True Works and Dead Works Genesis 28:1-9

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If you were to ask people from every nation and every culture on earth certain moral questions, you would get the same responses.
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For example, if you were to ask, is it wrong to take the life of another, you would get a yes.
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If you were to ask, is it wrong to steal, you would get a yes. If you were to ask, is it right to help the poor, you would get a yes.
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If you were to ask, is it right to treat your parents with honor and respect, you would get a yes.
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Why is it that everyone has the same moral code? The answer, of course, is that God made the world and he governs the world with his moral laws.
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We do not determine morality, he does. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 2 .15
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that the law of God is written on the hearts of all humanity. Everyone has a sense of right and wrong.
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So when these righteous deeds are performed by anyone on earth, they line up with God's righteous standard.
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However, if one does a righteous act ignoring God and bringing praise to him or herself, this righteous act is sinful.
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Have you ever thought about that? Paul also wrote in Romans 14 .23 that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
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So you can do a wonderful deed and God may be displeased by it. When the
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Lord brings his people into a relationship with him through Christ, he sets his people on a path where they do works that please him.
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Because the works are done in his name and for his glory. Today, we are continuing with the story of Jacob and Esau.
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What we will see is that Jacob is sent on a path that is pleasing to the
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Lord while Esau goes down a path that appears good on the outside but God is not impressed and he does not approve.
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Our sermon today is on Genesis 28, 1 -9. So, as always, I encourage you to turn in a
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Bible there with us and if you're using a red
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Bible in the pews, it's on pages 26 and 27, this sermon is titled
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True Works and Dead Works. And our big idea, our proposition, is that works of different kinds follow from the lives of the blessed and non -blessed and there are two types of deeds.
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The first is the blessed. Number one is the Lord calls his people down the pure path.
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This is the first type of deed that we're going to see today. And we'll see this in verses 1 -5 of Genesis 28.
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But before we jump in, let's get a little recap of last week's sermon. Actually the last two
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Sundays, it was one big sermon and what we saw over the last two
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Sundays was that we saw two different destinies of two different men.
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One destiny was wonderful while the other was tragic. Through strange providential means
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Jacob received the blessing from Isaac while Esau was rejected. What we learn from this story is that the blessing was not the only thing that was lost.
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What was also lost was eternal life. The Apostle Paul makes clear in Romans 9 that Jacob would inherit eternal life while Esau would not.
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Jacob was forever blessed while Esau was forever cursed. And this is the story of life.
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There are two ways to live. The wide path that leads to eternal destruction and the narrow path that leads to eternal life.
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And everyone on planet Earth right now is on one of these two paths. And that of course includes everyone in this room.
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The path of salvation is a blessed path. The path that leads to life is the path of a changed life.
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And we're going to see that in verses 1 -5. The Lord places his people on the blessed path and he expects them to live in full purity.
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So let's look together at verses 1 -5 and then we're going to take these verses apart. That Isaac called
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Jacob and blessed him and directed him. You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women.
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Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father. And take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.
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God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you that you may become a company of peoples.
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May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you. That you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham.
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Thus Isaac sent Jacob away and he went to Paddan Aram to Laban, the son of Bethuel, the
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Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.
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At this point in the life of Jacob we have not been very impressed with him.
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He was named Jacob because at his birth the Lord predicted that he would be a cheater. We saw him cheat on two occasions.
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The first time he deceived was in chapter 25 when he took advantage of his brother and stole his blessing.
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The second time he deceived we saw two weeks ago when he and his mother fooled Isaac into giving him the blessing.
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Jacob's life for sure had a rocky start. And many of us can relate to Jacob.
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When we look at our past we are ashamed of it. And personally when I look at things that I've done or when
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I think of things that I've done in the past I am ashamed of those things. But what we know, and this is a beautiful truth, what we know about the character of God is that he is a gracious God.
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He is in the business of redeeming those who do not deserve it. But with Jacob the
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Lord had his sights set on him all along before he was born. And his plan has been to bless him forever.
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Jacob did not deserve this destiny, but the Lord chose to bless him. On Jacob's end he did do something good that we should model.
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Back in 25, even though he stole Esau's birthright, he at least wanted the birthright.
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Esau gave up something that was so precious, so flippantly for a single meal.
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And Jacob wanted it. Jacob knew of the blessing of continuing the family line that the
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Lord had his fingerprints all over. And we can admire that he wanted the birthright even though the means about which he acquired it were sinful.
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But starting in this text things are starting to really turn around for Jacob. Jacob would not be a perfect man, none of us are, even when we're on the path of holiness.
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But Jacob would be one who walked with God as we will see next Sunday in his intimate encounter with the
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Lord. I'm not sure if these verses are where Jacob entered into a relationship with the
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Lord. It may be, but it may also be that his faith started when the Lord appeared to him in a dream that I just mentioned that we'll see next
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Sunday. But the point is things are turning around for him.
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The Lord has chosen to bless him and now he is going down the path of blessing, which is the path of holiness, the path of purity.
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How is going down the path of blessing seen in these verses? In verse 1, after Isaac had given the blessing to Jacob, he gives him instructions.
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The specific instructions that Isaac gave him were not to marry a Canaanite woman.
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And this is where we need to understand. Who were the
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Canaanites? Why was this specific instruction given to Jacob? We know from Genesis 15, 19 through 21 that the
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Lord promised to give the land of the Canaanites to Abraham's offspring. These are the people that later
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Israel would remove from the land and then take the land for themselves. When Abraham sent out his servant to find a wife for Isaac in Genesis 24, he specifically told him, do not find a wife from the
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Canaanites. And as you continue to read the Old Testament, what you learn is the wickedness of these people.
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They were a people who did such horrible things that some of them actually offered their children to a false god, the god
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Molech. This is what the Lord would later tell
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Israel concerning the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 7, 2 through 4. He said, when the
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Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.
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You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons and taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods.
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The Lord desires to have a pure people. The Lord knew that if the Israelites intermarried with the
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Canaanites, some of the Israelites would worship their false gods. The Lord gives them this command to make it clear that this was forbidden.
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In our text, Isaac tells Jacob that he must not take a wife from the Canaanites. A woman from there was forbidden.
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And this prohibition started with Abraham and continues through his offspring.
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And one application for us, as we look at this early on here, is that you can see how important it is that Christians marry other
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Christians. We are commanded in 2 Corinthians 6, 14 to not be unequally yoked.
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The Lord's design is that two married believers, one man and one woman, would live in harmony with one another, following him.
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Harmony cannot happen if both do not know the Lord. He also desires for the
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Christian legacy to be passed down from one generation to the next. Malachi 2, 15 says, did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their union?
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And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. You can see the
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Lord's design in bringing two believers together in the union of marriage. It truly is a beautiful reality that we see in life.
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The Lord is sending Jacob down the holy path of finding a godly wife. The blessed path is always the holy path.
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The sinful path never brings blessing, but the holy path does. What we see in verse 2 is that Isaac sends
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Jacob in the same place his wife, Rebecca, came from. The house of Bethuel and specifically one of Laban's daughters.
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If you remember from several weeks back, Laban was Rebecca's brother. So this is something of an arranged marriage.
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Bethuel is Nahor's son and Nahor was the brother of Abraham. So Jacob will find a wife from Abraham's relatives.
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This was to ensure purity for Jacob's path. The end of chapter 26 and verses 34 and 35, we are told that Esau took two
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Hittite women to be his wife. The Hittites were Canaanites.
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So Esau took two of the forbidden women to be his wives. And this lines up with his sinful character.
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He didn't care who he married. He just married anyone whom he desired. And at the end of chapter 27, as we saw last week,
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Rebecca did not want her son to go down this path. She actually uses this as a reason as to why she sent
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Jacob away. She was killing two birds with one stone. She desired for her son to marry from their relatives.
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And knowing of Esau's intentions, it was a good time to send him away. And we see that Isaac agrees with Rebecca that it is not right to marry a
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Canaanite. So they direct Jacob down the path of purity and away from the path of impurity that Esau was already on.
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Jacob is blessed, but he's also chosen of God.
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And he's blessed to be chosen and he's blessed to be sent on the pure path, the path of purity.
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And in verses 3 and 4, Isaac repeats to Jacob the blessings that are his. He tells him that he will be blessed through offspring, that the nations would be blessed through him, and that his offspring would inherit the land of Canaan, the land of promise.
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Once Isaac gives these instructions and reminds him of the promises that are his, he sends him away in verse 5.
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And Jacob listens and goes. When the
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Lord calls his people to follow him, he does not leave them to live how they want.
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He has a specific plan for his people, and that is to live a holy life.
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2 Corinthians 5 .17 says that if anyone is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.
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The New Testament tells us what this new creation means. 2 Timothy 1 .9 says that he saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.
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Now that the Lord has chosen Jacob, this is his life. He has set him apart for purity, and these instructions to Mary from a pure group of people, and not the filthy
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Canaanites, shows us this. The Lord has the same calling on your life.
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If he has saved you, he has called you to purity. This has not been an emphasis in evangelicalism over the last 50 years or so.
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And that's very sad, because the Bible stresses obedience. We're not saved by obedience.
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It's not the grounds of our salvation, but it is the evidence of our salvation. Over the last century, maybe 50 years or so, it's been, okay, just pray to receive
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Christ and you're good. And then people just go and live however they want. When the Bible teaches something different, it teaches, yes, believe, but then continue to follow.
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And our obedience shows us that we truly are saved. 2 Corinthians 13 .5 actually tells us that we are to examine ourselves to see whether we are truly in the faith.
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If he saved you, you're going to look different from the world. You're going to look holier than the world. The Lord is preparing you for perfection.
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And so his plan is to make you more like him a little bit at a time in this life.
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Works of different kinds follow from the lives of the blessed and non -blessed.
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And the first type of deed that we have seen in verses 1 -5 is the
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Lord calls his people down the pure path, as we saw Jacob sent down the pure path.
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The second type of deeds that the Lord calls his people to, actually, that's the first point.
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The second type of deeds is what the Lord does not call his people to. In fact, the second point here is that the
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Lord leaves unbelievers, the non -blessed, to perform apparent righteous acts.
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And we're going to see this in verses 6 -9. Now, we just saw that the Lord set Jacob down the blessed path.
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As Jacob was being sent down this path, Esau was looking on. He was observing.
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Let's see his observation here. Now, Esau saw that Isaac had blessed
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Jacob and sent him away to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there. And that as he blessed him, he directed him, you must not take a wife from the
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Canaanite women. And that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan Aram. What we have seen in the life of Esau is that he has been an unholy man.
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He fulfilled the prophecy of Genesis 25 -23 that he would not be blessed. At the end of chapter 25, he flippantly gave up his birthright for a single meal.
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Last Sunday, we saw that the Lord rejected him to receive the blessing. After the blessing passed by him, he desired to attain it.
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What we learned was that he wanted the benefits that came from the blessing, but he did not want God.
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The author of Hebrews in 12 -17 says that he sought repentance, but he could not find it. In other words, he reached the point where he could no longer desire
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God, which is a horrible place to be. This is a fearful thing to ponder.
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There are deathbed conversions, yes. And we know this because the thief on the cross is an example of this.
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But with some people, there does come a point while still living on this earth, that they actually pass the point of saving faith.
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This is why Scripture stresses that today is the day of salvation. You never know the point where your heart is so in love with the world that you can't desire
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God anymore. And the example in Scripture about this is
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Esau. Esau reached this point. He's at this point right here.
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He is a dead man walking, and only condemnation awaits him.
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And as we read this text, we cannot be fooled by Esau's behavior. We've already seen his outward immoral behavior in Genesis.
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He sold his birthright. He plotted to kill his brother, and this brought him comfort. And Hebrews 12, 16 says that Esau was sexually immoral.
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If someone were to look at Esau's life, they would say this is not a holy man.
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And some of you experience that when you go to someone's house who is following closely with the
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Lord, you think, I am in the presence of holiness. I'm on holy ground here.
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And the opposite happens when you're around someone who's not holy, but quite worldly. You're thinking, this is filthy, and I need to take a shower after I leave this place.
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We know this. We experience this. And most of the time, no one would be fooled by Esau's behavior.
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His sinfulness was right there for everyone to see. He wore it on his sleeve. However, here we are about to be thrown a curveball.
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We might think that he found religion and turned his life around. By his moral behavior.
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Esau is going, we're going to see here, he's going to try to be outwardly holy. But in reality, his effort here is sinful.
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So let's see Esau's attempt in verses 8 and 9. So when
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Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac, his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had,
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Mahaloth, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Neboeth.
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So Esau does not want to marry a Canaanite. This is the same instructions that Isaac and Rebekah gave to Jacob.
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This is apparent righteous behavior. He wants to be on his parents' good side by not marrying from this wicked people, the
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Canaanites, but rather choosing an option that would be more pleasing to his parents.
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Esau thinks that by choosing Ishmael's daughter, marrying from the other side of Abraham's family, things will be better between him and his parents, and therefore his life will be better.
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In one sense here, we should commend what Esau is doing here. He desires to please his parents. This is a good desire.
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The fifth commandment tells us that we should honor our father and mothers. But this type of obedience that Esau is pursuing does not please
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God. Even though it is following God's instructions. Why does this not please the
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Lord? It does not please God because this is outward obedience, and his heart is not in the right place.
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Esau is trying to win his parents' good graces. Esau already knows that he missed out on the blessing, and now he's trying to make the best of his situation.
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He thinks that maybe things will go better for him in the future if his parents' favor returns to him.
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His mother, Rebecca, already thought poorly of him, and his father, who once favored him, may now think less of him.
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He wants to win them back. Esau is an unbeliever that is trying to do a good deed with a selfish motive behind it.
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There are two kinds of deeds that fall short. The first is the one
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I just mentioned, and Esau is the example. Unbelievers trying to do something good with a selfish motive.
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Typically to look good before others, to earn approval and praise from man, or to get something out of it.
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The other kind of good deed that falls short is what I'm calling religious do -gooders. During Jesus' ministry, he was the hardest on those who were religious do -gooders.
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There were Jews known as Pharisees who were outwardly spiritual, but not inwardly. And this is what
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Jesus said about these outwardly religious people. In Matthew 23, 25 -28, he says, "'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self -indulgence, you blind
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Pharisee. First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.
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So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
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The Pharisees were masters at looking clean on the outside, yet in reality were dirty on the inside.
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And you may be here today and fall under one of these two camps, a pagan do -gooder or a religious do -gooder.
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And the Lord is not pleased with outward obedience. The type of righteous deeds the Lord calls us to perform are the ones from a clean and pure heart.
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And you might be asking the question, well, Pastor Sepp, how do I know my deeds are pleasing to the
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Lord? To answer this question, let's see where Esau and the Pharisees went wrong, and then we'll see where we need to go right.
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Esau's obedience was wrong in that it only went to please his parents for his benefit, and his desire was not to please the
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Lord. So that's pretty simple right there. Where did the Pharisees go wrong? If you were to ask a
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Pharisee about their outward obedience, they would have said they were aiming to please the Lord. What the
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New Testament makes clear is that they did outward works thinking they could earn their own salvation. The Apostle Paul, describing the
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Jews of his day, said in Romans 10, 2, and 3, For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
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For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.
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In other words, they thought they were good people. They were good religious people that looked down their nose at those filthy sinners.
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Back in my old church, there was a gentleman who I would put in this category. I remember one time we were at church on Sunday morning, and we were out in the fellowship hall talking, and he was telling me all the wonderful things he had done over the last several weeks.
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And I just got the sense, he's trying to show me how good he is. That's not how genuine believers talk.
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They don't toot their own horn in order to earn man's approval.
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The Pharisees did not know they needed God. To come into a right relationship with him.
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They rejected Christ because they did not think they needed a savior. They thought they were good people, that of course
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God would receive them into heaven. And Paul put his finger on it in Romans 10, 3.
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They sought their own righteousness, not God's righteousness. They forsook God's way of coming to know him first through repentance of sin, and then actually having the ability to perform true righteous works.
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What kind of works are you trying to perform? Both Esau and the
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Pharisees sought after outward obedience. Esau did not care about pleasing
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God, he was trying to please someone else. The Pharisees tried to please God, but they did it through their own way of righteousness, and not depending on God's way.
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We need to do things God's way. We need to understand that one can only do works that are truly pleasing to the
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Lord once he or she has a relationship with Him. It's all dependent on God's work in our lives.
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First, His work in saving us through Christ's finished work at the cross. Then, the
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Spirit is given to you to enable true works that are pleasing to Him. So the only works that please
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God are Spirit -generated works. Esau missed this and we must not.
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He cared nothing of God's way and he tried to do something noble to satisfy his parents, to make his life better in the future.
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He pursued outward obedience. And if you truly know the Lord, you are going to do works that please
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Him. As a believer, it is possible to do works from an impure heart.
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It is. We do sin in this way. And when we do this, we're more like religious do -gooders instead of true followers of the
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Lord. But when we are tempted to do things with an impure motive, maybe in that moment thinking that God is going to think more highly of me and let me into His kingdom, this is where we must remind ourselves that everything must be done from a pure heart.
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Everything we do must be done from a pure heart aiming to please the Lord. So whether you open the door for someone or say a kind word or borrow change for someone who is short at Walmart or help someone in need, all of these must be done from a pure heart aiming to please
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God. And you do it not to be saved, but because you are saved.
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Colossians 3 .23 -24 tells us, Whatever you do, work hardly as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the
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Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
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When you do righteous works, are they for the Lord? Or is there some other motivation that drives you?
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Are you looking to impress someone else or lift yourself up as a good person before God and men?
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This we must not do. At the end of the day, the only true righteousness is pursuing righteousness the
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Lord's way, empowered by the Spirit. And when we do righteous deeds, He is glorified, not us.
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All other righteous efforts are sinful and do not please the lawgiver of the universe.
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I've told this illustration before, but it's worth repeating. Imagine a criminal who's on the run from the authorities and he sees this old lady walking across the street and he recognizes that she needs help.
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And so he goes over there and walks her across the street. What if the authorities saw him do this good deed of walking this lady across the street?
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Do you think they're going to be impressed? Of course not. They're going to say, this person needs to be arrested and then they're going to send him to jail.
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Isaiah 64 6 says that the apparent righteous deeds of man are like a polluted garment.
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If your deeds are not done for the lawgiver of the universe, then your deeds, as righteous as they are, fall short.
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Romans 8 8 says that those who are in the flesh, another way to say it, is those who are unbelievers cannot please
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God. So when unbelievers reject the Lord and go down the wrong path, the Lord lets them go down this path to await judgment, if repentance is not sought after.
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So do not do outward works with an impure motivation, but rather do works with a clean and pure heart toward God. This is the second type of deeds that we see in this text.
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The Lord leaves unbelievers to perform apparent righteous acts. And this is not good. So to summarize the sermon this morning, works of different kinds follow from the lives of the blessed and non -blessed.
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And we've seen two types of deeds this morning. The first type of deed is the good side as the Lord calls his people down the pure path as we saw
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Jacob travel down this path. And with this, the
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Lord is pleased. The second type of deeds is the bad side to be on. And the Lord leaves unbelievers to perform apparent righteous acts.
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And this deceives those people since they think they are good people when they are not. And this is the trap that Esau fell into.
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And it's the trap that many, many, many in this world are in right now. At the end of the day, what we must understand is that God is the one who sets the standard for what is right in this world.
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If we do otherwise righteous acts selfishly, we do them sinfully.
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And may believers in this room live out what you are able to live out. Do everything by the
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Spirit for the glory of God. And if you are here today and you do not have a relationship with God through Christ, recognize that you are a sinner and recognize that there is only one
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Savior who can save you. And when you do believe in Him, and I pray that you do,
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He will set you on the path where you are able to live a righteous life that is pleasing to Him.
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And so, may we do everything joyfully for His sake, for His renown.
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And next week, we are going to look at Jacob's first major encounter with the living
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God. And as he's on this path to find a wife, he's going to encounter the living
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God. Let's pray. Father in heaven,
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I thank you for joining us this morning. And I do ask, Lord, that this sermon would plant in the hearts of your people that it would not, as the parable of the sower says, be snatched away or be distracted by being caught up with other weeds, or that it would be taken away immediately.
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But I pray, Lord, that the people in this church, that each week as we meet together, that these seeds would dig deep into their hearts so that they would be the fourth seed of growing in purity, going down the path that pleases you.