Yes, excited to see what the Lord's going to do this week and praying that the Lord
provides for them down there.
I don't even know what that would look like.
Pastor Daniel threw a number at me of what that would take to take care of those 30 girls
and their babies.
They're actually, he said they have 35 babies, so I don't know if they've rescued some babies
or if they've had some set of twins or what's going on.
But it is quite a task this guy is taking on.
It's amazing how the Lord, you know, he has these connection points where he connects
you with people.
I did a funeral yesterday in Twin for some family members.
They had a friend that didn't have any family, so they asked me to come do this service.
And I was talking to one of my cousins.
I haven't talked to her probably in 20 years, but I was telling her about us going to a
Costa Rica and stuff.
And she goes, "Well, I work for a guy.
He's like a multimillionaire several times over."
I said, "I would like to meet him."
I'm just kidding.
But she said no.
She said he is a Christ follower.
She said he's invested in different ministries in South America.
He's built medical facilities.
He's built orphanages.
And I said, "Well, I need to hook him up with Pastor Daniel and see if they could do something."
And it was just, you know, like I said, I haven't talked to my cousin in 20 years.
I knew she was a Christian, but just how on fire she is and this guy that she works for.
So the Lord, he's sovereign, right?
He just does things and you're just going, "Wow!"
And I love being wowed by the Lord.
As we look at his word, I hope it wows you.
The older I get, the more I read it, the more I am wowed by our God and how good he is and
what he does and how he provides.
You realize you're his pawn, right?
We are pawns of the Lord.
And you're either pawns of the Lord or you're pawns of Satan.
Or is that spawn?
That might be spawn.
But for him to move us around and jockey us in the position that he wants us in is a beautiful
thing to see.
So may we be pliable in the Lord's hands as he does that in each one of our lives.
So we're looking here at Genesis 33 and I just want to pray here before we get started
and just ask the Lord to minister to our hearts as we see these two brothers being reconciled
here in this chapter.
Lord, we thank you so much that you give the ministry of reconciliation.
You're the one who changes a man or a woman's heart.
And I know that you're able to do that.
You're able to change our hearts on a daily basis, Lord.
So as we look at this and as we see you giving Jacob a limp that he'll never be the same,
I pray that we would never be the same.
Lord that you would wrestle all of that ugliness out of our hearts, Lord, and give us a purity
and Lord, just a simple faith that is powerful, Lord, and that can move mountains and that
you give us this gift and we praise you for it, Lord.
So we just pray that it would grow and that we would grow, Lord, as your people and Lord,
that we would truly be that clay that would be like in the hands of a potter, Lord, that's
moistened and ready to be molded and shaped into your will, Lord.
And so would you do that today as we look at this and the work that you've begun in us,
Lord, you would continue to complete it and to work on us, Lord.
So we just, we love you, we praise you and invite you to be our teacher this morning
in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Okay, so we see Jacob last time, he's never the same, right?
Remembers this day, he's dragging a leg, right?
For the rest of his life, he is gonna be reminded of his encounter with the God that created
the heavens and the earth and everything that is in them and how often we see that in the
scripture that it's a reminder and many times it's in a prayer, "Oh Lord, who has created
the heavens and the earth and all that is in them?"
When you pray that and you remind yourself of what God has done, right, your heart should
wax strong, you should be encouraged that you're petitioning this one who created everything
that you see.
And as Daniel told Belshazzar, even the one who holds your breath in his hand, he's magnificent,
he's all powerful, he's all knowing, he's everywhere present, this God of ours.
And so this is the encounter that Jacob/Israel has had.
G. Campbell Morgan said this, he called Jacob's experience "the crippling that crowns" and
created the word Israel to mean a God-mastered man.
Has God mastered you?
'Cause he needs to.
'Cause you and I sure don't do a very good job of it, right?
We go the other way like really fast and he continues to master me by exposing me to myself.
And he's gonna do that with Jacob as well.
When you really see yourself as God sees you, you realize, "Oh wow, there's a lot of work
to be done here."
So Jacob, he's here and we'll read the first three verses here in chapter 33.
It says, "Now Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and there Esau was coming, and with him were
400 men.
And so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two handmaids.
And he put the maidservants and their children in front, Leah and her children behind, and
Rachel and Joseph last.
Then he crossed over before them and bowed himself to the ground seven times until he
came near to his brother."
And so no doubt he's still thinking in his mind.
He's greatly afraid.
He's scared to death and he's putting in order of how he wants his family to die.
And I think he's counting on Esau, by the time he gets to Rachel and Joseph, he will
have felt like he shed enough blood so maybe he won't kill Rachel and Joseph 'cause he
puts them clear in the back.
Remember Bilhah and Zilpah and Gad and Asher and Dan and Naphtali are out front.
They're gonna get the brunt of Esau's wrath, or so he thinks, right?
And so, but we know that Jacob is kinda, he's kinda changing.
You know, isn't it funny how when you come to Christ and he starts cleaning up your life,
you know, I mean it can be the way you talk, it can be the things you look at, it's, I
tell people it's kinda like a, you know, it's kinda like a snake when they start sloughing
their skin.
Pretty soon those, you just, things just start sloughing off.
I was shocked how I was starting to talk.
I remember when me and Pastor Rick first got saved, he calls me, he goes, "Man, how do
you cuss when you get saved?"
He says, "Everything I say sounds so corny."
"Oh, golly gee.
Oh, shucky darn."
You know, "Doesn't sound near as good as like, you know, the F word or the Lord's name in
vain or, God, how do you cuss when you're saved?"
I said, "Golly gee."
But things do.
You see, you start to see, and some of us, it just, I don't know what it is, some of,
I seen people, when Rick got saved, his, he, I mean, he was like, he was like the Holy
Spirit on steroids.
I mean, he just grew so fast, so much faster than myself.
I was a little bit jealous.
But then my jealousy turned to, he was my hero, so to watch him grow in the grace and
the knowledge of the Lord.
And we all should be in that place where we're growing.
Yeah, some are gonna grow faster than others, but we all should be in the place of moving
forward.
Because you know as well as I do, when you quit pedaling a bicycle, you fall over, right?
So don't quit pedaling, you know.
It may feel like you're going uphill in first gear and not really getting anywhere, but
you're getting there, so keep it up.
Don't weaken.
But so he's growing a little bit here because he goes out in front, right?
He didn't just send them, he sent the animals, right?
He sent 580 head, we saw last week.
And man, kind of set Esau up if he wanted to be, but trying to cushion the blow, trying
to bring some humility or trying to, well, he's actually trying to suck up.
But who'd he learn that from?
He learned it from Uncle Laban.
He'd butter him up, right?
It says there, and he says, "So he crossed over before them," verse 3, "and bowed himself
to the ground seven times."
Now, I don't know if what he's expecting here is expecting to, I think he's expecting for
Esau to pity him.
Do you want pity from people?
It really kind of irritates me when people want to be pitied.
I don't think that we should be pitied.
I know that I'm pitiful sometimes, but Jacob, it appears that he wants to be pitied by his
brother and he bows down seven times and trying, I believe, to soften the blow that he feels
like is coming.
And so, in reality, I think the limp should have been enough.
You know, here, you haven't seen your brother for 20 years, and here he is, he comes walking
up to you, and he's got this limp.
That in itself should, right, that would be, "Aw, look at that poor guy."
Because maybe he has seen a, he's obviously seen a change in Jacob, where we've seen last
time where he calls him, he calls him Lord, and he calls himself your servant.
I'm your servant, Esau.
And so, Jacob actually could have borne witness with his limp and met Esau and gave praise
to God in his presence.
Psalm chapter 105 verse 1 says, "Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name, make known
among the nations what he has done."
Jacob seems to be walking a little bit by sight here and not by faith.
Still believing that, "Oh no, my brother's gonna kill me."
And hanging on to that promise from Esau kind of negates the promise that God had given
him that, "Oh, wait a minute, I'm gonna bring you back into the land."
You know, the Bible says that all of the promises of God to us word, towards us, are yes and
amen.
All of God's promises to you and to me are yes and may, amen, as we find ourself in Christ
Jesus.
And you know, so many people think, "Well, what's so cool about that?
Have you read the promises of God?
Do you know the promises of God?"
See, people who don't know the promises of God, that is no big deal.
But to you and I who know the promises of God, it's like, "Oh my goodness, I can't wait."
"This is gonna be so wonderful.
Thank you, Lord."
And it bolsters your faith and it encourages you.
He's expecting something bad to happen, but check it out here in verse 4.
It says, "But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and
they wept.
And he lifted his eyes and saw the women and the children and said, 'Who are these with
you?'
And he said, 'The children whom God has graciously given to your servant.'
And then the maidservants came near and they and their children bowed down.
And Leah also came near with her children and they bowed down.
And afterward, Joseph and Rachel came near and they bowed down."
So he had coached them all.
We gotta keep this guy at bay, right?
No, I think God's done a work in Esau's heart.
God can change people's hearts.
He hasn't seen his brother in 20 years.
I don't know if you've ever been sideways with a sibling or whatever.
I've got this family that I was with yesterday, my family, some of the siblings, they've gone
5, 10 years without talking to each other.
I'm just going, "Are you guys crazy?"
Is it really worth it to be that bitter towards one another?
To not talk?
And it was cool to see them because they were all together and they were all joking and
talking and they had been sideways with each other for quite some time.
And I'm just thinking, "Man, life's too short.
It's not worth it."
Let your heart be softened towards, especially towards your family, let alone friends and
brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe people you've worked with over the years that you
get sideways with.
Man, put that behind your back because it's not good for anybody.
You're not hurting them by hating them.
You're hurting yourself.
I was talking to one family member yesterday and she said, "Yeah, I just had to let it
go."
I said, "Yeah, because the old saying is true.
When you hate somebody, it's like drinking cyanide and expecting them to die."
That's what it does to you.
It just tears you up.
And so the blessing that Isaac spoke over Esau obviously happened.
You remember he blessed Esau too.
Not the blessing that Jacob got, but Esau weeps and falls on his neck and they both
weep and no doubt Jacob is so relieved that Harry's not going to kill him.
It doesn't appear that there's a discussion, "Oh, Esau, man, please forgive me.
I kind of snuck in there and cheated you out of that birthright.
No offense, but God had told me that the elder is going to serve the younger.
God had said that and we were just kind of helping God out."
I just want you to know you don't have to help God out.
God doesn't need your help.
God doesn't need my help.
He needs no help.
He will let us take part in the process and we should be seeking him to make sure we're
doing it according to his will.
But God was obviously working on both their hearts.
David was already extremely humble by bowing down seven times and having the handmaids
and the kids bow down before uncle Esau.
And they didn't feel like there was any need to argue over or discuss what had happened
in the past.
And when you can let things go like that, it's so awesome.
Just let it go.
It's behind you, right?
And Paul say, "Forgetting those things that are behind me and pressing on toward the mark,
the call that God has on our lives."
Forget it.
Put it behind you.
Yeah, but no yabbits, okay?
Do away with the yabbits.
That's back there.
Let it go.
Now, do some people sometimes need counseling?
Yeah, I think people maybe need counseling, kind of help somebody kind of help them through
the process.
But the bottom line is, is you just start praying blessing over those people that you've
had a hard time with.
And God will begin to change your heart.
And so he has everyone bowing down.
Now I don't know why they're doing this other than just trying to maintain some kind of
humility before Esau, but they had maybe forgotten Genesis 27 when it says, "Let peoples serve
you."
This is Isaac's blessing over his son, Jacob.
Let peoples serve you and nations bow down to you.
Be master over your brethren and let your mother's son bow down to you.
Curse be everyone who curses you and blessed be those who bless you.
I couldn't help but think about Chuck Schumer here the other day talking about Israel.
I'm going, "Oh, dude, you are treading on thin ice, right?
You are going to be a crispy critter.
There's going to be a bolt of lightning come down out of heaven and fry your mind in, right?"
And again, it's not because Israel is good, it's because Israel is God's, right?
That's why.
And this same promise that was made to Jacob, he probably shouldn't have been bowing down
to Esau.
But he was humbling himself and I guess we can credit him with that.
Even Esau doesn't seem to think that it's that necessary in verse eight.
Then Esau said, "What do you mean by all this company which I met?"
Right?
All these different groups of animals that he set, you know, and then how he split his
family up.
And he said, "These are to find favor in the sight of my Lord," Jacob says.
But Esau said, "I have enough, my brother.
Keep what you have for yourself."
And so he's not thinking that it's necessary for him to do all this sucking up, so to speak.
And Jacob said, "No, please, if I have found favor in your sight, then receive my present
from my hand.
And as much as I have seen your face as though I had seen the face of God and you were pleased
with me, please take my blessing that is brought to you because God has dealt graciously with
me and because I have enough."
So he urged him and he took it.
So Esau's just that dude, you know, that's going, "All right.
Yeah.
You want to give it to me?
I'll take it."
And obviously he'll grow and do well with this gift from his brother.
Maybe it's just to soothe his own conscience, right?
Jacob's generous gift.
But Esau's like, "I don't need this.
You know, there's no sense of superiority over Jacob.
They're just two totally different people."
And Esau is somebody who does not love God, right?
He doesn't love God at all.
Jacob on the other hand, he's thinking, "I think I've got to deal with this God.
I'm going to have to stand before him."
He's having these encounters.
He's seeing how God has worked in his life, how God has blessed him, how he has all this
abundance.
He can't ignore it.
Have you been ignoring God?
Do you know how much God's blessed you?
When you look at your life and you start looking back and you think, "Wow.
God you have.
You've blessed me.
You've brought me to a place I never thought I could be."
And that's definitely true in my life.
And I think to never take him for granted, never take the life that we have for granted.
And so they both said they had enough, and just like Isaac had prayed for them, they
both received this blessing.
They both seem to be fairly content with what they have.
First Timothy 6, 6 says that, "Godliness with contentment is great gain."
Do you have enough?
I really think it's so important to know whether you do or not.
Because if you don't think that you do, then you start chasing after things you probably
shouldn't be chasing after.
And Jesus talked about the whole money and mammon thing and what it is that you feel
like, "Well, if I just get this much, we'll be okay."
Well, what if you don't get that much?
Are you not going to be okay then?
For the most part, most of us sitting in this room, we have enough.
Maybe some of us just haven't recognized it yet, and bowed the knee to the God of heaven,
the one who has given us what we do have.
So Esau's peace and contentment seems to show that he was remarkably blessed, though he
didn't receive the promise of the Abrahamic covenant, as we just read there in Genesis,
right, that whoever, he says, "Let your mother's sons bow down to you.
Curse be everyone who curses you, and bless be everyone who blesses you."
And so it is with Israel.
And that's why I believe that Israel is legit for today.
They're not replaced by the church, right?
And whoever blesses Israel today, God will bless.
And whoever curses them, God will curse.
So Americans, just brace yourself.
Brace yourself.
Because if we pull away from Israel, which this administration is really pushing for,
shame, shame on America.
And we might experience some things that aren't very pleasant.
But in verse 10, would have been a great place for Jacob to witness to his brother, right?
He's humbled himself.
Esau's embraced him and wept over him.
And no doubt Esau at this point has noticed Jacob's limp.
And all he said was, "If I found favor in your eyes, accept this gift.
For me to see your face is like seeing the face of God."
Now, Jacob had just seen the face of God, right?
Isn't that what they called that place where he wrestled with God?
He called it Peniel, the face of God.
And Jacob was making this comparison, but that's where he stopped.
Have you ever done that?
You've had this opportunity.
God opens this door for you to share with somebody and you just blow it.
I mean, you have an opportunity to share Jesus with somebody and you go, "Oh yeah, whatever."
You kind of just blow it off.
That's kind of what he's doing here, right?
That he's seen the face of God the day before, the night before.
But he said nothing to Esau about it.
He said, "God's been gracious to me."
But he didn't tell his brother the facts and give God the glory.
He said, "You see why I'm limping, dude?
I had this encounter with God."
Everybody likes to hear testimony, don't they?
I mean, everybody's loved to hear.
I love to hear people's stories.
"How'd you come to know Jesus?"
And I just love all the different stories, whether it's people coming out of Mormonism
or people coming out of the drug world or people being delivered from pornography addiction.
I mean, it's just, it's awesome.
And here Jacob has this opportunity with his brother and he doesn't share with them.
Our families, you guys, our families should see a difference in us.
And there's something powerful about just a consistent walk with the Lord and proclaiming
who Jesus is to those that we love and those that see us and those that have seen a change
in us.
And obviously Esau has seen a change in Jacob, but Jacob doesn't go into detail how that
changed happened.
But in verse 11, he was negligent to share the facts with his brother.
He didn't tell Esau that he had a new name.
He said, "Well, this encounter that I had with God, he changed my name from, you know,
Cinchcutter, Heelcatcher, Kniver," and he didn't tell him about it.
Israel, what it was that the Morgan said, "A God-mastered man, God has mastered me."
I'm convinced that's God's will for all of us to be mastered by Him, to literally be
possessed by His Holy Spirit, that He would come and He would indwell us to the place
where He wouldn't be grieved by the way we live our life, that He wouldn't be quenched
when the opportunity arises.
Some think that he didn't tell Esau his new name because probably he wasn't living up
to it yet.
He wasn't living up to his new name.
He was a prince, but Warren Wiersbe said he was acting like a pauper, bowing down.
Now both guys, they realized, "Hey, we're good.
We have enough."
So after some urging, Esau took his gift, and Jacob, I'm sure, was convinced that that
was important to this whole reconciliation thing, and that he and Esau would be in much
better shape, that they could maybe live close to each other and not be embittered towards
one another.
In that culture, one never accepted a gift from an enemy, only from a friend.
And so really by Esau accepting this, he's accepting the friendship of his brother.
In verse 12 it says, "Then Esau said, 'Let us take our journey and let us go, and I will
go before you.'
But Jacob said to him, 'My Lord knows that the children are weak, and the flocks and
the herds which are nursing are with me, and if the men should drive them hard one day,
all the flock will die.
Please let my Lord go on ahead before His servant.
And I will lead on slowly at a pace which the livestock that go before me and the children
are able to endure until I come to my Lord in Seir.'
And Esau said, 'Now let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.'
But he said, 'What need is there?
Let me find favor in the sight of my Lord.'
So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir, and Jacob journeyed to Sukkoth, built himself
a house, and made booths for his livestock.
There the name of the place is called Sukkoth."
And that's what Sukkoth means, is booths.
So Esau's going, "I'll just go before you.
I'll run interference for you, man.
Let's go.
Let's go to Seir."
And that was south of where they were going, and they could go down and he could alleyman
right like God told him and go to Bethel, which is just across the Jordan from where
Esau was residing.
And Jacob's going, "Oh, no, no.
Now that I know that you don't want to kill me, I don't really want to hang out with you."
Right?
Now he wouldn't say that because he's still probably kind of scared of this guy, but he
didn't tell him that, but that's what he did.
Right?
He goes, "Come on.
I'll leave some guys with you.
They'll help you and protect you."
I mean, who couldn't use help?
But no, he's going to keep you in their arms linked.
Oh, no, no.
Don't get too close.
God had truly done a work in Esau's heart.
He's wanting to help his brother.
We will go ahead of you, but Jacob wasn't so sure.
No, he says you go on ahead and he wouldn't even let him lead the men with him because
he knew what he was going to do.
He was being Jacob.
He wasn't being Israel.
He was being Jacob.
You ever find yourself in that place?
Right?
You know what God's called you to do?
I mentioned it last night at our cowboy church, right?
James chapter 4, where it says, "He who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is
sin."
And Jacob, he's not wanting this.
He's kind of still keeping Esau at arm's length.
He's still buttering him up.
Warren Wiersbe says this about it.
He says, "Jacob was scheming instead of trusting, bowing instead of limping, pleading instead
of witnessing, promising but not performing."
Oh yeah, we'll catch up with you.
He had no intentions.
He's going to duck out, right?
Esau's headed south.
He takes a right, heads northwest back to Sukkoth and ends up in a place called Chechem.
But isn't that just like us?
That's what Paul was talking about in Romans chapter 7 when he says, "Listen, for what
I am doing I do not understand.
For what I will to do, that I do not practice.
But what I hate, that I do.
If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
For I know that in me," that is in my flesh, "nothing good dwells.
For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
For the good that I would do, I do not.
But the evil I will not to do, that I practice."
You ever had that go on in your life?
Why do I do what I do?
Why did I say that, right?
Find sight.
That's why the Bible says, "Be slow to speak.
Be slow to get angry and be quick to hear."
It is hard.
It is hard for this guy to be Jacob and Israel at the same time.
But that is the same condition that you and I are in.
We have an old man that wakes up every...
We have a Jacob that wakes up every morning, right?
We have an Israel available to us every morning.
The Spirit of God that will master you, that will keep you in a right headspace.
It will keep you thinking right.
It will keep you walking right.
It will keep you going in the right direction.
But not if you don't feed it.
You gotta feed it.
You gotta eat that spiritual food.
And all of us struggle with this.
It's good and evil.
It's the flesh and the spirit.
It's the sinner and the saint.
Who doesn't experience this?
We all do.
You remember what God told Cain?
He says, "Listen, Cain."
You know, his countenance was falling.
He was all angry.
He was getting ready to get a club and beat his brother to death.
And the Lord says, "Cain, if you do well, will you not be accepted?
But know this.
Sin is lying at the door.
And its desire is for you, but you must master it."
How do you do that with the Holy Spirit?
It's the only way you do it.
You can't do it.
I can't do it.
He will do it in us as we yield to him.
He will give us that strength.
So he lied like a stinking rug to his brother and went the other way and caved in.
Then to his fear and his flesh.
And in verse 18 it says, "Then Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in
the land of Canaan.
And when he came from Paddan-aram, and he pitched his tent before the city, and he bought
the parcel of land where he had pitched his tent from the children of Hamor and Shechem's
father for 100 pieces of money.
And then he erected an altar there and called it El Elehor Israel."
And so, what's that?
You want me to?
I don't think I pronounced it right.
I just pretended.
And so he pitched his tent.
The guy is buying a piece of ground.
He was supposed to go to Bethel.
That's not obedience, right?
What does it tell us there that when the Lord, when Samuel was talking to King Saul, you
remember what he said?
To obey is better than sacrifice.
But to disobey is as the sin of rebellion and witchcraft.
And Jacob's being a little witchy here when he don't go to Bethel, to the promised land.
That's where he was supposed to go.
Genesis 31, 13 reminded him, "I'm going to bring you back to this place."
No, he was going where he shouldn't go.
He bought a piece of ground there.
I don't know that he should have done that.
James 4 tells us this, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow, we will go to such
and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit, whereas you do not
know what will happen tomorrow.
For what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'
But now you boast in your arrogance.
All such boasting is evil."
What he was doing was evil.
He was going it alone.
He was just wanting to create distance between him and his bro, who seemed to be cool with
everything.
And most of you know what happened.
We'll look at it later, but at Shechem, it's not good.
It doesn't go good for him.
Now right there at the end, it says, "And he erected an altar there and called it El
Eloheh, Israel."
Which means, it means it is the God, the God of Israel.
Now Jacob knows who God is.
Esau, we don't see him ever bowing a knee, ever.
Esau never, never bows a knee.
We never see him not once bowing a knee to the Lord.
And yet we see Jacob here building an altar, giving a public witness of his faith in the
Lord.
But like you said, sacrifice is no substitute for obedience.
And a lot of people thinks it is.
I think I've told you about the fellow that I know that he's never had a drink of alcohol,
right?
He's made that sacrifice never to have a drink of alcohol.
But he commits adultery on his wives.
Wives, I say, because he's had more than one.
Not at the same time.
But he thinks the sacrifice of not drinking alcohol nullifies his adulterous acts.
How stupid is that?
Right?
That's like a guy thinking because he helped grandma cross the street and then goes down
the street and shoots somebody, "I helped grandma cross the street.
You shouldn't prosecute me for that."
Does it work that way?
It doesn't work that way.
Sacrifice is never, never takes a place of obedience.
God loves it when we're obedient.
His ear is open to those who will call on his name and who are willing to do his will.
Even when those who don't think they can, but they're willing to, God can work with
that.
It's the ones that aren't willing that God has to chasten and discipline and bring hard
things to their life.
Just a couple thoughts as we close.
First of all, none of us have arrived, right?
Jacob hasn't arrived or let's call him Israel.
Israel hasn't arrived yet.
There's still a lot of stuff, a lot of work to do in his life where he's at that place
where he's truly walking in the will of God.
We all have trials to endure.
We possibly have self-inflicted heartache in our future because we're good at that.
People are just good at making messes.
Also there will be tragedy in our lives that is outside of our control.
It'll come.
It's part of it.
Reading through the book of Job right now, just hard things come.
You're not gonna escape them.
Don't think that you are.
Because when you think that you are and you stay in that place, "Oh, it's just so good.
We're so good.
God's so good to us.
Nothing bad's gonna happen."
Then somebody dies or a tragedy happens.
And because of your thinking is so out of whack, it just tips people over, ruins their
lives.
No, tragedy is part of this life.
John Corson used to say it all the time.
I remember sitting in an excavator over the years.
I don't know how many times I heard him say it and listening to his Bible teaching.
This life is tragic.
It's tragic.
And if we didn't have the hope of heaven, what would be the use?
Right?
What would be the use?
What would be the use of living in obedience if we didn't have that hope?
But we do have that hope.
So it's not that these bad things are gonna happen, but when they do, the important thing
is, is we don't forget the sovereignty of God, that God's sovereign, that God's goddess.
Whether we live or whether we die, Paul talked about that, right?
No matter what, we belong to the Lord.
So the scripture the Lord laid on my heart this morning in closing is Isaiah chapter
55, verses six through nine.
You might wanna turn there and just maybe put a little border around it or something.
It's just a great passage.
And kudos to Jacob here for building this altar and reminding himself that he needs
to be a worshiper.
You and I need to be worshipers.
I just listened to a guy as I was coming in today.
He was talking about worshipers.
He said, "And men have the hardest time with being a worshiper."
Right?
Well, it's just too, you know, it's so gay or so, it's so just, it's so uncool, it's
so unmasculent.
Right?
And he says, "And really what you're doing when you don't worship is you're robbing yourself."
Right?
You know, I can never do the hands up thing.
Right?
Now, it just seems like, it seems like only girls do that.
I do that, right?
'Cause this is a sign of surrender.
Right?
All right, stick 'em up.
Okay, Lord, you got me.
Right?
That's what it is.
It's a sign of surrender.
Okay, I surrender.
That's what Jacob had to do.
That's what Esau should do.
Which one are you?
Okay, Jacob.
Because when you start to worship, right, you start losing you.
And you really does need to go away.
Right?
The Bible says to deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Him.
I got called to attempted suicide kid.
I knew him, knew him fairly well, knew him since he was a little bitty shaver.
And I went to BHC, they had him there.
You know, he had a brother, cut him down and didn't get the job done, praise the Lord.
And I said, "Hey, so you feel like you need to go away, huh?"
He goes, "Yeah."
I said, "Well, you do, but not like that."
Right?
You need to die to yourself and replace your life with the life of Christ Jesus.
That's what you need to do.
You do need to go away, but not like you were thinking.
And praise the Lord, he's still around.
He hasn't gone back there, but we all have to come to that place.
You have to come to the end of yourself.
And then you can do this, what it says here in Isaiah.
Isaiah 55.
It says, "Seek the Lord while he may be found.
Call upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly
pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts."
See when you start worshiping, when you honestly worship before the Lord, he starts sharing
his thoughts with you.
Because naturally, I don't think like he does.
But in the New Testament, we see Paul encouraging people, "Let this mind be in you that was
also in Christ Jesus."
Right?
And then he says, "And then think on these things."
And then he gives that list, right?
What is virtuous and wholesome and lovely and godly?
Think on these things.
It's a process and it's not easy, but with the Spirit of the Lord, anybody can do it.
So don't be sitting here today thinking, "I can't do that."
Yes you can.
If I can, you realize what this is standing in front of you today?
It's not much.
But I've understood over the years, I have got to yield my life to him because I have
nothing to offer.
Right?
But that's cool.
Because everything we see that's all beautiful, he made it out of nothing.
So if we become nothing, then God can make something out of us.
Amen?
Amen.
Let's pray.
Lord, thank you.
Thank you for your love.
Thank you for your word that is powerful, Lord.
It is truly that sharp sword.
It cuts into our conscience.
It cuts into our person, Lord.
And it can kill the old man.
Lord, that truly trips us up and causes us to go the other way, just like we see Jacob
running from his brother.
Lord, help us to not run, but help us to face those things in our lives, even the hard things.
Lord, knowing that you're with us and that you're able to deliver us if we'll just yield
ourselves to you.
Lord, I pray that you would teach us your ways.
Lord, that we would be those who seek you while you may be found.
Lord, and maybe that's today.
Maybe some here today haven't been seeking you at all, but here you are as you tell us
there in Revelation chapter three.
Lord, you stand and you knock at the door, the door of our hearts.
And I just pray for those who haven't yet opened that door that they would do so.
And Lord, that they would cry out to you and say, "Oh Lord Jesus, come into my heart.
Forgive me of my sin.
Lord, I turn from it and I turn fully and completely to you.
Do what you want with my life."
I just pray that anyone who hasn't done that, Lord, that they would just come to that place.
What a beautiful place it is, Lord, that we would truly, as this man was, be changed from
a Jacob to an Israel.
Lord, so help us to reconcile those things in our lives that we can.
Lord, help us to realize the things we can't change and Lord, may we leave that right at
the foot of your cross, knowing that you covered it and all you encourage us to do is to own
no man anything but to love.
And just like you loved us and laid down your life for us, even when we were lost and dead
in our sin, Lord, help us to have that heart, we pray in the mighty name of Jesus.
Amen.
[ Silence ]