Grace Through Dysfunction

A marvelous song about God's providence and a good description of what we're going to see today in our text. I'm going to pick up the reading where we left off in chapter 27, verse 30, as we continue hearing this familiar story. One that we all know very well. beginning in verse 30 of chapter 27. As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting.

He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father and 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'm 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. 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 me 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. Then Isaac his father answered and said to him, Behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. by your sword you shall live and you shall serve your brother but when you grow restless you shall break his yoke from your neck now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with with which his father had blessed him and Esau said to himself the days 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 in Haran, and stay with him for 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 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 my life be to me? Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women.

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. God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of people. 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. thus Isaac sent Jacob away and he went to Paddan Aram to Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean the brother of Rebekah Jacob's and Esau's mother now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there and that as he blessed him and he directed him you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan Aram.

So when 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, Mahalot, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth. Let's pray. Lord God of heaven, this is a very familiar story to us. Make it come alive. Make us see your providential dealings in all of this so that we might have hope even now.

Lord, you've not given this story just so we can recite it and wonder at it. You've given it to us living in this century in order for us to understand you and your dealings with us. Help us to see ourselves in this text. And Lord, give us hope. In Jesus' name, amen. we just moved to larue in the spring of 1985 and the second day we lived here we decided to just drive around and see get the lay of the land we went south of town and we went across on larue green camp road which is a road hardly anybody travels on but we went down it came around the curve and there we saw a sign for shoddy road and so we went up it went it went into these trees into this forest.

So we went up Shoddy Road, right? And we got to a bridge across the Scioto. And it didn look like it was a really didn look like much of a bridge And I can remember we kind of debated about whether we should drive across it but no we didn We didn Essentially for all practical purpose, we'd reached a dead end. Our exploring trip was over for the day. Well, when we get to this, oh, so familiar story, it seems we've reached a dead end.

It appears there's no way to proceed from this mess of a family. God had made a promise to Abraham and confirmed it with Isaac, and that is that God would give a seed to Abraham, a descendant of Abraham's, that would be a blessing to all the nations. That was part of that covenant that God made with Abraham, along with the other promises of innumerable descendants, the land of Canaan to those descendants a reputation of greatness and the presence of the Lord all that was involved in that covenant in those covenant promises and God determined to shower his grace upon the nations through that seed that would come from Abraham but that all seems to hit a dead end with this family and its crazy dysfunction and its cast of unholy characters?

How can he possibly fulfill the promise of a seed that will be a blessing to all nations with Isaac, a man of little faith, now driven by his appetites, and a failed spiritual leader willing to rebel against the clearly revealed will of God? you have Esau unthinking he does not reflect on the consequences of living for the immediate gratification of his appetites of violent and duplicitous man you have Rebecca a domineering woman who stoops to scheming and manipulating in order to achieve the goal of her existence which is the success of her youngest son, her favorite son. And then there's Jacob, an unprincipled, deceptive, blasphemous man who determines to get what he wants without any kind of moral scruples. And you have to ask, if you're following this story, you have to ask, how in the world is God going to keep his promise of a seed that's going to bless all the nations with this going on?

Right? I'll tell you what, no BBC production could ever come up with this plot. Okay? This family is unbelievable. The rivalry in this family runs so deep that you wonder if you can even call it a family anymore. Dad attempts to bless his favorite son in secret, not in the normal public ceremony. look at the personal pronouns that are used in chapter um in chapter 27 notice this in verse 5 look now rebecca was listening when isaac spoke to his son esau so when esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it rebecca said to her son jacob i heard your father speak to your brother Esau.

You notice that? That's favoritism to the max. You can see that clearly, right? Isaac and his son, Rebecca and her son. They both belong to both of them, but you get the picture, don't you? you have a wife who undercut the head of the family through a well-thought-out scheme she doesn't speak forthrightly to her husband about his dishonest plan nor has he ever spoken to her about that plan real communication between them no longer exists you see the continued lack of communication even after the ruse has been exposed there's no honest confession or honest discussion about the true nature of things so look at verse 46 then rebecca of verse 20 of chapter 27 then rebecca said to isaac i loathe my life because of these hittite women if jacob marries one of the hittite women like these one of the women of the land what good will my life be to me she's not talking to him about the fact that he blew it she's continuing to manipulate even after the whole thing has been exposed.

She's, you know, saying to Isaac, we don't want Jacob marrying another one of these Canaanite women, right? So I tell you what, why don't you send him away? You have a son willing to get the best of his older brother again, taking advantage of an old man's weaknesses. And the other son, don't miss this, the other son is willing to kill his own brother.

Do you see rivalry in this family? With such rivalry and hatred and deception, I guess we could say this is a dysfunctional family. And that's way too easy. It appears we've reached a dead end for the promises. They will be squandered in a family wracked by unrighteousness. Now, key to this story, an absolute key to this story is the framing of it.

Is the framing of this story, and this is really important. First of all, turn back to chapter 26, verses 34 and 35. When Esau was 40 years old he took Judith the daughter of Beri the Hittite to his wife and Basamath the daughter of Elan the Hittite and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah You have Esau taking two wives from the Canaanites Now look at what you see at the very end, in chapter 28, verse 6.

Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Badamaran to take a wife from there. And that as he blessed him, he directed him, you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women, in that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Badan Aram. So when 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, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, of Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth.

So framing this, this is real important, framing this whole story is this marriage of Canaanite women and women from Ishmael's line. Okay? Esau contracts his own marriages with Canaanite women, which is in direct opposition to God's covenant promises. Why? If you would look back at Genesis chapter 15, where God enacts the covenant with Abraham, you will see that God had said to him, your descendants are going to spend four generations in another land and then I'm going to punish those people and bring them out and then they will judge the Canaanites because their iniquity has not reached its full yet clearly in that covenant God said these Canaanites are going to be judged for their wickedness and by the way if you knew anything about the Canaanites you know when you when you look at the Canaanites you would not believe the depth of depravity that those people sunk to we don't have enough time to go into it but it includes burning children in the heated up hands of an idol burning babies that's how deep they'd gone and they were cursed by god so what do you have you have isaac who should have known that god condemned these people for their wickedness and he certainly knew and esau certainly knew about his grandfather's efforts to prevent his dad from marrying those women.

What did Abraham do with Isaac? He sent his servant out to find a wife for Isaac, not amongst the Canaanites. So it's clear to get a Canaanite wife is not acceptable. And it signals his lack, Esau's lack of commitment to God's promise to his people. And that attitude is confirmed when finally figuring out the heartache he causes his parents. He goes to Uncle Ishmael, Isaac's brother, to find a wife.

And Ishmael is part of the rejected seed of Abraham. Okay? How would God keep the promise of that seed with this going on? Will Jacob also wreck the whole plan by marrying a local woman? That's what's got to be in your mind. I think that's what Moses is trying to get across here. and you discover again that nothing will derail god's gracious purpose he will fulfill the promise he made to abraham and isaac he will do it not even the wicked actions and schemes of people will keep him from fulfilling that promise in fact he will actually use the evil that we read in this story to accomplish the fulfillment of that promise so as we look at the story what's the first thing we need to see.

Know that sin cannot derail God's promises. Isaac intends to bless Esau with the birthright, and Esau, of course, agrees to the plan. This is a wicked, unrighteous deed. Isaac certainly crafts a wicked design here. First of all, he will do this in secret instead of through the normal public ceremony of blessing, but he doesn't care. he certainly must know that Esau gave the birthright already to Isaac to Jacob he ought to know that already they're a close family they ought to know all that's going on and that Esau actually agreed to it whether he was deceived or not he made that promise but Isaac doesn't care he has failed as a spiritual leader that's evident he does nothing to heal the rivalries in this family.

He is what you would typically call a passive father in which disaster comes in his family. He doesn't care. In fact, he has encouraged that rivalry by favoring Esau. But worst of all, he already knew the birth oracle that accompanied the birth of the boys. A few chapters earlier, what happens? God had given an oracle and had said to Rebekah and Isaac, the older will serve the younger.

He doesn't care about that. He doesn't care. He proved willing to defy the clearly revealed will of God in order to accomplish his purposes. The only thing he cared about at this point is his own appetite. By the way, it shouldn't surprise us that Esau is the appetite-driven guy that he is. Look at his father at this stage in his life.

That's exactly what he is. He could overlook the bitterness of his heart over Esau's marrying those Canaanite women. Remember, they made Esau and Rebekah's life miserable. He's willing to overlook that even bitterness. Right? Because his favorite son would give him what he wanted.

Now Esau shares the guilt of his father. He'll renege on his promise to Jacob. easily reneging on that promise. You see, along with the responsibility, along with the promises, comes the responsibility of leading the family in relationship to God. And he would inherit the covenant with all its blessings and promises. But he only cares about the advantages he gets and the wealth that comes with the birthright And so he willing to break his promise in order to gain wealth and prominence Now, can God keep his promise in the face of the unrighteous, wicked schemes and acts of men?

Can he keep his promises, gracious promises, especially when those schemes and actions purposely work against those promises? Well, we heard a good example this morning when Sam read the New Testament reading. You hear what it says? The church is gathered. The apostles have been released from prison. They come back.

They report to the congregation what had happened. What do they say? They quote Psalm 2 and say, The nations have conspired against God's anointed one, Jesus. The Gentiles, in Herod and Pilate, have conspired against him. The people, the Jews, have gone along with it, and they crucified this Jesus, right? But what do they do?

They actually accomplish the purposes of God in the death of Jesus. And they know that. God doesn't just work around the evil. God doesn't, like, work around the evil and try to navigate how to get through it. He actually uses those evil purposes to accomplish his gracious purposes. Don't forget that.

Now what's the second thing we need to learn from this story? Know that good intentions cannot derail God's gracious purpose. Even good intentions can't do it. The plot thickens here with a woman who knows the promise, believes the promise, and wants to see the promise fulfilled. Rebecca knows the promise. She believes the promise.

Rebecca wants the promise to be fulfilled. But she also has this gotta help God along attitude that Abraham and Sarah had. You remember they had to help God along with fulfill the promise by giving Hagar to Abraham to raise up a son and all that sort of thing. She's got the same attitude and she's going to act on her faith by unfaithful means. You get the picture.

She believes the promise. She wants to see it fulfilled. But then she resorts to unfaithful means in order to accomplish that very thing. now with the information she has she concocts this plan of fooling isaac with counterfeit counterfeit food and a counterfeit son now jacob you notice in this in this story jacob raises an objection he says he doesn't want to go along with the plan but he doesn't object on moral grounds right he doesn't say mom i'm not sure i can be part of this plan it's an evil plan mom we really shouldn't do it that's not what jacob does what does he do mom i'm not sure i can be part of this plan because it might not work and i'll be in big trouble right he's not saying mom don't do this god would not like that he didn't care about that the only thing he cares about is i'm gonna get in trouble right now you know the story figuring that Isaac may be suspicious, they determined to fool him through the senses of taste, food like Esau's, feel, hair like Esau's, and smell, clothes like Esau's.

Right? Mom's thought of everything. Mom has thought of everything. Right? Let's give you a little hairy skin, I'll even give you his clothes that smell like the outdoors. You know what?

I've had some discussions with my wife and with some of my kids. We've often commented on mothers and their sons. What a mother won't do for her son is amazing sometimes. and I'm telling you Rebecca fits the bill her son is going to be successful she's going to make sure that he really gets what he deserves man right now you can sense Jacob's a bit nervous about the plan because when he gets in with Esau he says hey dad it's Esau here's your supper so sit up and eat it and bless me and i'll be on my way right but esau but um but worse than the scheming and taking advantage of his weak father jacob actually blasphemes god do you see that look at verse 20 esau says or isaac says wait a minute and i thought you just left to go hunting and he says Oh, Dad, the Lord has blessed me in my efforts.

Do you get the picture here? He's downright lying, and yet he invokes God. That's blasphemy. Isaac falls for the deception. But he still has enough faith in his Lord to give this blessing. he knows that as patriarch and representative of God God will mediate his blessings through his word he does believe that God will fulfill his promise so he blesses his son with fertility and dominion he's going to reap rich harvest in keeping with the covenant God made with Abraham he will have dominion again according to the oracle.

The older will serve the younger. When it talks about your mother's sons, it's not as if Rebecca and Isaac had more children than the twins here, but this refers to her children through Esau, grandchildren. So Jacob will have dominion over Esau's descendants, and Isaac reaffirms the oracle from God. And he reaffirms the promise of God's covenant with Abraham.

Look at verse 29. He says, Be Lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you. Straight out of the Abrahamic covenant. no sooner does Jacob walk out the door and turn the corner of the tent when Esau walks in he comes with the game he prepared looking for the blessing and you can imagine you can see it you can hear it in the text the anguish and the anger on both their parts knowing they've been deceived.

Esau says he's rightly called Jacob, which means deceiver. But Esau grieves over the loss of his wealth, not about the promises of God. He's a man of his appetites. He cares about the wealth, not about the promises. But Isaac can't give him the blessing. He cannot say something to Isaac that God will not do since he already made the promise to Jacob.

So he gives him this kind of anti-blessing, if you will. And at most, he promises that someday he will break the yoke of his brother Jacob. And you see the fulfillment, if you want to know how that all ends up, when you get to 2 Kings chapter 8, the kingdom of Edom, made up of Esau's descendants, throws off the yoke of Judah, Jacob's descendants. Throws off the yoke.

Seething with anger, Esau vows he will kill his brother. You know what? We're so familiar with this story that we don't sometimes get it. You've got a brother who's saying, I am going to kill my brother. You get it? That's really, that's pretty serious.

Wouldn't you agree? You know what? If Levi ever said you know what Yance has made me so mad I am going to kill him the next chance I get I would be kind of concerned about that Right But this is what he's saying. This is the violent man that he is. He's going to kill his brother. He's going to kill his brother.

Rebecca gets wind of this. I don't know, maybe a servant overheard Esau and reported it to Rebecca. and she warns Jacob of the danger, encouraging him to head for the homeland. Go back. This is the homeland where she had come from. Okay, back in Mesopotamia. I'm going to send you over there.

And you're going to wait for a word from me to tell you it's all safe. Again, good intentions, but followed by an unrighteous way of carrying them out. She uses her problem with her daughters-in-law. Notice, she uses her problems with her daughter-in-law as a manipulative technique to get her husband to send Jacob to safety. Again, she's manipulating. And so with Rebecca lying again, Isaac sends Jacob off.

Off to her family in order to find a wife in Mesopotamia. but listen even our good intentions will not frustrate God's gracious purposes now what's the point of all this this is so important what's the point of all this Jacob is delivered from the danger of marrying a Canaanite woman that would destroy the promise that would destroy the promise and even though it appears this mess of a family would itself annihilate that promise god actually uses the men the mess the manipulation and the anger to fulfill his purposes that's the point of the story God, by the way, has not changed. Do you worry about the horrendous events that are constantly displayed before you in the news or your neighborhood? Do you ever start losing hope because of how bad things are going?

Even in particular in election year, We Americans are always in the tizzy, and that includes us Christians. Oh no, if she wins, it's the end of civilization. And by the way, it might be as we know it. If he wins oh who knows what going to happen right and we get all worked up and we tend to forget God gracious promises that His plan will never be frustrated.

Maybe you've experienced the horrendous nature of life in this broken world. Maybe you have. Family members have betrayed you, deceived you, hurt you, maybe even abused you, maybe even abused you, will that keep God from accomplishing His gracious purposes in your life? Maybe you've been betrayed by a spouse. Maybe horrible things have happened to you.

Is that going to keep God from accomplishing His gracious purposes? Was Jesus telling the truth? When He says, I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. Do you think He's going to keep that promise for you? Do you think He can still make you like Jesus? Do you think He can change you and make you like Christ? can he change you so that you can love and forgive those people who've hurt you will he rescue you from despair and give you hope in a messy wild broken world you see this story ought to say loud and clear to you this one thing you should never lose hope God's gracious purpose for you will never be thwarted.

No matter how messy, no matter how unbelievably evil it's going, God will accomplish His purposes. And I read this story, I remain confident in God's power to accomplish His gracious plan even when that power appears nowhere in sight. Even when the power of God appears nowhere in sight, He will still accomplish His purposes. How do I know that? Because of Jesus.

Because of Jesus. He is that seed promised to Abraham in the covenant. He appeared with irrefutable evidence that he came to bless but then suddenly god's power seemed to evaporate is that not true instead of people running to him what happens they turn against him Like Esau they were overwhelmed with this incredible desire for vengeance And that vengeful anger wanted nothing short of the death of Jesus.

Like Isaac, serving their appetites, they turned against him when he wouldn't fulfill their desires. Right? Like Rebecca and Jacob, they schemed and manipulated for his death. Read the story. The scheming and the manipulation to accomplish his death is incredible because they thought that blessing did not come through him, but that blessing would come when they eliminated him.

Right? But what looked like a dead end for Jesus turned out to be the road to God. That's how I know. that's how I know that I don't ever need to lose hope, that you don't ever need to lose hope, that God will accomplish His gracious purposes because He did it through the most evil manipulations and actions of men that could ever be accomplished, and that was the death of Jesus.

You see, God actually uses the evil and wickedness of depraved men to bring about salvation from their wickedness. You know what? nothing's impossible nothing is impossible with God Father thank you Lord we look at these stories and sometimes forget to see this revelation of you in them and how the the different characters and everything work together to show that this God our God, you, will always accomplish your gracious purposes. So Lord, right now we want to thank you.

Even as we come to this table this morning, we're reminded, scheming, wicked, manipulation, vengeance, all turned out for our good. because of Jesus, all your promises are yes and amen. And so, Lord, as we walk away from this oh-so-familiar story, would you please impress upon us that your gracious purposes for our salvation and all that's involved in that will never be thwarted. help us father then to be people of hope we ask this in Jesus name Amen