Family Feud: The Cost of Drama and Deception

Introduction

Like many good stories, Jacob and Esau’s story begins with a miraculous conception, but even more so a prophecy. Many stories of antiquity do such things, and of course, the stories of Scripture are much like this, where there’s some kind of prophecy or omen or oracle that connects to what a child is going to be or what they’re going to accomplish. And so, of course, even the stories in the pagan world mimic these same types of things. You may be familiar with some of these. For instance, Sophocles and his story of Oedipus Rex and the oracles that then kind of pave the way for that story. And this is just a very common sort of paradigm within ancient stories. That is certainly the case here with Jacob and Esau, and quite honestly, we could spend an hour and a half or more talking about the complexities of this story in the Jacob cycle, ranging from chapter 26 through 33.

We’re not going to do that this morning. I think it would be super interesting, but I’m going to try to make it more concise and cover just a small part of the text. But I want to begin in chapter 25, because I think it sets the stage for so much of what’s happening in 27. This is where really the Isaac story begins. Abraham dies, and it says, These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son. Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old. This is chapter 25, verse 20. Isaac was 40 years old, and when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethel, the Aramaean of Padan Aram, the sister of Laban, the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren.

And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebecca his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, If it is thus, why is this happening to me? And so she went to inquire of the Lord. And he Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger. When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her room, in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak. So they called his name Esau. Afterward, his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel. So his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

The story then goes on to talk about this first struggle with the boys, kind of giving some details about the differences in their personality. Esau’s a skillful hunter. He’s a man of the field. He’s strong. Jacob is a quiet man dwelling in tents. Wouldn’t you like for your parents to tell you that about you, young men? But some of this is pretty important in the story. Jacob is loved by his mother, and I think for some various reasons we may get into here a little bit later. And Isaac loves Esau, the strong hunter type. And so there’s some natural reasons for some of this, and we see the interchange that takes place a while ago. I preached on this story about the birthright being stolen by Jacob.

Jacob means to grab the heel or to cheat. That’s what his name means. And so even his name is in some ways a prophecy of things to come, which is typical within Hebrew stories. Rebecca not only deals with barrenness, but now she suffers the difficulty of pregnancy, which is also very typical in many stories, maybe even some of your own. And she asks the Lord, Why is this happening? You know, she’s been barren for 20 years, and then she finally conceives, and now it’s a struggle, it’s difficult. And the Lord then gives her this prophecy that the older shall serve the younger. Like any mother’s, I’m sure she worried, she imagined the future, and she wants to influence it. She’s caught up, as we’re going to see in chapter 27, with protecting her children, particularly in the fashion that seems best suited to herself.

And let me just give you a disclaimer this morning that this story is primarily about mothers and sons. And so some of the negativity or the failures are going to be primarily of a feminine nature from the parenting standpoint. And of course, the connections of the principles will be of a masculine nature from the children’s standpoint, but the principles are bigger than that. And the failures that we see sometimes, particularly with Adam or with Isaac, are also, you can see them from a masculine side as well. So, women, don’t get upset. I was worried that I might either make you angry or emotional this morning. I’m not sure which one it’s going to be. But understand there’s a balance on the other side of this that may or may not come up too much this morning, but it is there on the fatherly side of parenting, and it presents itself in various stories.

But the story this morning is about mothers. It’s about mothers and sons.

1. Motherhood Is a Sacrifice

Motherhood is a sacrifice. I’ve been reading through Genesis and trying to encounter the text in maybe ways I haven’t thought of before, taking longer, marking, meditating on what’s happening here. And as I was reading through this, there’s some balance and reason why I wanted to look at chapter 25 before I got to 27. Because when I read 27, I just feel like Rebecca is a terrible mother. I mean, she’s a bad mom. She is the in this moment, she is really all of us in our worst moments. That’s what we’re seeing of Rebecca in this text. And I felt that way for quite a long time. You know, then I had to go back to 25, and I still feel that this true. I think that is true in the text.

It’s presenting to us Rebecca in a very negative light. This is one of her worst moments, obviously. But there’s the other side of this that’s presented in chapter 25 that motherhood is tough. It’s a sacrifice, it’s a risk bringing a baby into this world. And so there is hope and there’s joy, but it’s mixed with the reality that the world is harsh. And she is trying to pave the way for her boys, particularly the one, unfortunately, which I think seems most selfishly oriented to herself, and her own desire for security and protection, knowing that the older is going to serve the younger, she loves Jacob. He is her security. But unfortunately, Jacob is a quiet man who loves to dwell in tents. And so, like any good mother, she has to fix it.

She has to make it right. And the applications this morning are going to be almost natural. I’m just going to warn you of that now. We’ll have some at the end. But the great thing about stories is we see these stories in our own lives. We see how they work and how we’re similar or how we’re different. And you’re going to see that this morning. You’re probably going to feel that this morning. As we look at Rebecca and the sorts of decisions that she made. The reality is these boys are going to have bumps and bruises. They’re going to suffer. They’re going to be sick. They might marry Hittite women. More painfully, they will leave. They will go on their own adventures and it will be without you.

And that’s the nature of motherhood. It’s difficult. And there’s no doubt Rebecca is struggling with all of that. As she’s trying to face the world and the difficulties of the world and figuring out how to raise her boys in this world. And eventually they’re going to die, just like every other person is going to die. So is it worth it? Is all the work and the effort worth shaping our children and bringing them up in a certain way? And even though we know all of those inevitabilities, yet we so strongly yearn to create life. Being fruitful and multiplying is an aspect of how we, particularly women, image God and spread his glory. And that’s why Paul says, yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness in 1 Timothy chapter 2.

It’s hard to be a Hannah. It’s hard to be Hannah and to pray for a child only to then sacrifice it to the Lord. But that is what motherhood is. That’s the calling of motherhood is to then have a child and to raise that child and then sacrifice that child to the world so that they can sacrifice themselves to the Lord. And parenting and child rearing is really allowing a child to grow and to leave. And this is most clearly stated about marriage itself, early in the text in Genesis chapter 2, particularly about boys. A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall be one flesh. We’re not there yet. But I can imagine that’s very difficult.

That process of letting go, of realizing you’ve done all this work and you’ve shaped and you’ve guided and you’ve protected, but ultimately, in the end, the job of parents and the emotional task of the mother is to ultimately let go and let that child face the world, to face the giants and the trials and the serpents by themselves, to allow them to fail and to learn. I certainly don’t buy into a lot of Freudian thought, but one thing’s one of the things that he says is that the good mother ultimately fails. And there’s multiple aspects of this.

But there’s the other side of that as well, that the good mother ultimately fails in the sense that she does let those things happen. Even though it’s difficult and it’s hard and it’s unclear, and we don’t know what the world is going to bring on that child and the risks that are going to be there, the good mother lets it happen. Because it’s the only way that the child will grow and develop and mature. Much like Sarah with Hagar, it seems that Rebecca feels the need to help God. She needs to help God and help Isaac fulfill her child’s destiny. So often we don’t even know the future. We imagine the future, we dream of the future, we plan for our kids, and we want certain things, but consider the reality that Rebecca actually knows part of the future.

She’s told. She’s told that one will be stronger than the other, and that the older will serve the younger. She knows how this is ultimately going to play out. And there’s a lot of things that we do know, and yet we still struggle with the anxieties and the difficulties, wanting to control it all and wanting it all to happen in certain ways. So we’re not much different than Rebecca as we struggle through those types of things, even though we know the end. Right? There’s a lot of foreshadowing that’s happening in this text in multiple ways. Rebecca knows the end, and yet she still feels this desire to protect her boy, the one she loves the most, and make sure it all happens in just the right way.

And ultimately that’s a failure. It’s a failure to trust God and to trust her husband, to trust that things were going to work the way they were supposed to work, without her meddling and without her interference. And in doing so, we see really the archetypical picture of a bad mother. Which is really in contrast to what we’ll talk about later, maybe if we have time, the ultimate good mother in Mary, who does just the opposite. So hold that thought. I’m gonna go through this in a way that’s maybe a little different than normal. I want to read, and then as I read, I’m gonna stop and I’m gonna talk about some things. We’re gonna work through the text in that way, and then ultimately we’re gonna get some applications here at the end.

2. Be Careful About Trying to Force the Hand of Fate

And I’m not gonna read the whole text. We’ll have to paraphrase some because it’s rather long, but I want to get some main ideas as we work through this. Chapter 27 and verse 1. It says, When Isaac was old, and his eyes were dimmed so that he could not see, he called Esau, his older son, and said to him, My son, and he answered, Here I am. And he said, Behold, I am old, I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, and prepare for me delicious food such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.

Now Rebecca was listening. There’s a lot of interesting things that lead into this text that we know, that of course they couldn’t. And so there’s some lessons from this. Be careful about trying to force the hand of fate. Trying to push things through into the future when there’s so much that we actually do not understand. Isaac is near death, at least he thinks.

Now there’s some negative sides on Isaac’s side of this too that we can’t get into the depths of this morning. Why is it that there’s this disconnect? Why is it she doesn’t know what’s happening? And there doesn’t seem to be communication here between them. She feels the need to eavesdrop and to listen to what’s taking place. Isaac thinks he’s near death. Actually, he lives another 70 years at least. Sometimes things happen. We get sick, we’re worried it’s the end. We’re anxious about what’s going to happen in the future and in life, and Isaac is here, his wife is listening. She knows the prophecy, and the blessing is about to go to Esau. And so, like any good mother, she has to fix it. She has to make sure it all works out the right way.

How will the prophecy be true if Esau gets the blessing? And so she clearly loves Jacob more, and he was supposed to secure her future. Now what? Esau’s actually already rebelling. He’s already marrying Hittite women. What does her future look like if Esau gets the blessing and now she’s in his home? We know the stories, don’t we? Jane Austen does all kinds of great work on this scenario. What happens to the women? And it’s the nature of the difference between men and women and the things they desire and the things they’re looking for. And there’s no doubt, in fairness, this is a very difficult situation. And Rebecca has much more at stake than Isaac does. And that’s why the importance of faith comes in. She can’t see how this is all going to work out, even though she knows the prophecy.

And so again, like Sarah with Hagar, she feels the need to step in and to make it all right. Let me ask you, how do we try to force fate onto our children? Maybe it’s things like you can’t succeed if you don’t have a college degree. You know, we know what’s best, and the things that you actually want are not what you really should do. Now, there’s times that can be true, and there’s always a little truth mixed in with some of these kinds of things, which is what makes it complex and difficult. Or what about why haven’t you found a spouse or had kids yet? Or you’re too young to have a spouse or have kids. And certainly, again, there can be issues with maturity, but sometimes it’s forcing our cultural paradigms on our children in ways that are actually not beneficial or healthy.

Because we want to force the hand of fate and make sure certain things happen. And then there is the whole issue with delaying adolescents and coddling them, letting mom take care of it all, and none of that actually helps them develop or grow. And that is a massive societal problem today.

3. Obey My Voice: Selfishness Inflicts Pain

They haven’t ever gone out and had any kind of quest or adventure in life because mom takes care of it all for them. These are real problems that people in our culture face, real parenting issues, real motherhood issues, real fatherhood issues, where there’s an unwillingness to sacrifice, to give up what is most needed for the betterment of both yourself and your children, because it’s uncomfortable and difficult. Verse 19. Jacob says to his father, I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Now sit up and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me. But Isaac said to his son, How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son? He answered, Because the Lord your God granted me success.

Then Isaac said to Jacob, please come near that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not. So Jacob went near Isaac his father, who felt him and said, The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy, like his brother Esau’s hands. So he blessed him. He said, Are you really my son Esau? And he answered, I am. Then he said, Bring it near to me that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you. So he brought it near to him and he ate. And he brought him wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, Come near and kiss me, my son.

So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him. Rebecca, after listening to the plan that Isaac has with Esau, she concocts an entire scheme. She plans and figures out how to do everything that she wants to do. She brings Jacob in, says, Here, listen to my voice. Obey my voice. Remember that phrase. She says it multiple times. Obey my voice. I command you, go get something from the flock. I’m going to cook something such as your father loves. Another phrase that continues to pop up. They’re pulled in by their desires. Isaac is deceived by the smells, by the things around him. He could have slowed down. He could have double checked, but he just went along with the process despite his doubts.

Interestingly, Jacob gets a lot of the heat in this story. But he says, Hey, what if Dad finds out and thinks I’m mocking him and I receive a curse instead of a blessing? But his mother, his loving mother, reassures him, Go ahead and lie to your father. Let the curse be on me, my son. Only obey my voice. Maybe you too have thought Jacob is the real evil one in this story. Only to recognize as we read slowly that his mother is slowly manipulating him and convincing him to deceive his own father to violate the will of Isaac and what he’s trying to accomplish. And we’ll talk about Jacob’s own choices. He’s making them, and that’s an important point. But Rebecca is assuring him all along the way that her way is the right way, and he needs to follow it.

Now, we should note that these boys are men. They are in their 40s. In the previous chapter, Esau’s 46, and he’s marrying Hittite women and they’re twins. So it’s hard to know the exact gap here between what’s happening, but they’re at least approaching 50, at the very least. They’re not teenagers. They make their own decisions, or at least they should. And so it doesn’t all fall on Rebecca, but she is certainly manipulating and deceiving and trying to work her plan for her own benefit and selfishness. And she is teaching Jacob to do all of this as well. How many times has this happened before? Well, we know the previous story of what Jacob did to his brother. Where is he learning this behavior? More to say on that as we work through the story.

Jacob comes into his father, and no less than six times, at least we’re told that in the story. There might have been more. Six times and in six ways, Isaac is not actually sure that this is Esau. He asks him over and over again, Are you my son? Even after he blesses him, he then asks again, are you really Esau? To which Jacob lies repeatedly to his father. From the very beginning all the way to the end. And so the messes of our family really happen in an instant. They are slow cookers being heated over and over until the pressure is too much, and then they burst. And that’s exactly the nature of this story. Isaac and Rebecca’s home, make no mistake, is not a safe place.

She’s eavesdropping on her husband. Later we learn she’s spying, and she has people in her house telling her the things that her son is saying. Neither of these children can actually trust their parents. Isaac certainly doesn’t trust the situation that he’s in, which is why he continues to doubt that this is actually Esau, and he’s correct, keep in mind. Jacob has now cheated Esau twice. At least once by the direction of his own mother, maybe more than once. And in the end, Esau wants to kill Jacob. This is not a safe home. It’s a dysfunctional, problematic home. And I want you to keep in mind that these are the patriarchs. These are the ones we look to often, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, as these people of great faith, and certainly they are, and parts of the story, but I want you to see the sorts of things that are also happening in their life.

And the mistakes that are being made, and there’s actually an element of hope in all of this that I want to get to in the end as well. Typically, the problems relate to my push for selfishness and selfish motivations. And then everyone is affected by those choices, or by the choices of various people in the home, like Rebecca’s doing here, that then affects everyone. Verse 30.

He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, Let my father arise and eat of his son’s game, that you may bless me. His father Isaac said to him, Who are you? He answered, I am your son, your firstborn Esau. Then Isaac trembled very violently and said, Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me? And I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him, yes, and he shall be blessed. And as soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, Bless me, even also, O my father. But he said, Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.

Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing. Then he said, Have you not reserved a blessing for me? Isaac answered and said to Esau, Behold, I have made him Lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son? Esau said to his father, Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. I think this is the worst part of the story. Just imagine for a moment, as a mother. Not only have you concocted a scheme and a plan to undermine your own son.

But then he comes back and he joyfully prepares an entire meal while you watch, all the while knowing he is undone already. He goes to this whole prophet, said, Have you ever seen somebody cook, particularly for somebody else, in a good moment? And how happy and joyous that is? Sometimes my kids enjoy that process. Sometimes we make them do it, but sometimes they want to do it. And you know the accomplishment when you’ve done something, and this is very minor in scale to what Esau’s doing here, but you’ve done something and you’ve prepared something for the whole family. I mean, imagine in that moment if one of our kids did that, and we said, One of your siblings already prepared and we already ate. We don’t need what you did.

I mean, imagine the betrayal of how that would feel. And now in this moment, this is even this is like one of the greatest moments of a child in antiquity, that they’re going to receive the blessing from their father. And you sent him out to do this task. He’s accomplished the task, he’s prepared this whole meal. Meanwhile, Rebecca sits there watching all of this unfold. And she watches her grown son cry out exceedingly with a great and bitter cry because of what she’s done. With absolutely no remorse. She watches her husband tremble violently because of her behavior. And yet she’s so deep into her scheming and into her selfishness and to getting what she wants that the only thing that she can do is think of the next scheme and her next plan.

She’s apathetic to both Isaac and Esau’s anguish. Her plan matters most. She’s cold. It seems that humanity is actually absent in her in this moment. Because it’s all about her and what she wants. And so selfishness inflicts pain on others, sometimes in a way that’s very hard in the moment for us to even see when we’re in a moment of selfishness. Or we refuse to see it. Because in whatever way the ends justify the means. Verse 41. Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to himself, The day of mourning for my father are approaching. Then I will kill my brother Jacob. But the words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you.

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Laban, my brother, and Herod, and stay with him a while until your brother’s fury turns away, until your brother’s anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send and bring you from there. Why should I be bereft of you both in one day? Then Rebekah said to Isaac, I loathe my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, one of the women of the land, what good will be my life to me? Do you see what’s happening? I think we do.

Now, Esau, the bad son, has married some Hittite women, and so that is certainly in her mind. But what she is most after is what she wants. And so she is dramatic and she is deceitful, and the tears begin to flow, and she loathes her life, and she is depressed, and she is anxious until Isaac gives her the things that she wants. Rather than seeking resolution and reconciliation, Rebekah spies on Esau, and she concocts a new plan in which she manipulates. And of course, Isaac goes along. He wants to make sure she’s happy. And so you’ve heard the old motto, happy wife, happy life. That’s a bunch of rubbish.

A man who stands up and leads is what brings a happy life. A man who actually leads his family and says, this is what’s actually best for us. That’s what’s what is going to actually bring happiness and contentment. Rather than catering to the whims and the drama and to the emotions of whoever it is within the family at that moment is caught up in their own selfishness. And so we see the mess that this creates. The damage caused by Rebecca’s meddling, by Jacob’s going along with it. It produces tension between Jacob and Esau. And between even Esau and Isaac. He goes out and he begins to marry more women just to make his father unhappy. And remember, it’s his father who loved him. See what happened in the dismantling of relationship of father and son because of the meddling and the deception that took place of others in the family.

Jacob then has to leave his home, probably something Rebecca didn’t actually want to happen. And then Rebecca fades into oblivion, is never mentioned in the story of the Bible ever again. This is what happens.

4. Notice the Ripple Effect of Sin

So let’s make a couple applications here before we’re done. Some lessons that we can pull out of this. The first is that we need to notice the ripple effect of sin. We like to imagine that the things that we do only affect ourselves. It’s a personal choice. I messed up and doesn’t affect anybody else. Except for maybe some major things that everybody’s aware of. But sometimes, even things that nobody even notices can affect the people around me. The decisions that people may be unaware of or that somehow manage to hide still can affect the people within my own home or people with which I have close relationships.

And so I want to start with this, and that is we need to be gracious to each other. We need to realize sometimes people are influenced in ways they do not fully even understand. And it’s difficult to overcome some of the baggage that we carry. Jesus says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Spouses, be gracious to your spouse. You have your own baggage too. And rather than jumping on every little mistake and every misstatement or misdeed, realize that they may have had influences in their life that they’re having difficulty overcoming. And along with this parents and young people, we need to consider things like family of origin. Where is this person coming from? This person we love so much and we are infatuated with.

You can see the good things, and that’s great. But what are some of the negatives? What are the things that they’re coming out of that are going to influence their life for years to come that maybe they recognize and maybe they don’t? Isaac lies just like his father lies. Rebecca is deceitful and manipulative just like her brother Laban. And then Jacob, of course, learns to deceive from his own mother. And he faces the deceit of Laban later in the story. Do you see how their whole family, it’s an entire mess in the way they interact and they treat each other? Are we aware of that? Are we teaching our children to think about that as they are falling in love with people and they think that this is going to be so great?

Have they actually thought and considered about all the influences that are going to take place in that family? And listen, I’m not saying you don’t get married.

But you better be aware of what the baggage is. And make sure you’re willing to carry it with your spouse if you choose to marry them. Be aware of what problems will be presented so that they can be addressed and dealt with. Because a relationship in which that is ignored and everyone tries to pretend like it’s all okay looks like this. That’s the result. People are manipulative and lying and deceitful, and they’re working to get their way, and they’re not communicating, and the whole situation is a complete mess. And yet, in all of that, I still think we need to understand the importance of being gracious to each other. Understand where your spouse comes from. It’s not an excuse for their sins or their mistakes, but it is at least a way to be understanding, just as you would want them to be understanding for you.

5. You Can't Blame Them for It

And so maybe you come from a broken home, or maybe you come from a situation where a parent was abusive, and you struggle and you work through that. The very next point is you can’t blame them for it. We need to be gracious about the things in the past and the baggage that our spouse carries, and we can show that to others, but it is not the excuse that we can offer ourselves.

I must bear the consequences for my action. The curse is upon me and my mother, and nobody else can take it for me. This is the fatal error of Rebecca and what she’s teaching her son. He recognizes, he sees the problem with what they’re about to do, and he says, Should we really do this? Dad may find out, and then it’s gonna get really bad. And she says, Don’t worry about it. The curse be on me. Rebecca, you can’t take his curse. And mothers, you can’t take your children’s curse. And to the extent that you try, you will only damage them more and more. And so you must sacrifice them to the world and let them have their own bumps and bruises, let them face their own giants.

Let them figure out their path toward God without trying to interfere and meddle in ways that then get in the way of their own growth and development. It’s not your parents’ fault if you are passive aggressive toward your spouse, or verbally abusive, or highly selfish, or easily triggered and offended and angry. You can’t blame your parents for that. Jacob can’t blame his mom for his decision to go in and to directly lie to his father and say, I am your son Esau. That was his choice. And he did it. And only he can bear the consequences of that action. Rebecca didn’t have to flee to her brother. It was Jacob that had to flee and run away and be gone for 20 years. He’s the one that paid the price.

And so don’t ever be deceived by someone who says they’re gonna pay the price for you. That the curse is gonna be on them. This language pops up later on, doesn’t it, in the New Testament. His blood will be on us, and there’s a little irony there in that statement. But the extent that we try to ignore that, or we try to get in the way and mitigate that happening with our children or anyone else, it only damages them. And presents further baggage that then they have to work to overcome. And so recognize the influences, recognize the ripple effects of sin so you can overcome them. But blaming someone else is never the answer. Ultimately, I and you, we make the choices that we make. And we are accountable.

6. God Is Able to Redeem What Is Dysfunctional

And then there is this bit of hope. You know the story, the big parts at least. That God is able to redeem what is dysfunctional. God can work in redeeming me in my mess and you in your mess. And God works through Jacob’s messiness and his dysfunction to accomplish his will, greater things that relate to something more than Jacob and Esau and Isaac and Rebecca. But also, as the story continues, without the help of their mother, these two boys then ultimately reconcile and come back together. As they grow and they mature and they face the giants and the monsters on their own, somewhere along the way, they realize the importance of their relationship. And when Jacob comes back, although he’s afraid, in the end, his brother runs and embraces him and hugs him and kisses him.

And now the weeping is not one of anguish, but one of joy. That’s the power of what God can do, even in broken situations. He has the ability to redeem. Sometimes we’re afraid to talk too much about Mary because of the Catholic influence around us and how she is exalted in certain ways there. But Mary is the archetypical mother, the good mother. I spent some time talking to Caleb Schmidt this week, and so I have to give him credit for bringing some of these ideas up to my brain as we texted back and forth about some things. But she is the antithesis of Rebecca. She’s everything Rebecca isn’t. Do you notice the times in the text when it says she’s told something is revealed to her, or even Jesus himself says things to her, and it says, she kept it in her heart.

She didn’t step in and say, Jesus, you can’t do that. No, you can’t, that’s that’s gonna that’s gonna have a problem. You can’t do that. You can’t go talk to those officials, or they’re gonna kill you. Well, Mary knows. She knows the prophecies. She’s aware. And she keeps those things in her heart, and she lets her son be a man. And make those choices on his own. She is willing to sacrifice her son to the Lord so that he can sacrifice himself to God. She allows him to pave his own path toward God. And ultimately, this is what we are called to do as parents. We’re to bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. We’re not to overprotect them, never let them face any difficulty, or to prepare them for the fight that’s ahead, to send them out in the world as soldiers, those who are ready to take on the cosmic powers of darkness.

And so when they’re young, there is guidance and there is protection, but ultimately at some point they may face the things on their own. And then they have to decide whose voice they’re going to listen to. For Jacob early on, he listened to the voice of his mother, unfortunately.

But it was when he was on his own that he paved his way toward God and began to listen to the voice of God. He discovered God through the struggle and through the pain. Through the things that his own mother wouldn’t let him face at home. And ultimately, that is what then brought him back to the house of God in Bethel, where he wrestles with God and he prevails. And that is what we want for our children. And so we must let them go. And let them fight and struggle and suffer. So they develop their own faith and their own love. And the God of their father and their mother becomes their own God. That’s what happens to Jacob. And that’s what we are called to.

Conclusion

Could be this morning you realize your need for God in your life. We want to help you with that. Jesus calls us, in fact, God is the example from a fatherly perspective of sacrifice, right? And this is exemplified in Genesis 22, the story with Abraham and Isaac, where he sacrifices his own son. And God does the very same thing. And so we see the same story with the father as we do with what mothers are. And so God, he doesn’t call us as something that he hasn’t done. No, he gave up his only unique son. So that we would not perish but have everlasting life. And then he calls us to follow him, to die to self and to be resurrected to newness of life. And we can help you do that this morning.

Why don’t you come as we stand and sing?