit.
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Keep me from error as I am a fallible man capable of preaching error.
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And I pray that you would open the hearts to hear the truth.
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And Lord, for those who are here who do not know the Lord, that today might be the day of reconciliation, Lord, that they might come to Christ.
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And know that he would welcome them.
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As your word has promised.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.
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So the last we read of Jacob, which was last week, he was limping away from an all night wrestling match.
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He was left with a blessing and a burden.
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The burden was the limp in his leg.
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But the blessing was even more important.
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The blessing was a new name.
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A new relationship established by God.
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He would no longer be Jacob, even though he is called that often throughout the text from here on out.
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His new identity would be Israel.
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Now, I mentioned last week that the name Israel means wrestles with God.
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However, even though I do believe that is the right way that it is to be taken within the context, there are other ways to translate the word Israel.
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The word can also be translated God fights or God contends.
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And if we consider that nuance today, we can recognize a great truth.
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Even though, yes, it was Jacob who wrestled with God, it is also God who fights Jacob's battles.
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It is God who goes ahead of him and paves his way and vanquishes his enemies.
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God contended with Jacob all night.
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But God also contends for Jacob his whole life.
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So what we're going to see today is six parts of this text.
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And I did put them on the screen.
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If anybody wants to take notes, we have the outline.
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We're going to see Jacob readies to meet Esau.
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That is verses one to three.
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We see Esau runs to Jacob.
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That's verse four.
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Then we see Esau introduced to his extended family.
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That's verses five to seven.
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Esau inquires of his extravagant gift.
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You'll remember in last chapter that the animals that were sent to Jacob totaled over 550 animals that were sent to Esau.
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And then in verses 12 to 15, the brothers discuss their parting.
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And then finally, in verses 16 and 17, the brothers divide in peace.
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So let us look first at verses one to three.
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Jacob readies to meet Esau.
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It says, and Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming with 400 men with him.
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And remember what we said over the last few weeks.
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Those 400 men represented the death of Jacob in his mind because he saw those men as essentially a militia who had come to kill him.
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He saw them as men who had come to take his life.
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So it says, he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two female servants, and he put the servants with their children up front, Leah with her children in the middle, and Rachel and Joseph last of all.
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Now, some might say he's lining them up by age, but that's actually not true.
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Leah's children are the oldest.
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So if it were by age, it would be Leah with her children, the servants with their children.
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And of course, it is true that Rachel with her son Joseph is the youngest.
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So the youngest is in the back, but it's not lining them up by age.
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It's actually, in a sense, lining them up by the position of favor that they hold in their father's heart.
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One of the things we learn about Isaac's family and now Jacob's family is they were not above identifying favorites.
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Neither were they above allowing that favoritism to be shown in acts of distribution.
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You'll remember with Jacob and Esau, Isaac was very clear.
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He liked Esau better because he liked to eat of his game, and so he showed favoritism to him, and he wanted to give him the blessing, not just because he was the older, but because he was the favored.
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And remember his wife Rebecca, she favored Jacob, and so she had Jacob dress up and go in to pretend to be Esau, and it was all because of favoritism.
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And we see this favoritism on display again because the concubines, as it were, the servants, are put up front.
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If there's going to be a slaughter, we'll let them be first.
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Now you have to think the children of the concubines were saying, Thanks, Dad.
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We appreciate your love and affection for us, Father, by putting us up as the ones in front.
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But then Leah is put in the middle, and of course Rachel and Jacob, I'm sorry, Rachel and Joseph are put last.
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But there is nobility in verse 3.
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Even though we may see favoritism in verse 2, we see nobility in verse 3 because Jacob goes before them all.
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He doesn't lead his family in front of him and cower in the back and hope that maybe he'll have a chance of getting away.
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No, instead, verse 3 tells us he goes out ahead of them, and he essentially offers up his neck to the sword.
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At least that's what he sees the potential.
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He sees the potential of his brother coming with a deadly blow, and so he lays down before him.
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And in traditional Near Eastern culture, he bowed seven times in reverence to his brother as his brother made the way.
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He bowed down seven times before him until he came near to his brother.
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According to Bruce Waltke, the bowing down of seven times was a well-attested practice of a vassal to his lord in ancient court protocol.
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Vassals writing to pharaohs say, quote, beneath the feet of the king, my lord, seven times and seven times I fall, end quote.
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So this is a practice which was well known.
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And a vassal was a servant.
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And the servant would bow down seven times to his king.
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And so he is saying to Esau, I'm coming to you as a servant.
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And I'm placing myself before you as one who bows down to you.
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Now, we might think, because of the last time we saw Esau, we might think that Esau is coming in murderous raids.
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That's certainly what Jacob thought.
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And it is possible, and I want to stress this, it is possible when Esau was in Seir, which will actually become Edom, which will become the land of his people.
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When Esau was in Seir and he heard that Jacob was coming, it is possible that he gathered his 400 men for the purpose of bringing death to his brother.
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400 men, again, constitutes a militia.
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So it's possible that Esau left Seir, hot-footed it to meet his brother here with the intent of killing him.
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But somewhere along the way, his heart was changed towards his brother.
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Now, we could consider the fact that his brother sent him a series of droves of animals, 550 plus.
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And the reason why I say plus is if you read back to the list, it actually mentions an uncounted number of calves.
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That there were certain animals, but there were certain uncounted.
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So we can count 550 plus.
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And so he found over 550 animals coming to him in droves as he went.
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He met one after one after one.
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And you might say, well, that is what satisfied his heart.
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That's what turned his heart to Jacob.
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But I would challenge you on that.
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Because when he arrives, he says, I don't need this, keep it.
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And some might think that that attitude is actually a Near Eastern custom where when you offer a gift, the first thing that they would do is they would always deny the gift.
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And it was part of custom to deny the gift.
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We see this going back to the story of Abraham, when he was buying the plot for his wife.
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Remember, the first thing they wanted to do was give him the plot.
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And he said no, and he paid for it because it was part of the tradition to deny the payment and receive the payment after having been pushed.
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And this happens sometimes.
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Somebody goes to give you a gift, and you say, oh, no, thank you.
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And they say, no, I insist.
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And you say, okay, well, we'll take it if you insist.
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And that is sort of a picture of what happens in this ancient custom.
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And so some people say, well, yes, it was the animals who placated Esau, and he simply was being generous when he said he did not need them.
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But there's nothing in the text to indicate any thing in Esau's words that would be insincere.
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So I would take him at his word when he said when he first said he did not want them, I think that that is true.
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Because as he is as he is moving toward.
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Jacob, as he is there on the banks of the Java, because he is moving towards Jacob, I think that at some point.
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God changes his heart.
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Now, I want to say clearly.
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Esau is not one who is ever described as being a man of faith.
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In fact, the Bible describes him in the New Testament quite the opposite.
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It describes him as being an example of unbelief.
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It says it was because of his unbelief that he sold his birthright, right? So there is nothing in Esau that would be a description of faith.
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However.
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God can change the heart even of the unbeliever if it serves his purpose.
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In fact, there's one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament talks about the sovereignty of God over the heart of the unbeliever.
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And it says when God was speaking to the people of Israel, he told them that once a year you're to go away and worship.
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And when you go away to worship, your enemies will not covet your land.
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Now, what's interesting about that is the enemies always coveted the land of Israel.
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That was always the battle was over the land.
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But on this time that you go and worship me, your enemies will not covet your land.
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Only a God who is sovereign over the heart can make such a statement.
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Only a God who can incline the hearts of men could make such a powerful statement that when you are gone, they will not covet your land.
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Does that mean he turned them into believers? No.
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What it means is the heart of every man, even the heart of unbelievers, is in the hands of the Lord.
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That the sovereign God of the universe is in control of everything that takes place.
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And nothing happens outside of his divine decree.
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And so God has a purpose here.
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And what is about to happen? Because what is about to happen is a miraculous reconciliation.
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I have no way of describing it any other way than true miraculous reconciliation.
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Because look at verse 4.
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Remember, Jacob is seven times face down on the ground.
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He has prostrated himself seven times.
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In verse four, but Esau ran to meet him.
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Now you have to think just for a moment.
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Esau is running to him.
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And Jacob hears the feet as he runs to him and he thinks he's running.
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To run me through.
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He's running to end my life.
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He's waited these 20 years to end my life.
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And here he comes.
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And I don't know if you've ever seen someone flinch in fear.
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Certainly you have.
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You must have yourself at some point.
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Just flinch.
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And I can imagine that flinch in the moment where Esau's hands extend for Jacob, not with a sword, but with an embrace.
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And Esau comes and the Bible says he embraced him and he fell upon his neck and he kissed him and they wept.
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Now, I want you to think they wept for two different reasons.
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Esau is weeping in forgiveness.
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And let me ask you a question.
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You ever been in a situation where you had to forgive someone and it brought tears to you? Because you had been separated in so long and that person comes for forgiveness and you're able to grant it to them and it brings tears to you? That's the situation Esau's in.
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He's forgiving his brother and there's tears in his eyes.
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He's weeping over forgiveness.
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Jacob is weeping because he's been forgiven and because his life has been spared.
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He thought he was going to die and now instead he has his brother who he thought was going to come in murderous rage, hanging on his neck, the slobber of his face, in his beard all over.
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I mean, I'm just I got a picture in my mind.
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I can't help but just say these two big and they're big.
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I mean, think Jacob wrestled all night long.
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He's not some little girly man.
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He is a man's man.
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And he's his brother's a big hairy beast.
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And these two big men slobbering just all over each other.
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Be like me and Jerry hugging it up.
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I mean, it's just big guys, beards and all slobbering down the front of their beards.
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It's a beautiful picture.
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Maybe not the way I described it, but it is a beautiful picture.
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No, no, we're good.
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But understand.
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This would have been the first piece.
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That these two brothers experienced with one another in 20 years.
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The first piece.
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That they had.
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In two decades.
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Now, before we get to verse five.
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I do want to make a quick statement, a side note, some might call it a rabbit trail, but that's derogatory.
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So we'll call it an excursus on the subject of reconciliation.
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Because what we are seeing here is a genuine coming together of two men who were in a sense at war with one another and reconciliation.
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Is made.
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And I just want to stress to you.
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That reconciliation.
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Is a vital part.
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Of the life of faith.
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A few weeks ago.
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Brother Mike.
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In his Sunday school lesson taught.
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On biblical forgiveness.
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And if you are not in Sunday school, first of all.
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I would I would encourage you to to.
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To reconsider.
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Because we have a wonderful Sunday school.
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But also.
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If you aren't here for that lesson, I would encourage you to go back into the archives of our of our of our media and listen to it.
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Mike, explain the difference between biblical forgiveness and what might be called therapeutic forgiveness.
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And there is a distinction.
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Understand this.
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Jacob has come to his brother in repentance.
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And Esau has received him in forgiveness.
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And though Esau is not an example of faith.
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He is an example of how we are to be in regard to forgiveness.
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Because when our brother comes to us in genuine repentance.
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It is our responsibility by the mercy of God to forgive him his sins.
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Brian Borgman said this in his lesson.
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He says we cannot be reconciled with God if we refuse to reconcile with people who have repented.
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And we need to stop making excuses.
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Our desire should always be reconciliation, not enmity.
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We stand ready to forgive those who have sinned against us.
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And I point you to two New Testament passages.
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One is in Matthew five.
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Verse 23, it says, if you are offering your gift at the altar, which is obviously not something we do anymore, we don't come and offer a sacrifice, but you can you can simulate that and translate that into New Testament practice.
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If you come to church and you're offering up an offering of praise and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave and and and go and be reconciled to your brother.
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How many of us consider that to be something that is our responsibility to be reconciled? Again, I point to Brian Borgman when he said this.
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He said reconciliation takes risk.
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You know, you might go to be reconciled with somebody and you might try to be reconciled.
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They may not want to be reconciled with you, but you can't make them.
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But you can stand ready to forgive.
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You can stand ready to make it right.
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Notice, Jacob did not try to avoid Esau.
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He didn't run away.
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He didn't try to go around him.
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He didn't try to do something that would would stop their meeting.
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But he met him face to face.
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Let me ask you this.
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Are you unreconciled with somebody this morning and you have refused to meet them face to face? You know what the Bible says, if your brother sins against you.
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You go to him and you tell him his sin privately.
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Face to face.
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You know what we normally do when someone sins against us? Hey, brother Mike, did you hear what he did to me? Did you hear that vile dog, Jerry? You know what he did to me? And instead of going to Jerry and sharing with Jerry how he has sinned against me, I go to brother Mike and I tell brother Mike how he has sinned against me.
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And I go to brother Adam and I tell brother Adam.
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And I build a coalition of people who agree with me so that now we can all hate Jerry together.
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See, now we need the hug.
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You understand that is a worldly, ungodly way to do.
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But we go to the person directly face to face and we take the risk of reconciliation.
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That's what Jacob shows.
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He took the risk of reconciliation.
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And the other New Testament passage I'll remind you is Romans 12, verse 18, which says, if it is possible so far as it depends upon you, be at peace with all men.
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Sometimes reconciliation will not come, but it should not rest upon us because we should be willing to reconcile.
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As much as it depends upon you, be at peace with all men.
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I have people that hate me.
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I don't say that as a joke.
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And I certainly don't say that as a badge of honor.
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I hate that people hate me.
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But my wife and I have had this conversation many times.
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I have received letters, emails, messages of things that I have said.
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And many of the people don't even know me.
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They only know what they've heard me say.
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But I have no way of reconciling with someone I know not.
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But there are people who have hated me to my face.
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And I have tried to reconcile with them and they were unwilling.
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So I think this verse does say to us as much as it depends on you, live at peace with all men.
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But sometimes it won't depend upon you.
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Sometimes it will depend upon them.
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But may it not be said of us, though, that we were unwilling.
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May it not be said of us that we were unwilling to be reconciled.
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So moving now to verse five, we see the beautiful reconciliation of the two brothers.
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It is a beautiful scene.
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And now Esau is introduced to his extended family.
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It says, When Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, Who are these with you? Jacob said, The children whom God has graciously given your servant.
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There's an interesting play on words here in the Hebrew.
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Because you'll notice that he says, These are the children whom God has graciously given your servant.
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Notice he doesn't say, These are the children that God blessed me with.
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You might say, Well, why not use the term blessed? He's going to use it in a moment.
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Why not use it here? I think that he is considering his words very carefully, because what was it that he stole from his brother? His blessing.
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He stole his brother.
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So would it be wise for him to go up and say, I know I stole your blessing.
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And look at how it has, how God has blessed me.
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No, no, he shows that God has been gracious to him.
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Now, you might say blessings are a grace.
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That is true.
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But he's being careful with his words.
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God was gracious to me.
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And what does grace imply, church? Undeserved.
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Grace implies the undeserved nature of the gift.
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I didn't earn these things, but God was gracious to me.
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I went away in fear and God supplied me with family and fortune because of his grace, not because of anything in me, but because of him.
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And by the way, this also points to a different attitude in Jacob.
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As we said, Jacob has his heart has been changed and the attitude of Jacob has changed because now he sees everything that he has as a gift from God.
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Verse six.
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Then the servants drew near.
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They and their children, they bowed down.
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They all did the same thing their father did.
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Leah also.
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And lastly, Joseph and Rachel.
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Verse eight.
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Esau asks about the gift.
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Esau said, what do you mean by all this company that I met? And the word company, there's the word for droves.
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What do you mean by these droves? Every you know, I saw all these animals coming forward.
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And Jacob says to find favor in the sight of my Lord.
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I love by the way, I love that because Jacob does not in any way, shape or form try to skirt the issue.
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He's basically saying I sent them to satisfy you.
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He didn't lie.
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He didn't try to make you know, well, I know you're my brother and you might have a need.
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No, I sent them to you because I was afraid and I thought they might satisfy your anger.
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So at least he's honest.
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You know, what's interesting is he's had a problem with honesty in the past.
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But now he is demonstrating.
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Again, a changed heart.
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But Esau said, I have enough.
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My brother, keep what you have for yourself.
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And here's the thing about that phrase.
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When he says, I have enough.
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Understand this.
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Esau is a rich man, too.
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But Esau's riches have not come in the same way that Jacob's have come.
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Esau has, in a sense, built his fortune.
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And in a way, when he says, I have enough, he's essentially saying, I made it without the blessing.
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You took the blessing.
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I still succeeded.
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You had all of dad's blessing and I still made it.
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I'm very rich.
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I mean, I was able to get 400 guys to come with me just to kill you.
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So I'm good.
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But verse 10, Jacob says, no, please.
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If I found favor in your sight.
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Then accept this present from my hand, but I've seen your face.
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And this is this is a key key passage.
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I've seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God.
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And you have accepted me.
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Understand this.
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Jacob saw God.
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Just a little while before he wrestled with God.
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So he actually knows what it's like to see God.
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And so he says to his brother, seeing you reconciling with me, receiving me.
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The one who stole from you, the one who lied, the one who cheated, seeing you take me in is like seeing God receive me.
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That's a powerful thought, because it's like seeing the face of God and you have accepted me.
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So he says, please accept this gift that I have brought to you because God has dealt graciously with me.
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But I want you to notice.
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Remember, I said before he didn't use the word blessing.
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Now he does.
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And I know it's not translated that way in every Bible.
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It's not in the ESV, but in Hebrew is where it matters, because that's what it's translated from.
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When he says, please accept my.
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Actually, it is in the ESV.
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I'm sorry.
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Please accept my blessing that is brought to you.
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He does use the word blessing now, and he's saying I'm returning the blessing to you.
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I know what I took and I'm giving it back.
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I know what I stole and I'm turning it back over to you.
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You see, Jacob understood something about reconciliation.
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Reconciliation sometimes requires that we give back that which is taken.
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I remember R.C.
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Sproul talking about this years ago, and I'll never forget because R.C.
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had such a wonderful way of giving great illustrations for difficult truths, and he could give these great simple illustrations.
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And he says, he says, you know what? Brother Dave, if you steal my watch, I don't wear a watch.
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So I just say, you know, if you steal my watch and then you come to me later and you say I repent, but you're still wearing the watch.
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That says something about the heart of your forgiveness.
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But if you come and you hand me the watch and you say I repent, then you're not only repented, you're restoring what you took.
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Now, in every situation, that's not always available.
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Let's say you take the life of someone.
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You can't always restore a life, right? You can't do that.
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But but if if if something is taken and you hold it back and say, I repent, but I'm still going to keep it, then that's a heart that's not truly repented.
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So Jacob is saying, I'm giving you back the blessing I stole.
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I'm blessing you with the blessing because I took yours.
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And though you may not think you need it.
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I'm still going to give it to you.
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I'm going to insist that you take it because it's not about your need.
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It's about my debt.
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It's not about what you need.
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It's about what I took.
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And so he restores the blessing.
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Verse 12.
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Oh, I'm sorry.
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Verse 11.
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He he takes it.
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Esau takes it.
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Then we get to verse 12.
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The brothers now discuss their departure from one another.
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Esau doesn't want to depart.
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We notice in verse 12.
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Let's journey on our way.
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We can talk about it the last 20 years.
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You can introduce me to your children and to your many wives.
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And we have all this conversation.
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And and and Esau wants Jacob to go with him.
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But Jacob immediately begins to shirk back and say, no, you guys are your foot soldiers.
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You're going to be going a lot faster than us.
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If we try to go with you, it's going to it's going to wear the animals out.
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They might die.
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The kids can't go as fast as y'all.
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It's going to wear them out.
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They might get sick and die.
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We've got to be careful.
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We're going to hang back.
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Now, a lot has been read into this, and I don't want to read too much into it, but there is at least a seeming desire on the part of Jacob to at least maintain some kind of distance between himself and Esau.
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And some people think that's because he doesn't trust that this that this repentance is genuine.
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I don't think that that's necessarily the case.
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But I do think that Jacob wants to maintain some distance between himself and Esau because Jacob is his own man now.
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He's not coming back to regather and have one big family.
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No, Jacob is going to stay distinct because Jacob has a new family and a new name.
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And he is the one who's going to carry on the blessing of God.
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They're not going to intermingle.
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They're not going to come back together.
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They're going to keep the separation.
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And Jacob insists on this separation.
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Now, some people think, you know, the reason why he wanted to stay separated was because one morning Esau might wake up, remember all the things that he did, get angry again and stab him in his sleep.
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So I get that, too.
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That's a possibility.
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But most of all, there's a separation that's going to stay because he says, I'm going to follow after you, and he doesn't.
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And what we're going to see next week is he actually goes over to Succoth.
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And when he goes to Succoth, one of the most terrible scenes in Genesis will happen to his family.
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We're going to talk about that next week.
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But when Jacob goes to Succoth, his daughter goes into town by herself and finds herself the victim of evil men.
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We'll talk about that next week.
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But ultimately, they do come to a point where they agree to divide.
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And so they divide in peace.
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Verse 16, Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.
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But Jacob journeyed to Succoth and built himself a house, made booths for his livestock.
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Therefore, the name of the place was called Succoth.
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All right.
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So now we're going to try to apply this.
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We've looked at the text.
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We've examined it.
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Now I want to give a few words of application.
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I think you would all agree with me that this is a beautiful scene.
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The beauty of reconciliation is really one of the great beautiful pictures that's in the whole Bible.
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Because the Bible begins with God creating man and almost immediately man becomes an enemy of God because of sin.
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And the whole rest of the Bible is God bringing reconciliation to that man who had created that divide by sin.
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So really, the Bible is all about reconciliation.
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And we think about this.
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The whole Bible can be summed up in four parts.
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Creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
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Creation, fall, redemption, restoration.
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And the vast majority of the Bible is about redemption, which includes reconciliation.
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Bringing two people back together who were separated.
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But understand this.
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And here's where I really want to apply this today.
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This story is an answer to prayer.
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This whole event is an answer to prayer.
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Turn in your Bibles one chapter back to chapter 32 and look with me, if you will, at verse 9.
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In Genesis 32, verse 9, it says this.
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And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good.
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I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown your servant.
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For with only my staff I crossed the Jordan, and now I have become two camps.
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Please, verse 11, Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children.
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But you said, I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
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Right there is the prayer that Jacob prayed to God.
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And he prayed for this moment.
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He prayed, when I meet Esau, against whom I am afraid of Esau, as I am afraid of Esau, God, you must save me.
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You must, the word deliver is the word for salvation.
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Please deliver me.
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Please save me from the hand of my brother.
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And God responded to this prayer with a show of power.
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Not by throwing down fire and brimstone upon Esau, but by softening his hard heart.
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See, God doesn't always have to God doesn't always have to throw towers upon us.
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Sometimes it's just softening our heart.
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That is the miracle.
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And we see three displays of God's amazing power in this text.
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One, the power to go before and win the battle on Jacob's behalf.
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Two, the power to soften the heart of a wicked man.
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And three, the power to reconcile divided brothers.
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That is the power of Almighty God.
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And I want to tell you a story.
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And I will admit, this story is personal.
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And for some of you, this story involves an event that you will remember.
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But I want to share it because I look at this moment in my life as a moment of sincere answer.
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Well, that's the wrong word.
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I look at it as a moment where God answered a sincere prayer in a way that I never could have imagined.
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When I first became the pastor here, I was 26 years old.
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And the church was not Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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At that point, it was Forest Christian Church.
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We had previously been part of the disciples of Christ, but we had left the disciples in 99.
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So I was never the pastor here while we were part of that denomination.
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However, there were some of the traditions of the disciples that we had held over.
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Some good, some bad.
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And one of the traditions that had been held over was the allowance of women to be elders.
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So when I became the pastor of the church, there were several elders, myself, Jack Bunning, Tom Watts, and a few others.
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And there was a female elder here.
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And I let it be known even before my ordination that I was opposed to that on biblical grounds.
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Now, if you don't know why that's wrong, this is not the sermon to convince you.
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I'm not arguing with you.
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I'm just telling you it's wrong.
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And if you want to talk later about why it's wrong, come talk to me.
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But I'm not going to get into that right now.
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But I was convinced in my soul that it was wrong.
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I was asked during my ordination, do you believe in women elders? When she was sitting in the room, I said, absolutely not.
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It's against the Bible and your position is not biblical.
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So I was not afraid to make my position known.
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But I also was willing to become the pastor, even though I knew that was the tradition of the church.
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Well, after a little over a year of being the pastor here.
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I was very burdened with the fact that this was continuing on.
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And it became so overwhelmingly burdensome to me.
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That I began to commit this situation to intense prayer before God.
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And it became very obvious to me that it could not continue if we were to remain in the will of God.
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So I made up my mind.
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That the next time the elders met that I was going to make a stand.
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And that I was going to say that as long as we continue to do this, I can no longer be the pastor.
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And I was going to resign.
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Tuesday evenings is when we would normally have our elders meeting.
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And so that next Tuesday evening.
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And by the way, no one knew except my wife that I had come to that conclusion.
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No one else in the church was aware of my conviction that it overwhelmed my soul.
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And I walked into the and Jack Bunnington can testify to everything I'm about to say because he was the only other one still here that was in the room.
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I walked into the room.
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We sat down for the meeting.
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And the woman said, I have something to say.
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I can no longer serve as an elder in this church because I know that my position here is offensive to our pastor.
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And I'm going to step down.
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I didn't have to say a word.
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I didn't have to do anything.
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God.
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Made the way.
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She got up, she walked out and God moved us forward.
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Now, I wish she would have said I've repented of my error.
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She did not.
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But for this grace to by the grace of God, at least.
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Because, again, I had my letter of resignation in my pocket.
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By the grace of God, I never had to reach into my pocket.
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Because God went before me.
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And fought the battle for me.
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And he made the way.
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Understand this, beloved.
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When we face times of crisis, we must face them on our knees.
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We must fight our battles with the tools that God has given us.
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And the primary tool that he has given us is the word of God and prayer.
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Remember, you hear of the the armor of God.
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And all of the armor, the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the belt of truth, the shoes of the gospel.
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All of those.
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Are spiritual weapons.
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And the word of God is our sword.
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And if we stand behind the word of God.
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And we keep our knees to the ground in prayer.
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We will be triumphant.
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In him.
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He will fight our battles.
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He will go ahead of us.
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He will do exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ask or think.
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I want to close with this thought.
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And this is going to slightly shift gears.
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So please hang with me for just one more second.
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Going back to the relationship between Jacob and Esau.
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Esau was not a man of faith, but Esau is in this.
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Story.
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A picture of the Lord.
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You say, how is that true? Well, think of Jacob, he says, seeing you is like seeing the face of God.
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And if you compare this story to Jesus's story.
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When he talked about the son.
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Who took his father's wealth and went and squandered it in a faraway country.
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I know Brother Mike knows this story as good as any of us, because he named his company after it.
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The prodigal son.
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When that young man came back to his father.
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He came back thinking, my father will make me a slave.
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And even living as my father's slave is better than living in the pig slop.
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So I'll come back and be my father's slave.
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But there are three words in the story of the prodigal son that came up in the same three ways as they do in the story of Jacob and Esau.
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He ran to him.
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He embraced him and he kissed him.
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Jacob's brother Esau runs to him, embraces him and kisses him.
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The father of the prodigal son runs to him, embraces him and kisses him.
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So this does become a picture of not just reconciliation between people, but reconciliation between man and God.
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God who is willing to receive us.
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God who is willing to take us.
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God who is willing to embrace us and kiss us and call us his own.
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Beloved, the reconciliation between people is beautiful, but reconciliation between man and God is eternal.
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So my question to you today is are you reconciled with God? If not, I implore you.
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Repent of your sins and run to the Savior.
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And this I promise you.
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He will embrace you.
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The Bible says this.
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All the father gives me will come to me.
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And the one who comes, I will not cast out.
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Run to the son.
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And he will embrace you in his arms.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I thank you for this.
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This wonderful picture of reconciliation, this wonderful truth of the gospel that we have here in the story of Jacob and Esau.
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And I do pray, Lord.
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I pray first, if there are those in our lives that we have refused to reconcile, that we will go to them in love and seek reconciliation.
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But Lord, more so, if there are those here who are not reconciled with God, that today would be the day that you would embrace them in your arms.
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Change their heart to believe in the son and find in him eternal life.
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In Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.