From the Pastor's Study
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How do you think about your enemies? It can be a complex question. On the one hand we are to be kind to our enemies, bless those who curse you and all of that. But how do you get to that point? How are you able to bless your enemies, even if they come from your own family? This passage doesn’t directly answer that question, but the rest of the story that this chapter sets up, does. We will look at two points today: Your enemies are under God’s control and Your enemies can be made family in Christ. Your enemies are under God’s control In order to understand this text properly, we are going to have to remind ourselves of where it all began back in Genesis 27:39–40 “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.”” In that passage, we see a sort of anti-blessing that Isaac puts on Esau after Jacob “stole” the patriarchal blessing from him. Of course, Jacob was always supposed to receive it from God’s order. These divine words spoken over Esau set up pretty much the rest of the Old Testament in terms of the relationship between the Israelites and the Edomites (Esau’s children). In the first few verses of our chapter today, we are given the first steps of how Esau came to form a separate people. It begins with a reminder of Esau’s multiple, foreign wives. As we remember, this was something that the people of God were not supposed to do. Already, Esau was intermarrying with the cursed line of Canaan, and therefore was already separating himself from the people of blessing. Next, we see that although the prophecy is that he would be away from the fatness of the land, his association with Jacob still grants him blessing. After all, ever since Abraham, those who bless the Abrahamic line will be blessed. And Esau is indeed. In fact, there are so many possessions, that the land aint big enough for the two of them…and their stuff. Rather than reduce and remain, Esau chooses to leave for a land of his own. Esau arrives in a place called Edom (which means “red” after the stew he traded the blessing for, it also is a place of red hills). However, as we see later on in our chapter, it was already occupied by a people called the Horites. These people are replaced by Esau, which shows that Esau is a mighty hunter and conquerer. The family grows a lot and becomes a fixture of government, ruling over the land. This sets up a real contrast to Jacob and family. As Ross points out, when you get to verse one of the next chapter, Jacob is still just, well, settling in Canaan. There aren’t any major lists of kings, and in fact nothing is really going to happen in terms of any sort of authority until Joseph comes along. It can be tempting to look at this situation and think that having God’s blessing doesn’t do much. It would seem that Esau has just as many children as Jacob does, and he has even more wives than Jacob has to produce more children. All of those children and grandchildren go on to become powerful themselves, so much so they are taking over other areas of the land. Do we not sometimes see our enemies prosper and wonder about it? (Ross, 588). The land that they ruled over was, as God said, away from the fatness of the land. According to scholars, in the Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible “The land of Edom was, on the whole, inhospitable though there were areas where farming could be undertaken, particularly in the northeast. Here too herds of animals could be grazed. Edom’s wealth, however, came largely from the caravan trade which came up from the south and brought goods from India and South Arabia to the Mediterranean coast and Egypt.” To help explain such success, we actually find out later that this land was given to them by God. Look at Deuteronomy 2:4–5 (172) “and command the people, “You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful. Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.” The land, low-fat though it is, is there’s by divine gift. Interestingly, there is an expectation that this land, again, close to Israel’s possession, would allow the Edomites to know and love God. Later on in Deuteronomy 23:7–8 (195) we find this,““You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land. Children born to them in the third generation may enter the assembly of the Lord.” This seems to expect at some level that the Edomites would have the opportunity to come to the Lord. Do you see the mercy of God here? Esau, adamantly not in the covenant, nevertheless his children will have the opportunity to enter the temple and worship God. After all, Esau is the brother of Jacob. He is legitimately from Isaac’s seed. There is hope for him. This was always the plan. “Now wait a minute,” you may say, “I thought that Esau was going to be serving Jacob. How does that play out?” First of all, good on you for remembering that, and second, yes, his descendants do end up serving Israel. Despite having kings first, Edom is eventually conquered by King David. Saul was the first to go to war with them, but David was the first to bring them under his rule. This arrangement lasted, interestingly enough, for as long as they had a faithful king on the throne. When the kings of Israel and Judah obeyed God, Edom served them. When they disobeyed God, they would break out and rebel. This once again shows the comprehensive control of God over all people, not just the covenant family of Abraham. Edom ends up being condemned a number of times in the prophets for the way that the treat the Israelites later on. For example, Obadiah condemns them for taking advantage of Israel when they were fighting foreign enemies. Obadiah 1–4(918) “The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom: We have heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: “Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!” Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you shall be utterly despised. The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?” Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.” History seems to confirm that this is exactly what happened to Edom. According to one commentator, Babylon eventually came in and after conquering the rest of Judah, probably swallowed up Edom as well. There is some evidence to suggest that the people endured, but they took on a new identity, Idumeans (Matthews). Fascinatingly enough, there was one famous person in the gospel who, as told by secular history, was an Idumean: Herod the Great (Matthews). This is the Herod that tried to kill Jesus at the very beginning of his life! My! How the tables turn! A son of Esau attempts to kill THE Son of Isaac, yet is unsuccessful thanks to yet another early warning and flight from the promised land. Your enemies can be made family in Christ. Is it meant to always be this way? Are some people just destined to be enemies forever? It can sure feel that way. It seems as though Jacob and Esau, despite the patriarchs of the respective families reconciling, the kids that remain carry on the grudge. Where’s the hope? It turns out, like a lot of things, the hope actually begins in the Old Testament. Another famous prophet named Amos talks about some hope for Edom: Amos 9:11–12 (916)““In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” declares the Lord who does this.” Did you catch that? God is saying that in the midst of the Edomites, there will be those who are elect! There is hope for Edom! We see the seeds of that hope manifested in Mark 3:8 “and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him.” Did they listen? Look at Acts 15:15–18 Paul and Barnabas reports what the Lord is doing amongst the Gentiles and they quote from Amos! “And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’” The Gentiles stand in as a representative of the Edomites. That means that Edom as well as the rest of the nations have been brought near in Christ! So what does all this have to do with how we view our enemies, even the ones who hate us specifically because we follow Christ? We are called to love them, decry their hatred of Christ’s church, but always pray that they may become our brothers. You may remember the story of Jim Elliot, a missionary who wanted to reach out to a specific tribe in Ecuador. He, along with his friend, Nate Saint, were speared to death upon first contact. Their death’s launched a movement of missionary work, even amongst that very tribe. In fact, the very men who stabbed the missionaries came to Christ and became life-long friends with Nate’s son, Steve. By the way, the wife of Jim and sister of Nate went back to the tribe within two years of their relatives’ death. Enemies can become brothers again. What does this mean for you? Don’t ever count someone out. Even the most Calvinistic person can never say, “Well, that person is definitely not elect, definitely will never go to heaven.” That can never be said. The Edomites found a place in the kingdom and so can your enemies. Maybe you might even think you are beyond hope. You’ve hated God for as long as you can remember. You are never beyond God’s grace. We all, including the man you are now listening to, were once God’s enemies. That is a very scary place to be, an enemy of God. But God is so kind and gracious that He will bring people who were once His enemies and make them His adopted Children. Jesus is the friend of sinners, so come to Him today. Don’t be an enemy.
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How do you meet with God? How do you have a soul satisfying, hopeful relationship with God in this world? The question of hope and happiness has never seemed more elusive in a culture as prosperous as ours. We have never had more of our immediate needs taken for granted as we do today, and yet we find ourselves in the midst of the most anxious, psychologically burdened generation we’ve ever seen. Every day I am seeing best selling books and articles acknowledging this problem, sounding the alarm that all is not well in a world that just 150 years ago would have been considered a paradise. This revelation is a mercy from God. It’s a mercy because we now have the surest evidence that we can stop wasting time thinking we are just one more discovery from finding hope. The answer to hope is found in God’s Word, and we will see how this chapter displays that for us. Wonderfully, that hope is found in the midst of real life. As you no doubt noticed in the back half of the chapter, there isn’t a ton to be happy about. The hard things of dying in child birth and a scandalous son cannot overshadow the hope that God offers. No matter how modern we get, these are among the worst problems we can imagine. Yet God’s promises ring through even this and point to how we, too, can have a hopeful relationship with God. Let’s look at this together in our two points Hope in God requires exclusive worship of God and Hope in God requires eternal waiting for God. Hope in God requires exclusive worship of God In the first verse, God commands Jacob to leave Shechem and go to Bethel as Jacob promised that he would. As we saw last week, Jacob’s settling outside of Bethel near Shechem produced a disaster. Simon and Levi became terrorist vigilantes that will have an effect on their lives later (as we will see near the end of the book). Dinah’s life is forever changed and traumatized in the true sense of the word. Yet God visits and calls the family up to Bethel, the house of God. Even after all that, God invitation to worship isn’t rescinded. Responding to this invitation requires surrender. Jacob tells his family that they must put away the foreign gods that are among them. How did that happen?! One scholar thinks that these gods would have been part of the plunder that Simon and Levi took from Shechem (Matthews). They are rounded up and buried under a tree, possibly with the goal of desecrating the area so that no worship happens here again (Matthews). We are to worship only one God. We cannot bring any other god to the relationship. Jesus says that no one can serve two masters. Paul compares our relationship with Jesus to a marriage in which only one spouse is allowed. Where does your worship go? By worship, I mean hope. If you are struggling to find your hope in God it is almost certainly because you think hope comes from life going your way. Even the secular artists understand these things. I’ve come across one song recently of a guy singing about this women he is in relationship with. She’s perfect in every way, yet there is this haunting line part way through the song, “But there’s no man as terrified / as the man who stands to lose you.” The chorus asks God (he’s a former Mormon, Benson Boone) to please not take “these beautiful things that I’ve got.” Perhaps you’ve expressed that sentiment. Maybe it is disguised as a joke when you say, “Well, things are going well, so I’m going to knock on wood/ brace for the other shoe to drop.” Why do we talk like that? Because our hope is in the thing we fear to lose. This isn’t a call to some sort of Buddhistic disattachment to things. The Buddhists think that pain comes from being attached to things that eventually die, so the solution is just to never attach. That’s not caution; it’s just cowardice. That’s just looking at the world in terms of dangers to you. It is never losing beautiful things because you never received any beautiful things to begin with. God’s call is much more profound. He reveals Himself to you in such a way that losing beautiful things—even dying—as gain. HOW? Through His promises. First, look at the safe journey the family has on the way. “A terror from God” not the sons’ swords, mind you, protects the family as they go. Second, when they arrive, look at what God promises to the family. A scholar points out that while these promises are very familiar, there has been some building here. The language takes on new significance. Look at the word “nations.” This is appropriate because Jacob has a new name, Israel. As such, he represents a new nation-state, a world-recognized authority in a region. This isn’t just a clan, it is a government entity. As such, it is appropriate that we emphasize “kings” coming from this family (Matthews). Of course, thrown in there is the long-standing promise of descendants and land. But in the midst of all of that, there are notes of tragedy, as God so often waits until those times to reiterate these promises. In the midst of this chapter we see some key deaths. The first mentioned is Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse. To be clear, this is Jacob’s mother’s servant that is dying here, not to be confused with Rachel’s servant. This woman would have been there from the very beginning with Jacob, so her death would have been a significant loss. It is pointed out where she is buried, in a place named “oak of weeping.” Promises are received despite tragedy and heartache. What’s more, some promises are received through tragedy. In verses 16-21 we are given the heart-wrenching story of the death of Rachel, Jacob’s wife of his passionate youth. This is the woman he sought so hard to protect and favor, yet he could not save her from death. Rachel asked for one more son way back when she was competing with Leah. Here that prayer is answered, but it will cost her her life (Ross, 582). She names him “son of my sorrow” as she recognized that she was dying. Jacob instead names him “son of my right hand,” a name of favor (Matthews). Here God fulfills the promise of descendants even through the death of Rachel. Does the thing you hope in provide through tragedies like that? No! But why do we do it anyway? Because we aren’t patient. We want things to provide us hope now; we need to see results now. I want tangible expressions of joy and security before I will risk hope. But to get God’s blessings, you have to wait. Hope in God requires eternal waiting for God. The promises of God aren’t instant. True, they cannot be touched by anything, but they will also not be rushed by anything. Look with me at this quick verse in 22. Here we are given a glimpse into yet another failure of Israel’s sons, Reuben. He has relations with his father’s concubine, but there isn’t any real reason or response given. We have to do a little speculation here, but it is possible that Reuben (the firstborn) is making a challenge to Israel’s authority. King David’s son commits this exact same crime as a challenge to David’s throne, and it is very likely the same thing is going on here. God has promised that there would be kings and descendants to Israel, so from a worldly perspective, how do you get that? Take the wife of the king! Produce descendants yourself! Don’t wait for a blessing to be bestowed, take what you can. And there’s a certain logic to that. The world agrees that it is full of trouble and no guarantees. So the solution is to take whatever happiness comes your way for however long it lasts. Don’t wait for happiness from God; inject it. Don’t seek a faithful spouse to experience marital intimacy and joy; just find whatever happiness you can in the backseat. Don’t patiently endure proper discipline of the children, just scare them with yelling. The world is full of false promises. This was just as true of Jacob’s family as it is yours. Let me ask you, what did the Shechemites offer? They offered the same things, actually, as God did (opportunities of descendants of other nations and land) but they just couldn’t actually fulfill it, because the Shechemites need Jacob just as much as Jacob would have needed them. Further, you know what stopped them from fulfilling such a promise (if they ever really intended to anyway)? Death. The promise of the Shechemites died with them, as will everything else that makes promises to you in life. Everything in this world is vulnerable. There is no such thing as a foolproof investment. No matter how beautiful a thing is in your life, you will lose it. So if all of this is true, how do you find a satisfying relationship of hope like I asked in the beginning? Worship and wait on God alone. Why? God’s promises not to leave, the promise to forgive, the promise to unconditionally love you cannot be stopped. Romans 8:35–39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s hope. That’s what endures. It doesn’t make you be unmoved by attachment and love in this world. These beautiful things that you’ve got serve as reminders not of what you can lose but what you will one day gain in its fullest form. The joy and security you feel being lost in the eyes of your spouse is meant to point you to the ultimate security and love that is yours in Christ. The comfort you feel after working hard to earn provision for your family is meant to remind you of the provision you have now and will one day experience in its fullness in heaven. You won’t get this any other way. So practically, how do we worship and wait on God? For starters, be regular in public worship on Sunday. That is the bottom rung of the ladder of hope. Whatever you skip Sunday for is your hope and that thing is vulernable. This isn’t meant to guilt you but guide you. Do you want joy in Christ? Then gather in the place that is Christ’s own joy, the Church. He loves Her. Be a part of that. And yes, I get it, people get sick, bodies break down, traveling for family is a real thing, but is your physical absence from church, any church, on Sunday a measure of last resort, or is it the first thing on the chopping block? If it’s the first to go, then no wonder you don’t have hope! You’re cutting off your weekly dose of hope! Don’t do that to yourself! Second, be regular in private worship, your prayers and Bible intake. This world won’t let you coast on yesterday’s hope. Your own sin won’t let you coast. Stillness is stagnating. Take the time to slow down, meditate on what it is you have in Christ. I remember some months ago in the fall, I was looking outside my office through the bare trees lit by the sunset. Seasons and times remind one of the fact that all things come to an end, even me. I remember thinking about my death, as we’ve witnessed it a lot here lately. I remember thinking, “If I were to die suddenly at this age but was given the chance to say one last thing, but only one last thing, to Abby, what would I say?” A peace came over me as I realized that there is only one right answer to that question for the Christian: “Everything is going to be ok.” That doesn’t mean everything is going to be easy. Or that there are going to be no tears, or that there aren’t going to be real, painful struggles. But I mean one day, for sure, because I have God’s own sworn promise to me sealed by His very blood, that everything will work together for my good and His glory! That’s a promise worth clinging to, a promise worth letting go of whatever is in your clenched fist to get. God will not disappoint. You just gotta wait. 
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Some sermons are harder to make than others. Some texts you read and think, “Well, that’s a sordid tale. Not much to uplift the soul here. Let’s move on.” There are others where you encounter a story like this, and those brave souls who attempt to spend some time in there can see multiple ways of looking at the story. Unfortunately, this is a story that isn’t unfamiliar to our culture. Versions of this happen every day. Something like this may have even happened to you in this room. Because this topic is so familiar, it can blind us on how best to see it, because our various cultures and upbringings crowd around us as we read. A mistake that we can make in looking at this text (and really many others) is to try to find the main villain. We try to make it simple and reduce the story to pure good guys versus pure bad guys. And that’s just not what we see here. As one commentator put it, there is “ostensibly nothing…commendable” in this chapter (Matthews). He’s right. Yes, there are some actions in this chapter that are worse than others, but there is something that everyone in this room can identify with. This is a hard story, but there are two points for us to draw from it that Tim Keller, I believe, famously said: You are worse than you think but You are loved more than you know. You Are Worse than You Think One of the drawbacks of a great theological education is pride. One of my professors warned me about this in that we can look at things and go, “Well, technically this isn’t wrong.” There is the temptation to look at this scene and feel like the brothers are justified. After all, this is one of the more horrific crimes that we can imagine. Even the text itself is saying that this is an outrage. Couldn’t we frame this as an outworking of justice in a lawless place? Aren’t the descendants of this very family going to come through in a few hundred years and do the same thing anyway? They’re just getting an early start. It can sure feel justified in the wake of such a crime, but the fact of the matter is, there is no command from God or even mention of Him here (Matthews). The response to this crime is massively out of proportion, especially the methods that they used. Let’s explore this piece by piece. The troubles begin even before verse one. As scholars point out, Jacob and company were supposed to be heading Bethel to fulfill his vow before God (Waltke, 459; Ross, 572). Way back when Jacob was fleeing Esau, he had that vision of God and promised to return to Bethel to offer worship. This point is short of that vow, and it wasn’t just a one night stay, but rather, at least according to once scholar, this was a ten year layover (Waltke, 459). This setup reminds us of Lot, setting up his tent within sight of Sodom and Gomorrah. Having been in the wrong place for a long time, Dinah decides that she would like to meet with some of the other women in the city. Ancient standards would have recognized this as a very dangerous thing for her to do, because she doesn’t have anyone going with her. She is probably in her teen years, best as we can tell, so this is a very vulnerable person heading into a lawless place (Waltke, 459). This doesn’t make it her fault that this crime happened, but she should have been more careful in how she approaches this city. We have a responsibility to care for ourselves. We don’t get to simply chalk everything up to the sovereign plan of God as an excuse not to be wise in our approach to life. The command to not murder includes a command to preserve life, even our own. After she enters the city, she is found and abused. The author, Moses, goes out of his way to condemn Shechem. This is a horrible crime with no excuse for committing it. She is being used as an object, yet incredibly, Shechem has convinced himself that he actually loves her and desires her to be his wife. Obviously, this is meant to teach us about what the Canaanites were like. Like their ancestor Ham, sexual immorality is a part of their character, and it has only gotten worse. It is easy for most of us to distance ourselves from this sort of crime, but the internet has made this remarkably common. The producers of such content are often taking the same advantage that Shechem does here, and to choose to watch such things is to condone and even celebrate and motivate such crimes. Even consensual activity outside the marriage covenant is a similar abuse of such a person. It isn’t love as God calls it. But the main body of the text isn’t looking at this issue too deeply. The way the author writes about it makes it obvious enough the sinfulness of such an act. The main part of this chapter is focused on the area we would probably be quicker to try to justify, the response of the family. Hamor, the father of Shechem, comes out to negotiate a marriage. While this strikes our modern ears like an exchange of property, this is how things were done back then. While certainly women weren’t viewed as equal like they are today (more or less), losing a daughter to a marriage then did carry more economic loss than it does today. Jacob is the first point of contact, but strangely, he doesn’t react to the crime. He waits for his sons to come back and they seem to take the lead in working this out. While some commentators of Israel’s tradition and even Reformation commentators like Calvin and Luther try to rescue Jacob’s move here as wisdom and emotional control. It’s rare for me to disagree with them, but I think Matthews is correct that it is hard to look at Jacob’s reaction at the end of the chapter and still think that he isn’t just trying to avoid trouble here. It can get lost in the middle of sexual sin and mass murder, but Jacob’s passivity here opens up the possibility of Levi and Simeon acting as they do. This sort of principle applies to pastors, elders, and workplace leaders as well as fathers (Ross, 576).. Authority given is a privilege as well as a responsibility. This isn’t to say, obviously, that every abdication of leadership will result in this or that Jacob bears all the blame for the choices of his adult sons. But like Dinah, Jacob does bear some culpability here as a passive leader in this moment, and even if nothing happened, he still bears responsibility for that breach of duty at least. The Canaanites offer all the things that an ancient person could want. Yet God is the one who is going to give it to them, not the citizens of Shechem (Ross, 574). This passage reminds me of Satan tempting Jesus with a cross-free inheritance of the kingdoms of the world. But Jesus recognizes that it would be given to Him without Satan. The sons counter the offer with a condition, they would have to be made as they are. In one sense, they are correct. There couldn’t be intermarriage with a people outside the covenant of God. That covenant sign at that time would be circumcision. As we will see, they actually have no plans to mix with the people (God wouldn’t have allowed that anyway), but faithfulness to God isn’t their aim. Their aim is to use the painful recovery from the procedure to their advantage. This is obviously not the way this sign is to be used (Ross, 574). It would be like us trying to kill someone by drowning them in their baptism. It is an absolutely grisly approach to God’s signs, but we do the same by using Church attendance to sell a particular image to other people. It is a misappropriation of the sign. This is why we explain the Lord’s Supper procedure every week. We never want to use the Lord’s Supper to hide our sin. We can think, “If I don’t take this Supper, other people might ask me what’s going on in my life. I’m hiding sin, so if I don’t take, I might be found out.” Don’t do what these guys are doing here. As the story winds up, their plan works. With the men all out of commission, it is quick work killing all of them, taking all the plunder, and stealing all the people rest of the people. That is the wrong response. There is evidence to suggest that they were keeping Dinah hostage, so doing what it took to rescue Dinah would have been fully appropriate. That is what Abraham did to rescue Lot. When Abraham returned, he made a point of taking nothing that wasn’t appropriate for him to take. This moment here is not in keeping with what Abraham does. While I don’t think any of us have committed mass murder for a crime committed against us, I think it is no exaggeration for us all to respond beyond what has been done to us. We often want to return evil for evil. It’s only fair. But that’s not how it works for Christians. We are to do good to those who hate us. Its an incredibly high standard. Right here at the end, Jacob shows a bit more of his character. After all that has been done, the abuse of his daughter, the mass murder carried out by his sons, his response is what this is going to mean from a personal security standpoint! It’s a mess, and while we might not have committed these exact same crimes, we can find an uncomfortable realization that we have dealt in these categories of sin. Are there degrees of sin? Absolutely. Jacob’s abdication of leadership is not the same level of heinousness as the mass murder of a village. However, there is no such sin that is too small to avoid punishment in hell. You are loved more than you know. This is where Jesus must come in. We rightly talk about how much Jesus loves us, but when we fail to grasp the level of our sin, we cease appreciating it. Even if you have committed every one of the sins written in this chapter you can find forgiveness. This is where most people struggle with Christianity. People will say, “Oh, so you can just murder people all day, and then right before you die, just pray a prayer and boom, heaven?” The theological answer to that is yes, because that is exactly what the thief on the cross did. But it wasn’t because he prayed a prayer, but it was because Jesus, God Himself, never sinned in any capacity, never came close to sinning, but took on all the murders, all the rapes, all the lies, all the sinful abdications of leaders, and took those sins on His record so you could go free. It isn’t the prayer you pray, it is the the One who sacrificed that makes the difference. Now, lest someone say, “Well then it sounds like I can have the best of both worlds if I just wait until the last minute.” To that, let me remind you that there were two thieves. Both had access to the same information. Both of them knew that they were at the end of their lives. One was given the grace to repent, the other not. The Bible stresses that today if you hear his voice, repent. In Hebrews 3:7, 15 it is warned twice to not harden your heart to God’s calling on you. If you feel that tug to repent, give into that tug. Isaiah 55:6 tells us to seek the Lord, while He may be found. That implies that there may come a time where He can’t be found by you anymore. Has that time passed? Let’s find out. Turn from your sins, trust in Christ today, and what you will find is that God will take you as you are, but He won’t leave you there. He will take you and shape you, but you must turn to Him today. 
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Jacob has had quite a life thus far. There have been a multitude of twists and turns, deceptions and deals, and they have been leading up to this point, this last (?) conflict. The eventual confrontation with Esau has been a long time coming. It has been twenty years since he’s seen him last, and at that time, Esau was just waiting to kill Jacob. We happen to know how this story is going to shape out, so I must put on my imagination to try to feel what Jacob had to be thinking about here. How many pleasant moments were interrupted by the sudden remembrance that Esau is still out there? How did it feel to successfully tell off Laban only to remember that there was someone else way more upset out there? Now lets imagine just the last 48 hours. Jacob found out that Esau is on his way, with 400 men! He’s been bustling about getting camps ready, sending advance servants with gifts, reordering his family to protect his favorites, and then capping it all off with an all-night wrestling match with God! By the time we get to our passage, it can be tough to imagine how Jacob is even seeing straight. Maybe you’ve been here. Hopefully you’ve not had conflict where you fear for your life, but perhaps you’ve encountered such conflict, you can’t imagine it ever going away. Maybe you are even the reason that the conflict is there. No matter which position you find yourself in, I think this passage holds out hope for you today. As we will see today, and I’m leaning heavily on my old seminary prof, Alan Ross for this main point, Reconciliation is a gift from God. Reconciliation is a gift from God. Let’s remind ourselves of where we are in this narrative. Genesis started with the creation of the world, the fall of humanity, and the very beginnings of God putting the world back together. He decided to do that with the Descendant of one family, the family of Abraham. This Descendant’s line has been threatened ever since chapter 12. Sometimes by the family’s own sinful decisions, sometimes by outsiders. But the blessing and promise has been graciously passed down now three times. It started with Abraham, moved to Isaac, and now to Jacob. Jacob has seemed the least likely to inherit this blessing. While Abraham and Isaac certainly had their foibles, they weren’t named “cheater.” Jacob earns his reputation through deceitfully obtaining the blessing from Isaac (though as we saw, this was always God’s plan). He stole a birthright and blessing from Esau, and now the Descendants are under threat again as Esau is ready to kill Jacob. The moment has come. Jacob lifts up his eyes and sees Esau with his army. He prepares the family, placing Joseph in the back. One commentator points out that Joseph is the only child actually named here, perhaps to prepare us for the final third of the book to tell his story (Matthews). For all the legitimate change that has taken place in Jacob’s life, he still hasn’t shaken that favoritism. This will be revisited later. Has there been change to Jacob’s character? It is difficult to assign a motive for Jacob’s actions here, as there are a number of ways to look at this. Whether this is Jacob’s old tricks of deception with a little groveling thrown in, or the real change of heart for such a man I think is beside the point. While Jacob behaves like a servant approaching a master, Esau has clearly already been changed. He throws his arms around his brother, weeps and kisses him. The old conflict has been forgiven, and all Esau is ready to do is revel in seeing his brother again. Was it the gifts? the bowing? The distance of time that heals all wounds? No, ultimately, it was the grace of God. Grace from God is how Jacob has survived his whole life, including the time He was wrestling with God Himself. Look at how we can see God’s grace listed in Jacob’s life. Esau lifts up his eyes to see all that God has done for him. There is a whole congregation of little ones. This is in addition to the servants with all their livestock Esau encountered earlier. God has been very busy with Jacob. Have you taken time to reflect on God’s blessings to you? I recognize there are days where this is easier to do than others. It is hard to be grateful during a stomach bug or chronic pain other than saying, “At least it isn’t worse!” But try to set aside time to regularly reflect on the ways in which God has been gracious to you. We tend to only think in categories that we value at the moment, but take some time to consider how God has blessed you beyond your preferred currency. IF you are the type of person who values money, think about how God has blessed you with relationships or time or physical health, or mental health (from the book The Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom—I haven’t read it yet, but a friend has made me aware of it recently). I know it feels like a Christian cliche to count your blessings, but there is even some brain research going on that has found gratitude to be an important factor in your health! Now, let’s take a look at this beautiful moment in verses 8-11. Esau asks what all these people mean, and Jacob responds that it is meant to find favor in Esau’s eyes. Perhaps if there is any hard feelings left over, these gifts might help smooth them. Look at how Esau responds, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have.” Some commentators sees this as Esau’s moment of surrender of his birthright (Matthews). However this is framed, look at the transformation of character on Esau’s end. He lost the blessings and was so upset about it, he was ready to murder. Now, with Jacob in a subservient position, bowing before him, all the family lined up, with Esau and an army, he could make all kinds of demands here. Yet, Esau is reluctant to take even what is freely offered. Then look at Jacob! Note that he is wanting to share his “blessing” in verse 11. That is the same word for blessing that we saw on that fateful day of theft. Jacob is no longer clamoring for more. And that my friends is God’s ability to work on a heart. Jacob recognizes the grace in this moment. That may be what is behind the expression “face of God.” Jacob isn’t describing some sort of divinity for Esau, but the same life-preserving moment that Jacob experienced earlier wrestling with God is relived here (Matthews). Esau could just as easily tried to destroy Jacob just as God could have utterly destroyed Jacob in that wrestling match. But it has instead been grace upon grace. Don’t give up on praying for those hard hearts in your life, including your own. It may take decades, you might not even see the finished work of it, but don’t stop praying. If God can pull these brothers back together, then He can work on your situation, too. It might not come together exactly like this, but whatever happens, we know that God is behind it. Now you may say, “Well, this is all nice, but what about this second half of the story? It seems like Jacob is up to his old tricks again! You’ve got too rosey of a picture here.” Perhaps I do. Other commentators do indeed think that Jacob is up to his old shenanigans when he and Esau part ways. They could be right, but I want to make the case, thanks to another commentator, that this is a clean and happy ending here. I was originally in the “that rascal Jacob” camp, but Matthews I think has convinced me otherwise. As we round out verse 12, Esau proposes that Jacob come to Edom and live near him. Jacob tells him that the flocks and kids can’t keep up but to go on ahead. It seems as though Jacob gives Esau the slip and heads to another place. The two cities mentioned here are about 100 miles apart, so this is quite a distance. Matthews proposes that there is a “gap” in the story here that is perhaps filled in in chapter 36:7. In that chapter, it is said that they each had too many possessions to dwell together, so Esau dwelled in the land of Edom. That tells us that they at least considered the possibility, but rather than bog us down with those details here, we just mention that the brothers went their separate, yet peaceful ways. The focus finally turns to Jacob settling in the land. Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, has been given the name Israel and has traveled the route of his grandfather. He didn’t take anything from Esau or Laban but in fact enriched them both, similar to Abraham and the kings of the valley. He has arrived at Shechem, buys some property, and then sets up an altar. The name means “God, the God of Israel.” This fulfills Jacob’s promise at Bethel when he said that God would be his God. Here, this altar finally establishes that indeed Jacob, now Israel, has trusted God to bring him to this point. In His faithfulness, God has. So what do we take from here? We could react to this story and say, “Well, that’s a great ending for Jacob, but real life keeps going.” Indeed, it will for Jacob as well. The next chapter is going to invite a unique pain in Jacob’s life, and the whole rest of the book is going to describe Jacob’s grief of losing his Rachel, his Joseph, and the latter by the deception of his own sons! Life will only get harder for Jacob, but this is a good moment. Be quick to notice and settle in on those moments when they arrive, and then give God the proper praise for it. That altar was only possible because of the grace of God. We could also respond as modern people and say, “You know, this looks like the villain getting away with it.” Esau could be seen as this poor dope whom God for no reason at all decides to cast out of the land. Jacob, on the other hand, has undermined and deceived and he still gets what he wants. At the end of the day, no one here in this story is innocent. Esau was a sinner with his marriages and Jacob was a sinner with his lying. Yet both at the end of this story walk away more rich than can be imagined. It turns out that God only shows mercy to bad people, because those are the only people God has to work with. The ones he shows mercy to don’t deserve that mercy any more than the next person. God should have destroyed us all. And here’s the thing, both Esau and you have the same option before you. If you want the mercy of God, simply ask for it. It doesn’t really matter what happened or didn’t happen in this life. Eternity is where it really counts. You will only be here for a limited time, so don’t think about who gets what here. Know that you can have the mercy from God that admits you into heaven forever. 
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Mother’s Day is a mixed blessing for many. On the one hand, it is a wonderful occasion for families to show their appreciation for God’ precious gift to them. It’s a hard job, and setting aside time to honor and acknowledge such effort is a good and necessary thing to do. Mom’s deserve their honor, and today is a day of great blessing. However, this can be a hard day for many. Today is a reminder to many not of what they had but what they lost, or maybe never got to experience. Even for those who did get to experience both sides of motherhood, today can be tinged with guilt for past or maybe even current failures. The text that is before us today speaks to both of these categories and to the rest of us. Fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, regretful or rejoicing, we can all find comfort and encouragement from our text today. Isaiah is a prophet in Judah about 700 years before Christ was born. He was confronting sin and warning of coming judgment to the nation of Judah, the southern part of Israel. Israel (the northern kingdom) had experienced an exile about halfway through Isaiah’s time. Judah wouldn’t experience their final exile for another almost 150 years. Isaiah alternates throughout the book between statements of coming judgment and future restoration after that judgment. That future restoration happened in part through God’s working through secular politics. They at one point got to return to their land, but the major fulfillment of the nation’s hope was in the coming of Christ which Isaiah also predicts. This coming of Christ isn’t just said in the famous passages that we read at Christmas and Easter time. Christ also figures in with this chapter as well. We are going to look at two points this morning, God will never forget you and Jesus is the reminder. God will never forget you This may seem like something of an obvious thing to say but it only feels like that because God has said so often that He will be with His people. We see this most famously in Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” But we see it in many other places as well such as in Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Or also famously in Joshua 1:5 “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.” You may respond saying, “Well that was just for Joshua.” Not so because it is quoted for us in Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”” And most famously, these were the last recorded words of Jesus Himself in Matthew in Matthew 28:20 “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” God has told us over and over again that He will be with us because life screams at us to the contrary. We are made to feel that we are abandoned, that we are doing this all by ourselves. It is particularly easy to feel that way as a mother feeling like you are the only one balancing everything, and it can be isolating. It can feel like you are doing this all by yourself, and that often makes us feel like God is far away. This is an emotion that Scripture is familiar with. The Psalms sometimes wonder where God is (Psalm 13:1 “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” ; Psalm 42:9 “I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”” ; Psalm 44:24 “Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?” ), so this shows that even some of the writers of Scripture have had a hard enough time with life to express this to the Lord. Thankfully, the Lord doesn’t react to this with anger but compassionately reminding us of what is true. And it is here in this chapter that we see a really unique way of God saying He won’t leave you or forget you. God always presents Himself in male terms. He is the Father, He is a He. However, there are a few rare places in Scripture where He compares Himself to a mother. And this is one of them. He responds to the City of Zion (another name for Jerusalem) saying that God has forgotten them. They have faced and will face hostile powers, so this statement from Zion would have been said any number of times in the city. God describes Himself as caring even more than a nursing mother. It would be difficult to come up with a better analogy for loving care than a nursing mom. If there is anyone who won’t forget a child it is a new mom. Even though she has never cared for a baby before, she is instantly and inescapably aware of that child’s needs. And heaven help you if you come between her and her child. We’ve even come up with a name for this phenomenon: MamaBear. You don’t mess with MamaBear because she has a compassion for her child that will go straight through you if need be. Yet God describes his love and care beyond even a nursing mother. He goes over the tragic reality that some mothers, indeed, don’t care about their children, but God isn’t like that. He simply will not forget you. He goes even further in the following verse and describes that you have been graven on His hands. This would be surprising, because usually it is the servant who has his master’s name on his hands (ESV commentary). God flips that around, so great is His compassion. This word of compassion, as one scholar points out, gives us two great concepts of God’s approach to us. For one, it is often used of parents to children and so solidifies the concept of God’s fatherhood towards us. It also speaks to the how unconditional God’s choice is of us. He has compassion on whom He has compassion. It isn’t because we deserve it, but because He gives it to us (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament). Jesus is the reminder Now, maybe you’re here today and still in verse 14. You know theologically that the Lord hasn’t forgotten you, but boy does it sure feel like it. You’ve been dealing with a pain, or you’ve been watching someone you love in pain. Maybe you’re in the middle of the early years of parenting and things just aren’t changing for the better. You feel alone in the same trenches year after year. What do we do in those sorts of situations? Sometimes those emotions can’t be helped. Psalm 88 is unique in its lamenting in that it doesn’t have a “happy ending.” The writer is sad at the start, and despite his prayer, is still sad at the end. Sometimes God purposes to bring us through things where we can’t rely on emotions to get us through it. We don’t “feel” secure; we don’t “feel” remembered, yet sometimes God is teaching us to cling to what we know. Even when we feel verse 14 of our passage, verse 15 is still true. Though hear me when I say that we don’t try to help our emotions. So if you are in verse 14 still, let’s take a look at the first few verses of our passage. We are called to rejoice always, it isn’t meant to be obeyed by pretending. God gives us truth to cling to, to make our hearts sing once again. Here in verse 1, we are hearing the Servant speaking. Spoiler alert, this is Jesus. In verse 3 He is called “Israel” but that is meant to be a reference to the True Israel Jesus Himself. The reason to think that is that the Israel of verse 3 is supposed to bring back the “Jacob” (another word for Israel, as we saw in Genesis) of verse 5. God isn’t calling Israel to save itself. He is sending a servant (ESV Commentary) to save. The comfort for us comes in verse 6. The Servant isn’t out to just save one ethnic people group, namely the Jews. In the second half of verse 6, The Servant is going to be a light for the nations all the way to the end of the earth. That means you and me! God isn’t just paying attention to you because you happen to be a member of creation but because the Lord Jesus has pursued after you. That means if you are listening to me right now, God’s light is shining on you. He is illuminating the way to salvation. And that is quite literally the solve for all of your problems. I’m not saying that means God will make your life easy here, that would be such a small promise. Why would we complain about the next 80 years being hard, when He is going to make all the rest of eternity bliss? What problem will you have there? There will be no pain, no sorrow, no aging, no threats. And look with me, if your heart can take it, at verse 18. Isaiah tells Zion to look up and see a “they” gathering. Who are these people? The previous verse was talking about destroyers, but they have been sent away by the end of the verse. Then he goes on to talk about how how they will be ornaments somehow, and then we get this odd interruption in verse 19 where he starts to go one way, and then cuts himself off to revisit the good news of who these people are. By the time we get to verse 20, we find the answer is children. The nation, though grieving the loss of citizens through invasions gets the chance to see future generations return. This reminds us of the comfort of those who have lost children will receive them again in heaven, but this verse in particular is referring to the spiritual children of the future. Even if you weren’t able to have any children yourself, if you have been going out and discipling others, bringing them to Christ, this one is for you. Look at verses 22-23: “Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”” The future worshipers of Christ whom through your personal efforts, your mission’s dollars, and most importantly your prayers will one day assemble in heaven riding the shoulders of kings. There are no bereaved mothers in heaven. They will all have children. This is the promise of the nations, and is the promise for you. And the only way we get there is through the mercy of Christ. In heaven, all of your hardships, your heartaches, even your broken relationships will be healed in heaven. How that will play out exactly, I don’t know, but I do know that Christ bought that healing with his stripes. Those sins that you look on with shame, Christ covers. That abortion you had is covered by the blood of Christ. Those words you can’t take back will be erased from memory. God has already sent our sin as far away as the East is from the West, and poetically remembers it no more. God hasn’t forgotten you. How could He? He has compassion on you that goes beyond a nursing mother, and bought you with the blood of His Son. 
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If there is anything a human being distrusts it is authority. And there is actually good, Biblical reason for that. One of the very first things we learn about ourselves since toddlerhood is that we break rules. As we get older, we realize that people continue to break rules, and this is a reality that God Himself confirms. So can we reason that since we humans are all sinners, does that mean we should get rid of all human leaders, or at the very least make the Church a pure democracy? The Bible tells us, no. God, Our Ultimate Authority, decided to work through human leaders to help His people, and believe it or not, that is actually a better way to do it. Why? Because that is the way He does it. He could have decided to just speak straight from heaven, live streaming Jesus directly into our sanctuaries and church officer meetings. God decided to do something better. If He lead the Church with Zoom call Jesus, anytime He would tell us to do something, we would respond, “Well, He’s Jesus. He’s perfect! We’ll never be able to reach that.” Instead, He decides to transform sinful men by the Power of the Holy Spirit through their use of the Word and prayer to be examples (however imperfect) of what every Christian should look like. The response of, “I could never be like that” is taken away. The human elder is faithful to his wife, so you, a fellow human, can be, too. The human deacon isn’t captivated by a love of money, so you can, too. Likewise, the elder and the deacon aren’t sinlessly perfect, so they confess and repent of their sins when they arise. So you should, too. These men are meant to be examples that are actually possible to imitate and learn from (1 Cor. 11:1). So as we go through this list of qualifications, this sermon isn’t limited to the three guys on our ballot this afternoon. All of you must pay attention. These are the marks of a qualified church leader, and it is your responsibility to identify such men and vote for their ascension to this work. It is also your responsibility to expect nothing less than these qualifications, knowing that no one fills them perfectly. It is also your responsibility to live up to these character qualities as well, because that is what these leaders are leading you towards. We don’t vote because a candidate is a friend or would have their feelings hurt. We vote for them because we are saying, “This man is worthy, according to God, of my imitation and trust to lead Christ’s church.” That is a heavy responsibility for all parties involved. So let us listen carefully to what the text has to say to us today. Thankfully, God has not left us to formulate the ideal candidate on our own. God has graciously given to us the profile of a church leader that transcends time, culture, and our individual ideals. You will notice that the list God leaves us with here looks quite different than what we might see on a job requirements list today, even among church job postings. There is no mention of a dynamic personality or success in business, or even previous leadership experience except the candidate’s own household. This list emphasizes character above ability. Christ wants character in His elders and His deacons. Christ wants character in His elders.First, Paul writes to a young pastor named Timothy what the church leadership is supposed to look like, and given the enormous responsibility it entails, it makes sense for Paul to say that this is a noble task for a man to pursue eldership in the church. We want to soberly encourage qualified men to this position by reminding them that this is indeed a noble task to pursue. Because this is such a noble task, it requires noble characteristics. Paul begins with the qualities to be found in an elder, or overseer, of the church. But we should stop and ask why are they called that? Well, their title gives insight to their job. The elder or overseer is to “oversee,” lead, notice and act on what is happening in the church. Paul uses the term “overseer” here and the word translated “elder” in Titus 2:2. Same office, different words to describe them. Both of them refer to the job of ruling. The list that follows gives us a list of things that they should be and should not be. The first is “above reproach.” In other words, His character is to be without scandal. While everyone sins in their lives, the elder is not going to have done or been something that would bring shame to the church. Things done before conversion will be treated very differently than after conversion as we do recognize the power of the gospel to transform people, but there still needs to be much wisdom applied in evaluating each case. At a bare minimum, he needs to be committed to his closest relationship, his wife. The phrasing here is strange to us, as the language literally says “a one woman man.” Is Paul only trying to keep out polygamists? This is unlikely. Polygamy wasn’t allowed in Christian culture, so it would seem to go without saying that the leaders of the church observe the basic Biblical definition of marriage as one man and one woman. As Kent Hughes sums it up, Paul is not making a quantitative requirement but a qualitative requirement. Paul is calling for faithfulness to that one woman. There is no other woman in this candidate’s life, either online or otherwise, but his wife. The next few qualities are rather self-explanatory. One doesn’t want a leader who doesn’t know how to be serious, or a leader who is impulsive and lets his feelings and passions guide him. The Bible requires that leader to be hospitable, willing to open his home to others for service. He can’t be an abrasive man who is given to violence and rushes to make conflict, again, online or otherwise. He is going to be pushed and challenged in this position, and may have people argue with him over decisions that he makes, so he must be able to handle that with grace and gentleness. He can’t be a man who is trying to escape problems with a bottle, or someone so in love with money that he could be bought. But how can we know that he is all these things? Look at his household. That is the resume, the previous experience we are looking for. Does he manage it well spiritually, physically, and financially? Because if he can’t do that in his home, Paul asks, why would we think he could do that for the church? Further, are his children who live with him obedient and following after God? Critically, this only applies to children still under his roof. We know that salvation is of the Lord, and if adult children decide to spurn the teachings of their parents after they leave the house, there is nothing a parent can do but pray for them. A wayward adult child does not disqualify a man from this position. Next, we mustn’t be in a hurry to nominate an upstart. He must not be a recent convert. A man exalted high and fast can and very often does lead to pride, just like the devil. Finally, he must be thought well of by outsiders, meaning that he has a good reputation in the community outside the church. A true christian is going to serve and be a witness such that even his enemies will know that they can count on a glass of cold water or food from him. Outsiders can spot hypocrisy from a mile away, so if they see it, we shouldn’t ignore it. While the responsibility to rule differentiates the elder from the deacon, there is only one ability that the elder is called to do that differentiates him from the deacon, and that is to teach. The elder candidate must be able to have a firm grasp of biblical truth that he can communicate when called on. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he has to have taught a Sunday school series, but it does mean that if asked to fill in, can he do so competently and accurately? Christ wants character in His deacons.Now, I’ve spent a lot of time with the elder requirements because a lot of them are the same for the deacon. Again, the common theme persists of God desiring character above all else. They, likewise, similarly, must be dignified and sincere. They are not saying one thing with one person and the opposite with another. They too cannot be in love with money or wine, yet must be in love and faithfully devoted to his wife and the rest of his household. And this is exactly what is required of him in this role. Indeed, just like the word “episkopos” gave us insight into the role of the deacon, so does the word “deacon” which means “service” tell us what this role is to be. We see the first deacons selected in Acts 6, and their charge was to look over the practical matters and needs of those in their ministry. This is not a lesser office but a different office. One doesn’t need to be a deacon first before being an elder. While the elder holds the ultimate responsibility and rulership for the direction and health of the church, they need the deacons to understand and meet the physical needs of the church. These offices give mutual support to each other. While they are not called to teach, they are still called to know, hold fast, and be transformed by the mystery of the faith, the gospel and its teachings, as we see in verse 16. They must be able to do this with a clear conscience. For those that serve well in these duties, there is the reward of a good standing before men and God which will lead to greater confidence for themselves in Christ. Now, why is this office restricted to men? Paul gives the reason in 1 Timothy 2:12–14 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For…” now, I’m going to interrupt Paul here. What do we think he is going to say? At that time, women were not considered reliable witnesses in court and they didn’t have good education. If Paul were to cite something like that, he would be either a sexist, pragmatist, or both. Paul (and critically, the Holy Spirit inspiring him), isn’t either of those things. In fact, Paul doesn’t mention anything inherent in women generally or culturally. Instead, he grounds his reasons back in Genesis: “Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” In other words, this is God’s timeless decision. The focus of sermons on texts like that are what women can’t do, but women have a lot of roles to fill in the church. Women can make podcasts, write books, go to seminary, or teach other women and children, and we need them to do all of those things, just like we need men who aren’t qualified for these two offices to serve the church in similar ways physical and spiritual. There are going to be a lot of quiet handymen and dedicated nursery workers receiving far more rewards in heaven than we expect. I believe that there will be some who will have more rewards than even some elders and deacons. Just like back in the Garden of Eden, all the blessings of God and roles in the church are open to women, but in just this one place, God has restricted. Remember, the focus in this is the Kingdom of God. Our concern is not cultural relevance or the personal satisfaction of the office holder. The purpose of these elections —no— the purpose of every aspect of our lives is to build the kingdom of God, expand His rule on earth by fulfilling the Great Commission, telling people that Christ was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. We need to tell the world that Jesus died for their sins and rose again to defeat death. We need to call the world to repentance and faith, and one way in which we do so is selecting wise and godly leaders to teach and serve. No one man can do it all except Jesus, so we need a plurality of elders to lead and teach, and a plurality of deacons to serve and assist. Both offices are needed in order that the saints that make up the church would be built up to serve their REAL Master and Head, Jesus Christ our Lord. So what do we do from here? One, we need to fast and pray that God would make it apparent who we are to select based on these qualities. All of us, whether eligible for office or not, are to conform our lives to these qualities. No one is going to be perfect, not even the ones we nominate for office, but they need to moving in their sanctification in these areas. Two, we need to pray for our leaders after the election and keep them accountable. They don’t stop needing the gospel and sanctification when they are church leaders. If anything, attacks in their lives are going to step up because Satan loves to see the church dishonored. Please keep them in your prayers. Finally, we keep in constant remembrance that this is to be done for the sake of Christ and His bride, the Church. This isn’t politics or making someone feel good. This is a matter of eternity that when done well brings great honor to Christ our Savior. 
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This week, we have looked at a number of places that people place their hope. We can hope in politics rather than worship, riches rather than sacrifice, even sin rather than holiness. Today we are going to look a one more, extremely common place people put their hope: a new day. We have come up with a lot of ways to cope with the busyness of modern life, and one of the most popular is the line, “things will slow down in a couple weeks.” Things then don’t, in fact, slow down in two weeks, so we repeat the lie again, hoping this time, it is in fact true. Now, that is meant to be funny because this is something that we do all the time, but many of us cope with much more serious things this way and use it as an excuse to view pieces of our lives as meaningless and without a job. We look at our lives as a series of “just gotta get through this” moments. We turn our lives as always just two weeks away from fulfilling. Or turning just after potty training as when life really begins, or just after the kids are married, or just after this medical scan, or just after this wedding. Do you see what that does to your life? Raising children in the fear and admonition of the Lord turns into something you just gotta get through, which means, really, it is a waste of time. Fulfilling your marriage vows before God and caring for a spouse as a picture of the gospel as you await medical results becomes a chore-filled, meaningless, busy work. Joy is always somewhere over there. This passage, however, should change literally everything, and in fact, it did. Even secular life, non-Christian people have reoriented the calendar around this. It is the year 2025, because it has been (more or less) 2025 years since Jesus was born. For the Christian, however, this passage should change every single part of your life, including those parts that you say, “I just gotta get through this, and then things will be better.” How? Well, before I answer that, I need to clear up a few things first. Number one, I’m not saying that the resurrection makes life easy. It doesn’t (yet). It’s still a fallen world (for now). I’m not saying that the resurrection turns waiting on a cancer diagnosis fun. I’m not even saying that we can’t grieve when sad things happen in our lives, and we look forward to the pain fading. What I am saying is that the Resurrection gives us the hope, the full assurance, mind you, of THE New day when all things are made new, when all things are resurrected from their dying state. On that day, all of these things that are unpleasant and sad and terrible will be redefined as the very things that lead us to the joy of heaven (Romans 8:28). We will see, with redeemed minds with the greatest hindsight capability possible, will look back over our lives from the heavenly point of view, and see that every single struggle eventually led us to this moment. So again, I am not saying that it makes life fun, but it will make life understandable. Number two, I’m not just giving you a longer time to wait. In other words, you might be saying, “Ok, so you’re just telling us to stop putting hope in two weeks from now but rather 100 years from now when I’m dead? Aren’t you just telling us to do the same thing, hoping for the future, but make it longer?” That’s an insightful question, but no. Putting your ultimate hope in eternity is very different because, number one, that future is actually guaranteed to you if you are in Christ. Two weeks from now being better isn’t it. In fact, it almost certainly will be the opposite. And number two, life slowing down in two weeks doesn’t change anything about today. Knowing that we will know whether or not it is cancer in a month does nothing for today except remind us of how much we don’t know. Jesus rising from the dead actually changes everything about today, because it proves that there is a new King Who rules the world, and He has something for us to do during the waiting times. Not only that, but He is also the God of the universe, who brings all things into our lives for a specific, and good—in all meanings of that term—reason. Let’s walk through this passage to see what this means. Jesus Really Rose from the Dead This is important for us to realize and remember. Jesus’ rising from the dead was not some sort of imaginative or metaphorical thing. If Jesus doesn’t physically rise from the dead, then we are just following a dead person who said they could give us life. We would be, as Paul said, a people most to be pitied. The world is over if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, because that means that the Father’s wrath consumed even the best sacrifice possible and still isn’t finished. The whole world would be going to hell, and not even God the Son could stop it! It is only by having Jesus come back to life again shows that He was able to provide more grace than there was sin to pay for. By dying, he paid the penalty for sin, and by rising showed the He served the full sentence. Now I know for this audience, we all believe that the Bible means what it says. The Bible is a real historical account of things as they were, but too often, Christians who do believe the Bible forget about this fact. Let’s put it this way. Let’s imagine that at the Sunrise Service this morning at Evergreen cemetery, someone dug their way back to the surface after being undeniably dead for 3 days. What else would you be talking about this week? Imagine if that guy then wrote a book. How many of you would be reading that? We would be thinking to ourselves, “Who is this who can defeat death?” You’d line up to talk to him. We would get up as early as we needed to to meet with him. We’ve gotten too used to the fact that Jesus did exactly this and what that means. It means that death isn’t the end. Yes, we all have things we want to do in this life, but we know we aren’t going to be able to do all of them before we die. And that’s ok, because we are going to live again in heaven. And if that sounds like a cheap cliche it is simply because we have gotten to used to hearing that without really thinking about it. Spend some time this afternoon really thinking about that. The pain you walk with will one day be over, and not just over but will start again, but I mean really over. And it won’t just be the end of pain, but the beginning of strength the likes of which you have never yet experienced. Those of you who know what it is like to be imprisoned by anxiety or feelings of regret from the past need to remember that you won’t feel that way forever. It will transform into the greatest sense of peace that you simply haven’t experienced yet. Heaven isn’t just the absence of negative experiences but the overflowing positive that is so hard to put into words, people who saw Jesus Himself (Paul, John) saw it and couldn’t do it. And the only reason why that is true is because Jesus rose from the dead. Life isn’t just “life is hard and then you die.” It is life is hard, but it is preparing you for an eternal experience of glory. That is what this really means. And one day, you sitting here, will experience it. And that makes a difference for you today So what does this mean for us this afternoon? What does this mean for the two weeks until things slow down? The answer comes in Jesus’ words at the end of this passage. The actual word of command here is “make disciples.” In other words, create other followers of Jesus. Of all the things that Jesus could tell us to do as the final command, that was the one. Teach others to follow after Christ. And that following after Christ isn’t all contained on Sunday morning. It affects every aspect of our lives. There is a distinctly Christian way to parent. There is a distinctly Christian way to be married, to go to a job, to suffer, to die, and more than likely it isn’t the way you intuitively think. It likely is different than how you were raised. And it works best in the places where you think it doesn’t need to be. For our purposes today, it has meaning for those waiting times, those times where you are just hanging on. What’s amazing about this command, like all of God’s commands, He helps you keep it. One of the hardest parts about making disciples is being discipled yourself. Sure, we need to be taught how to read our Bibles, pray, be a part of the church, but the concept of those things I can teach you in an afternoon. It is teaching others how to apply this reality of the resurrection to everyday life that is the real challenge. And it is exactly in those moments that you wish you could skep is exactly where those are taught. So when you are waiting on that diagnosis, that is a great prompting for additional discipleship on prayer. Nothing teaches you to pray quite like being brought to the end of your strength and finding that God was offering you His all along. The best way to learn to pray is to pray, and nothing prompts prayer quite like the unknown. Waiting isn’t wasted in this way. Or when you are waiting during those times of parenting where they have soiled the bed for the third time that day. You didn’t even know that was possible. This is a great discipleship moment of building patience and love for another while being reminded how much patience and love is being showed you. These are the moments where character is formed, where living for Christ matters, and where the Bible says there will be rewards. Matt 6:19–21“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Col 3:23–24 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Matt 25:21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ What will that look like exactly? Scripture doesn’t really say. But if God is the kind of God who sends His own Son to die for you promises wonderful gifts, I think we can trust that they will be unbelievable. Bring the hope of that day coming into the present moment. Dealing with hour two of toddlers is fraught with eternal significance. Dealing with year 24 of marriage is ripe with opportunity for serving God. Dealing with year ten of pain grants an opportunity to trust in God that will be rewarded. English Standard Version Chapter 8“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” That’s where you place your hope. Christ has bought it for you with his resurrection and it brings with it a holiness to every moment. 
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We find ourselves once again at Palm Sunday and the entrance to the city of Jerusalem. This is a significant moment in Jesus’ ministry not just because it begins the road to the cross but because this scene has much to teach us today. So much is happening in this moment that if we don’t stop to look at the details we can miss what Jesus is saying and not saying about His ministry and its startling relevance to 21st century American politics. Jesus is here to set the record straight in the two areas of life that we supposedly can’t bring up in polite conversation: worship and politics. These are sensitive issues because we tend to wrap our identity both personally and as a group around them. Both are actually important. Jesus has a role to fill in both of them, but we will be able to see which one Jesus prioritizes and will guide our thoughts for the rest of this week. This week we are going to look at hope and where it is found. We will look at one area that we tend to find hope because that is our cultural default, and see how Christ offers the better alternative. Today, we are going to see that our hope is not in politics but in worship. Hope not in Politics Our passage begins with Jesus fresh off of raising Lazarus from the dead, and now He is heading into Jerusalem, the holy city during the holy celebration of Passover. All of this is a calculated move by Jesus. He isn’t getting swept up in a frothy enthusiasm, but He is executing on ancient prophecies in a very precise way. The people had an expectation of a coming King during Passover. In fact, the Roman authorities would increase security around these things because of it (Keener, 492) While certainly there will be those who are brand new to seeing Jesus as a king, those who are shouting “hosanna” and “Son of David” leads one scholar to say that these people are effectively saying, “God save the King” (Keener, 494). I can imagine what it must have been like in that moment when Jesus rides into Jerusalem. The timing of everything couldn’t be more perfect. Jesus has just raised a four-day-dead man, one of the most impressive miracles in His ministry, and is now actively fulfilling prophecy of a coming king as the Son of David. He is doing so at Passover, a festival celebrating the first time Israel had been delivered from an ancient super power, Egypt. Could this be the deliverance from the last super power, Rome? If so, this means that Israel is about to become the final—eternal—super power. The Messiah is, after all, supposed to live forever. His rule is from sea to sea. It will be marked by unparalleled wealth and prosperity. And seeing Jesus’ ministry unfold, He would be able to do this in literally miraculous ways. Food shortages are a thing of the past now that He can just multiply food. Sickness is a non-issue as a simple touch of his garment, or even a word spoken by Him can heal from a distance. Even death, as Lazarus has just demonstrated, is now on notice. There is a level of excitement that I don’t think we who live in modernity and thus used to antibiotics and superstores of food can even understand. So why does Jesus do this? Why does it look like Jesus is teasing them with this idea? Well, for one, He’s not. He pretty quickly explains to them in John that He is going to be lifted up, and it looks like the people understand that he is speaking of death. Their question, “I thought the Christ lasted forever” points towards their understanding. The donkey riding should have also clued them in that Jesus isn’t a political revolutionary (you’d be riding a mighty steed for that message) but rather one humble, riding on a donkey. Second, Jesus really is a king. The prophets weren’t kidding that this is the triumphal entry. This isn’t named this way to be ironic. Jesus really is ascending a throne by first filling a cross and tomb. Only after that does He ascend to heaven and rule from His Father’s right hand. It is a real rulership, just not the way people are expecting it to be. Political revolution is on its way, but that is for the second advent. That is for Christ’s return. But that doesn’t mean Jesus isn’t busy building the kingdom. Where does He start the building? Worship. Fellowship with His people. That is where they find their chief joy and purpose. But where is the people’s focus? They want the Romans out of here! They want the state cleaned up, for dang’s sake! Are we not the same? We often have a lot of opinions on how politics should be conducted, but very little daily reflection is spent on worship. You can see which Jesus prioritizes. It’s not that politics isn’t important. It isn’t that Jesus is and will be King in immensely practical ways, but where is your focus in your day to day life? What is the thing you should be most concerned about? Worship! Why? Because worship is the foundation for everything else. If you worship wrongly, anything else you do correctly in life will be despite you. What I worship, anyway? Living a sacrificial life that is fundamentally oriented towards another. If you live this way towards anything or anyone but God, you will spend your life on something that can’t hold that kind of pressure and will fail on you. You need something to worship because that is what you’ve been created to do. 1 Cor 10:31 1 Corinthians 10:31 ESVSo, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Romans 11:36 ESVFor from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Psalm 73:25–28 ESVWhom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. So how do we worship incorrectly? Hope is Found in Worship Look at what was happening here. Worship in the Temple was starting to be done based on convenience. Why do I say that? After all, there are those who say that the main problem was that the money changers were cheating people, hence the description that the Temple was being turned into a “den of robbers”! Well, look carefully at verse 12. One scholar points out that Jesus drives out both the sellers AND buyers (RT France, cite in Keener, 497). And while this seems to be happening in the court of the Gentiles (where the nations could come and pray but now have to do so being bumped into by animals), Matthew doesn’t seem to emphasize that point (Keener, 500-1). There is evidence to suggest that this practice of buying animals used to take place outside the Temple in the mount of Olives, a few miles away. But there was risk in this. Remember, an animal to be sacrificed has to be unblemished, and while you’re walking down the road with thousands of other people and animals, there is a real risk your animal gets damaged along the way, meaning you spent all that money for nothing (Keener, 497). That is an understandable hardship that you would want to offload. But note how we are trying to minimize sacrifice as much as possible in this approach. The people want it easy, and the leaders of the Temple are more than happy to accommodate, even if that means turning the Temple into a place of commerce. This is something that Jesus opposes in quite strong terms. American Christians are unfortunately susceptible to this as well. If we are honest, worship is something that we try to fit into the rest of our lives rather than something we build our lives around. We look at worship as something that we need to do rather than something we need. We assume worship is one of our purposes and not the main purpose. We assume that we can get by with once a month worship at the church. We assume that we don’t need to worship as a family. We assume that as long as we get to our Bibles occasionally as individuals it’ll all sort out in the end. And then we wonder why we are so anxious about the coming week and confused about how to live life generally. Even if we have the basic answers to life’s questions we lose the reminders, the motivations for why we do them. Perhaps this is why we have so many joyless Christians. We do understand what we have to do, but it just feels like a thing we have to do because we have to do it. There’s no grander vision to it. We approach the work of participating in the rescue of our neighbor’s eternal souls, an activity done hand in hand with God like we approach filing our taxes. It’s just something we have to do, like it or not. We approach family formation, the most critical sphere of society both for Church, State, and eternal Kingdom, the most profound discipleship in all our lives with the same amount of thought as grocery shopping after a long week. We wake up profoundly concerned at the direction of the American empire as if we aren’t citizens of an eternal kingdom with God Himself on the throne. Why? Because we’ve lost worship! We aren’t a house of prayer. We don’t look at God’s face unless we can fit it in, unless it is conveinent. Now, I get it. Life is busy. Modern life has you running in 10,000 directions at once. Your calendar is full! But if you want to live the way Jesus wants you to, you might have to take a meat cleaver to the calendar. Guys, Jesus rose from the dead. He is actively building His Kingdom right now, you’ve been invited to help build it. Don’t miss that! I’m not asking you to withdraw from society to become a monk or a nun. I’m not saying you have to quit every activity that isn’t church (In fact, quite the opposite; you’ve got some souls to minister to at T-Ball), but don’t forget what you are a part of here on Earth. Don’t forget what Jesus has done. Don’t look at your life like it is your empire that you are building with Jesus along for the ride. No, JESUS is building His Kingdom and it is you along for the ride. By all means build your small business, but never forget that you aren’t working for yourself. By all means raise and enjoy your children, but never forget whose they really are. And do you know how to not forget? At least once a week, you stop everything you are doing and set aside time to come together and worship. Stop and rest. You need to stop long enough to remember what you are really doing, and you rest because you need it. You know what, your children need reminding every day. Dinner is a great time to read something, pray something, and sing something. Boom! Family Worship. The time invested is dependent on how old they are. Mine are good for a verse or two, a prayer, and a quick Psalm we are learning to sing. We’ve been singing the same one for weeks, and we’ve finally got the first verse memorized. You need reminding every day, too. “Oh, I don’t have time for all that!” you may say. You’re telling me you are facing physical exhaustion of parenting, the soul drain of a florescent-lit cubicle, and the mental strain of a schizophrenic American economy without reminding yourself and your family that King Jesus is coming to redeem and recreate all things in splendor? How are you doing that? I’d be impressed if it wasn’t sinful. I’m not saying these things to make you feel guilty. I’m not even thinking that we will be able to do this perfectly every day; I don’t. But I am publicly asking all of us why we would deny ourselves this? We’ve tricked ourselves to think that we can slack our thirst with ocean water, that our souls will do just fine without worship. That doesn’t seem to be Jesus’ opinion. He walks in to see what worship has become, worship of Him, and starts flipping tables over. Jesus, meek, mild, humble, gentle, lowly, all until worship is threatened. If that’s Jesus’ opinion, then that should be ours as well. I encourage you this week, as we all are attending more services, going through devotionals, and generally thinking about this more, see that you do have time. If you are taking some time this week to stop, reflect, and pray more than you might otherwise, just notice the difference it makes. You need worship. You need the reminder that you aren’t the end all, be all of the universe. You need to stop and rest. Don’t think of Sunday as a day of restriction full of a ton of “don’ts” and “wasted time.” Look at it as the Divinely given opportunity to do the things that we say we wish we could do more of, prayer, singing, and physical rest. How much more productive might you be if you took time once a week to stop, reflect, and be reminded that whatever your job is you will return to on Monday is filled with eternal possibility. That you are an immortal soul with a one day eternal body on your way to heaven guided by the Good Shepherd. Do that for a few weeks, and I defy you not to want to share that with your children around the dinner table. Do that for a few months and see if your soul is still disturbed by the news on TV. Do that for a few years and see if you don’t become a joyful soul that attracts others to Christ. Do that for a lifetime, and on your deathbed tell me that it was wasted time and that it hasn’t given you the deepest hope, the only hope, you could have ever imagined. I want that for you. Jesus wants that for you, too. Your King commands it. Your Father gifts it. You enjoy it. 
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We have before us a very unique passage in a couple respects. We’ve never seen God, before or since, physically wrestle a man! Usually God is in the business of revealing Himself rather than hiding Himself. There are a lot of parts to this story that seem strange and confusing. Yet for those who have known God for a while, there is actually something strangely familiar about this text. It isn’t just because you’ve probably read it before, but because you’ve probably experienced it before, albeit in a more spiritual sense, less dramatic. Today we are going to unfold what this text is getting at by looking, as we usually do, at two points today. God changes your identity and God changes your behavior. God Changes Your Identity As this text begins, we will keep in mind where Jacob is and what he is about to face. Jacob is on his way back to the promised land, but before he can enter in it, he is going to have to face his brother (and potential murderer) Esau. This is a pretty dark, sleepless night for Jacob, but there is one more surprise for him. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, a man (we aren’t told who yet) begins wrestling with Jacob. Depending on weather conditions, this could have happened in the pitch dark, so Jacob suddenly is potentially fighting for his life! This was also a long term fight, because apparently this goes until the sun starts rising. If you’ve ever done any sort of fighting, this is quite impressive. Modern professionals really get tired out after just a few rounds, so wrestling all night after a pretty stressful day shows that Jacob has some incredible strength at his disposal (Matthews). However, all things come to an end eventually, so Jacob’s mysterious opponent touches Jacob’s hip and puts it out of joint, a devastating injury for wrestling performance. A single touch to make this kind of injury begins to pull back the curtain on who this strange fighter is. He seems intent on hiding his identity, because it is the rising dawn that causes him to call the fight over. Jacob recognizes that he has been wrestling with someone important, and asks for a blessing. The man responds with what at first sounds like a strange question, “What is your name?” Names are important in the Old Testament, as they often have something to do with reputation. This is why when places in the Psalms talk about declaring God’s name to the nations, they don’t mean just shouting the word, “God” but they mean telling the world about God’s acts, His faithful reputation. Jacob’s name doesn’t have a lot of honor to it. If you remember way back at the start if his story, he is named Jacob because he came out of the womb grabbing Esau’s heel. This name “heel grabber” also has the connotation of being a trickster, a “wrastler” if you will. For Jacob to say his name is to admit of this sort of character background. This is why Jacob’s new name is so significant. The man says that Jacob will no longer be called “Jacob” but will instead be called “Israel.” Jacob is no longer going to be referred to with reference to what happened with Esau, but it is going to be in reference to what happened with God, and yes, this is God, I think. We’ll say more about it below, but I think the very fact that Jacob is being renamed is also significant for the identity of the man. To name something is to have authority over it. This is why Adam was naming all the animals, because he had been given authority over them. When kings would conquer nations, they would take in the people and give them new names to show their authority. If I were to suddenly start calling you by a different name and you just accept that, that would be an incredible power move. And I think that is what is going on here. I join with other commentators who think that this isn’t Jacob’s conversion moment, but it does parallel what our conversions look like. We can be known by several different identities. We can think of ourselves in relation to what we do. I am a preacher, a doctor, a farmer, an AC guy. In other words, you are defined by your career. For other people, they are defined by their role in their family. Maybe that is a obvious as mom or dad, but people can be known as the glue that holds a family together, the peacemaker, the executive. Sometimes people even define themselves by the worst thing they’ve ever done. I say all of this to point out that people, even Christians, can and often do make an identity on nearly anything except Jesus. Here, Jacob is being redefined away from the reputation of trickster, into the one who has wrestled with God and recieved a blessing. Once someone has wrestled with God, everything else just really doesn’t look all that significant. I remember hearing a comedian talk about the astronauts who went to the moon. He joked that those guys would be able to one up anyone at any dinner party. No matter what you’ve accomplished here on earth, the thought goes, pretty much no one else (so far) can really top walking through the Sea of Tranquility. Except Jacob. Jacob here can look at these astronauts and say, “I wrestled with the God who made the moon. And He blessed me.” Now, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute. I thought that this fighting partner was just a man. Now, you’re telling me He’s God, and Jacob OUTWRESTLED God? Heresy!” Well, that’s not exactly right. I do think that this is God here, because Jacob names the place of the wrestling “Face to face with God.” He’s really the only one able to present a blessing to Jacob as well, so I think, along with many others, that this is a pre-incarnate Christ (Phillips, 252). So how does Jacob beat Him? Well, did Jacob? Yes, it was clear that God didn’t make progress in the wrestling, but it isn’t like Jacob actually won. Any opponent who can just put your hip out of joint by touching it is in a class all their own. God could have ended the fight at any time He wanted. In fact, part of the reason why Jacob names the place what he does is because he is marveling that he survived being face to face with God. If your opponent is so strong that looking at them can kill you, the fact that the fight lasted at all was just God’s mercy in the moment. I think this is also why God doesn’t give His name here. To have a name is to have some sort of power, as we mentioned earlier, and Jacob isn’t getting that. I agree with another scholar who also thinks that this is God’s way of saying, “Come on, you really need to know my name? Isn’t it perfectly obvious as to who I am?” (Waltke, 447). This is why Jacob calls for this blessing. But why ask for a blessing from God? Had not Jacob recieved this already? He had, but under some dubious circumstances. That didn’t make it any less legitimate (God had said before Jacob was born the blessing was his), but getting this blessing straight from God once again shows beyond any doubt the blessing is fully his (Matthews). God changes your behavior Jacob carries with him one more thing from his fight with God, a limp. Getting your hip popped out is not simple, walk-it-off kinda injury. It would appear that this is something he had to deal with for the rest of his life. He literally has a new walk with God. He is a changed man, a blessed man, but a man with a limp, a weak man, a dependent man (Ross). This would be quite a change for Jacob. As one commentator put it: Genesis 11:27–50:26 Wrestling with the “Man” (32:24–25 [25–26])"Physical strength characterized Jacob’s life: at birth grasping the heel of Esau (25:26[27]), moving the stone to water Rachel’s sheep (29:10), and working Laban’s herds for twenty years in difficult conditions (31:38–40)." (Matthews). No more. Something that Jacob probably took pride in and relied on is gone. However, that made him stronger than anything his muscles could move. He was finally beginning to depend on God. One scholar put it this way, “The limp is the posture of the saint, walking not in physical strength but in spiritual strength” (Waltke, 448). That is hard for us to do. Many times we will be challenged precisely where we feel the strongest. We suddenly can’t do what we used to be able to do, physically. Things hurt, they break, they wear out. Suddenly, money that used to be such a faithful presence and comfort, one day begins its drip out. It never feels like a mercy when God rips a comfort away, but it is. God is kind enough to His people to not let them depend on things that will ultimately vanish. But we wrestle against God all the same! What God calls us to do is to submit. He will wrestle as long as it takes, and sometimes there will be hip popping involved. But as one scholar said, “When they stop wrestling with God and start clinging to him, they discover that he has been there for their good, to bless them.” (Waltke, 448). There is a little note at the end of the passage that mentions the Israelites (the descendants of Jacob) wouldn’t eat the equivalent section of hip in the animals that they would eat to commemorate this incident, and I can’t help but wonder if there is something a little more there. I don’t often do this, but I can’t help going out on a bit of limb here. When it comes to eating or in this case not eating something, there were really only two reasons the Israelites wouldn’t eat something. It was either disallowed by God because it was unclean, or it was disallowed by God because it was meant to be sacrificed. For instance, the Israelites weren’t allowed to eat the blood of the animal because that was meant for atonement for their sin. In the same way, they weren’t allowed to eat the fat of the animal because that was meant for sacrifice as well. While this particular custom wasn’t required in the law, I think they were motivated in a similar way. That was the area that God touched, and in a way, it becomes holy. Jacob had an unfixable hip because that is where God had touched Him. What if we were to think about our unfixable problems in a similar way? If it is clear that you are going through something that God is not delivering you from, I think that is your limp. Paul went through something similar with his “thorn in the flesh.” He had something really hard going on in his body that he prayed three times to get rid of, but God said no and answered that He was provided Paul with enough grace to do what He needed him to do. Paul later mentions that this thorn was given to keep him humble. Maybe that’s how you need to view your limp. Do you have something in your life that you wish wasn’t there? A physical limitation, a hard family relationship? Assuming that you aren’t actively sinning in that area, and have prayed for a deliverance that hasn’t come, look at that affliction as a holy thing from God. He doesn’t do this to torture you, but to bring you to the end of your strength. It is mean to bring you to submission and say, “Your will be done.” What are you refusing to give in with God? What is in your life that you say, “God can’t have this?” Just go ahead and give it up now. God has been patiently wrestling you, and at some point, God will make His point. Remember that you have someone Who laid down His will for you, in a garden, sweating blood, Jesus Himself is wrestling in a way, but He prevails, not by beating His Father, but by submitting to His father (Phillips, 258). You have a Champion and an example. So if you are wrestling with God, stop, and instead cling to Him (Waltke, 448). If God has given you a limp that He just isn’t delivering you from despite all good-faith efforts and prayers, then see that as a holy blessing that will keep you dependent on Him. Anything that does that is worth it. I think we will see that Jacob, I mean Israel, agrees. 
Photo by Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash
We have so much to cover here, we are going to skip fancy introductions and jump right in! We find ourselves at a brand new chapter in Jacob’s life with a fresh challenge for him, the dreaded encounter with Esau. It has been twenty years since, from Esau’s perspective, he tricked him out of the blessing of Isaac. It is important to remember that even though Jacob went about it badly, the blessing was always supposed to be Jacob’s. Nevertheless, Esau took it badly and purposed to kill Jacob when he got the chance. Jacob, at the direction of God, heads back away from Laban to the promised land of Canaan, and back to his kinsmen, meaning Esau. This is going to be one of the hardest things he will ever face, and like the rest of us, there is a mixed bag in how he approaches this test. We will start with what Jacob does well and then make some critique on how this could be better, with the expectation that we learn from his mistakes AND his faithfulness. The main point I want you to draw from this is that we are to Prayerfully prepare for life with God’s promises in mind. Prayerfully Prepare for Life with God’s Promises in Mind We are going to skip over the first two verses for the moment, as they will be more relevant for our critique portion of our lesson, so let’s just jump straight to the terror of this passage: Esau is on the way! Jacob knows that he is going to have to face Esau eventually, so he is going to try to figure out the best way to approach this. Do you remember when you need to tell your parents some bad news so you try to wait until they are in a good mood before you tell them you broke the lamp? You’re guilty, you know it, but you want to try to reduce the consequences as much as possible by waiting until their team won the game on Saturday. That’s Jacob’s strategy here. Jacob sends out an advance of messengers to get a sense of where Esau is emotionally on all this and gets a fairly vague response: Esau is coming with 400 men. Now, maybe this is a welcoming party, but given the last thing he heard from Esau was a murder threat, the most likely answer is that Esau is coming to do some damage. The text itself reminds us of why Esau could be upset. As one scholar points out, the words “Seir” and “Edom” (two names for the same country) mean “hairy” and “red” respectively, which are meant to remind us of how Jacob tricked Isaac (wearing goat hair to match Esau) and the color of the soup that Jacob made Esau buy with his birthright (Matthews). Not exactly pleasant memories of brotherly affection. Jacob jumps into planning mode, and starts arranging the camp in such a way as to minimize the damage that Esau may cause. He is greatly terrified and distressed. Blood pressure is through the roof! But what does Jacob do well here? Jacob begins to pray. This is at the center of the passage, and is the thing that I think we pay the most attention to. He opens with worship. Jacob begins with the introduction to whom He is talking, the God of his fathers, and ultimately the Lord of his life. This is the same God that guided Abraham to the land in the first place and has been faithful to Isaac in seeing wealth and blessing increase. This is not some god that has just popped up. This God has been faithful to his family for now three generations. Next, he moves into thanksgiving and confession. Jacob then moves into who is praying, namely, himself. He acknowledges that God has been faithful to him personally despite the fact that he is utterly unworthy of such covenant love. He hasn’t just been preserved but has been prospered. He went over the river with a stick and has come back with two camps worth of family and farm. How do you start your prayers? Do you, as someone once said, complain with folded hands? Are your prayers just slightly sanctified squalling? I don’t mean that you can’t tell God what is bothering you, as Jacob is about to here in a second, but if all you ever say to God is what you need and never thank Him for what He has done, you are leaving much of the blessing of prayer on the table. When we begin our prayers, we do well to remind ourselves who we are talking to and what He is able to do. You are talking to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the God of Hudson Taylor, George Muller, and Corrie Ten Boom. He is a God who is in the faithfully providing business. He is the faithful Father! This is why the Lord’s Prayer starts with “Our Father” and not “Give us this day…” You need reminding that we have a Father in heaven in the first place that canprovide daily bread. Praying isn’t just to make you feel better, it is actually doing something! As trivial as it sounds, literally anytime I am looking for something I’ve misplaced, I pray about it if for nothing else to remind myself how God cares for me. Also, it’s uncanny how many times immediately after I pray I find the thing I’m looking for. So only after reminding himself that He is talking with God does Jacob lay out the request, and then closes the prayer with a recital of the promises made to him. This is a textbook prayer. Opens with worship, continues with a confession of sorts (I am unworthy), states the cause of fear, closes with the specific promise to address this fear. Perfect! We would do well to pray similarly. Might it change our prayers for healing in our bodies if we started with a reminder that we are talking to the one who made our bodies in his image (Gen. 1:26-27)? It might sound something like this, “Our Creator God, who has formed our bodies of the dust and stamped them with his image, we are unworthy of such blessing due to the way we sin with our bodies (Romans 6:12-13). We pray for healing of this pain in my neck. We know that Your grace is sufficient for us, as it was for Paul (2 Cor. 12:7-9) and one day every trace of grief or pain will be wiped away (Rev. 21:4).” Now, can you pray, “Lord, my neck hurts!” Sure, but how much more comforting is what Jacob prays here? What if we follow the outline that Jesus laid out for us? How might that change your prayer life? It will certainly be an effective reminder to you that you aren’t just talking to the ceiling about your problems, as it were. You are going to precisely the one who can, the only one who can, deal with your issue. To be clear, I’m not giving some sort of formula that instantly solves all problems or even makes all negative emotions go away. I was reading in a book recently that prayer is not an ibuprofen that takes away pain immediately, but is rather like drinking water everyday. As time goes on, you see the benefit of the practice, but it isn’t a “fix-all” in the moment (Martin and Croft, The Unhurried Pastor). As an illustration of that, as I had said at the beginning, Jacob takes a misstep here, I think, but I’ll admit here that it is slight. Let’s go back to the first two verses we skipped over. When Jacob first arrives in the land, he is greeted by a host of angels, specifically, the angels of God. This is significant because the only other time we see that phrase in the rest of the Old Testament is when Jacob saw that heavenly staircase. God is providing for him a vision meant to remind him of God’s care for his family. I don’t think this is a random event that this vision is being provided for him right before he is to meet with Esau. Jacob even remembers the promise that God is going to provide for the children, but he is still making all of these preparations out of fear. If we can draw any sort of negative example to this it is the motivation of fear. I don’t think it is wrong that Jacob sends his brother a generous gift, but I think doing so with the motivation of fear and counting on the gift in addition to God is where Jacob is going sideways here. If God is really going to protect the children as promised, then this sort of thing is unnecessary. He doesn’t need to appease Esau for protection. He has that already in God. Now, perhaps you are saying, “Well, how do you know that he is counting on the gift in addition to God?” I think I can sus that out by how things are arranged in the next chapter when he finally meets Esau. Notice the order he places his children in. Who is at the very back? Rachel and Joseph, the favorites. He is counting on, if all else fails, their ability to escape because they would be the last to encounter Esau. He’s playing favorites again (Ross, 543). Tragically, while Esau was never really coming to attack Jacob, it is precisely Rachel and Joseph who will be the ones Jacob loses. Rachel will die in childbirth a few chapters hence, and Joseph will be sold into slavery for the majority of his life. All the tactics in the world cannot protect the way we want to. So how do we avoid this approach? Should we simply abandon all planning and wise protection trusting ourselves to God’s plan as fated? Some try to live that way, but God isn’t opposed to planning. God wants you to use the brakes on your car! God wants you to wisely spend your money to provide for your family. The difference I’m calling for here is your motivation and heart posture as you do. I’m saying we live in light of God’s promises through our obedience to His commands. Contrast Jacob to Abraham. Jacob is being obedient to God in going home and facing Esau, despite the dangers. Yet, here, he is trying to ensure his wishes (that at the very least Jospeh and Rachel are safe) are guaranteed. Abraham was also obedient to what God said, even though this meant direct danger to Isaac. The difference between the two is that Abraham was obedient to the point that he trusted God to raise Isaac from the dead. He carried up the knife because of what God said, not despite it. Jacob is trying to obey God without trusting Him. And since He doesn’t trust, he ends up sending way more animals than he needed to for Esau, AND reveals his favoritistic heart to the rest of the family. Imagine being Leah and her children placed in harm’s way before Rachel and Joseph. That’s gotta sting. In the same way, you act differently when you are acting out of distrust for God. You say that you want to provide for your family, so you set aside money for the future, but you don’t have a moment’s peace until you see the monthly statement. That’s obeying without trusting. It’s the money you’re really trusting. You study well for your test because you say that you want to work hard for God, and then feel completely crushed by a “C” on the test despite doing your best. That is obeying without trusting. It’s the identity of “Good Student” that you are trusting. Obey AND trust. So how do you get there? You have to remind yourself, like in our example prayer we did a moment ago, that your life is going somewhere, namely, a redeemed creation. And that is only coming because of Christ. You know, the word that is translated “appease” here is the same word used for “atonement.” Jacob is sending all these things for something (as we will see) he already has, the good graces of Esau. In the same way, we can think that we are constantly behind the eight ball with God and try to do things for Him in the hopes that he will be pleased with us enough to let us into heaven. What we are about to celebrate here with the Lord’s Supper shows us that we already have all the grace we need. We will go to heaven based on what Jesus does for us. That doesn’t mean that we don’t do things for God anymore, but we can do them motivated by the joy of what we already possess, rather than doing them out of fear and guilt. What’s the takeaway today? When you find yourself in fear, obey and trust. Bring your prayers to God, assuring yourself of His promises and love for you, and in light of that reality, obey Him without fear. |
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