Well, we are turning this morning in the first book of the Bible. If you're a visitor, we're working through Genesis, and this morning we come to Genesis chapter 25, Genesis 25, verses 19 through 34, as we now consider the life of Isaac and very quickly into the life of Jacob. Let's give our attention this morning to the word of the Lord, Genesis 25, verse 19. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban, the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren. and the lord granted his prayer and rebecca his wife conceived the children struggled together within her and she said if it is thus why is this happening to me so she went to inquire of the lord and the lord said to her two nations are in your womb and two peoples from within you shall be divided the one shall be stronger than the other the older shall serve the younger when her days to give birth were completed. Behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward, his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebecca loved Jacob. Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew for I am exhausted. Therefore his name was called Edom. Jacob said, sell me your birthright now. Esau said, I'm about to die. Of what use is a birthright to me? Jacob said, swear to me now. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. Well, throughout my years as a pastor and my years living, I have always loved Psalm 46. It has always been a special psalm for me. I love that psalm because it presents such a glorious perspective about life, that there's nothing that can happen in this life amidst the greatest atrocities or the greatest fears we have of the earth falling apart. All of these things that are troubling to us, the greatest possible catastrophes that happen, that psalm presents to us that God is with us in all of it, and He doesn't leave us. He helps us. It's not that we're going through any of this alone. He's with us. The God of Jacob is our help. Now, I challenged you a minute ago about the most shocking part of that psalm. The God of Jacob is with us. I really want in the next weeks for you to understand that. That is a remarkable statement in the psalm. It's in a lot of psalms. The Lord repeatedly said it to Israel that the God of Jacob is with us. And the Lord always wanted to encourage His people with that statement. Remember in Malachi when God's people were really struggling with his love and really struggling with whether he really cared about them. Remember what he said, I have loved you, says the Lord. And remember what Israel said, in what way have you loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother, says the Lord? Yet Jacob I've loved, but Esau I've hated. God always held that out to be the greatest encouragement for his people. I chose Jacob. What does that mean? Why is that so significant? Why does that matter? Well, the simple answer to that up front is, the guy was a complete bum. There is nothing attractive about Jacob. He is a shocking prodigal. His life story wouldn't make it into the worst of soap operas. You wait, I'll show you that. And it's almost as if soon after the life of Abraham, we have this reckless grandson of Abraham set in front of us. Almost, if you will, as a test. A test of the Lord's grace. How far will God really go for somebody like this? But how great is grace? That's the question that we really should explore through this section. How great is His grace, and what does that look like? I have come to a conclusion in preaching through Genesis that pastors need to treat this book early on in their ministries. Why do I say that? Why do I believe that? Well, I believe that not only because it's the first book of the Bible, but it comes way before the giving of the law. And Paul saw that as a very big, important thing for us to understand. Paul wanted us to understand that whatever we saw in Genesis, that when the law came and we saw in Israel what it was like to be under the law, God wanted to make very clear that none of that wrecked everything that we've ever learned in Genesis. And so that's why we keep getting grace, heaped upon grace, more grace and more grace to understand the Christian message and to understand as it comes as this ministry we talked about is a ministry of righteousness, of grace through faith. God wanted us to see this up front. And now what we have then is that he's highlighting for us another major section of Genesis of what grace looks like in the life of someone we would never expect it. It's messy. And yet we see from the Lord nothing but relentless pursuit. We see nothing but persistence. We see nothing but unwavering grace. And this morning, I want you to think about why you need this. The whole way through Genesis, we have learned that God never wants us to forget that the fulfillment of His promises and His salvation is never something that comes from our natural work. That's really the heart of this morning's message. God wants us never to forget that the fulfillment of His promises and salvation to you never, ever, ever has come from our natural work. It has from the start to the finish been His supernatural, His powerful, His glorious grace. And when we see that, there's no other response that we give to Him other than to bow the knee and to worship. And you're going to see that develop in the life of Jacob. You're going to see by the time we're done, a man who's come to understand this, but it was tough getting there. Let's look at this, I believe, very powerful section this morning in Genesis 25. Abraham is no longer in the picture. We dealt with his death last week. The great patriarch is gone. The next generation is now before us in Genesis, Isaac. Isaac is now on the scene, and the first question you think about, what would God begin to tell us about Isaac? What does God want us to understand about Isaac and Jacob? What is God concerned about? And we enter this scene, and it really is a shocking beginning to this scene. Did you notice the beginning of this scene? Isaac is 40 years old when he married Rebekah, the beautiful, godly woman that the Lord supplied for Isaac. But I want everyone to look down at verse 26 this morning. Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them. What is the first thing mentioned there in verse 21 of this section? Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife because she was barren. Now, this is deja vu. In the next section, he's going to lie about his wife to Abimelech. And you think, what in the world is going on here? I mean, this is a repeat. Haven't we been through this already? Over and over and over. Same stuff. Why is Genesis doing this? And we stand back and we say, well, what is God's message to us in something like that? Why do we have repeat? Why do we have repeat? You could look at this and throw up your hands in some ways, I guess, because, I mean, Ishmael has loads of kids. Remember last week? He has loads of sons and he has grandchildren. And it seems to me that as we look at this, here we are again in struggle. Here we are opening up a new chapter, if you will, in Genesis, a new section. And what do we have? We have the same old struggle again on the next generation, the same old struggle. Doesn't God get tired of this? Is the way of the wicked easier? Why this? Why does the Lord enjoy putting people through this? What is the thought? Well, what's the thought that you have for your children? What do we think about the next generation as we look at them grow up in front of us? And what is the one thing we don't want for the next generation? We don't want them to face hardship, isn't it? Isn't that true? Of course not. What's our first prayer when our children begin to go through something wrong or something bad? Lord, take it away. I don't want to see that. Why put my children through that? Remember when Paul was given the thorn in the flesh and he pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from him. And the one thing that always struck me about it is that the Heavenly Father said, no, I want you to have it. I want you to have it. Because I want you, Paul, to rest on the sufficiency of grace. I want you to learn that. I want you to learn to rest on the sufficiency of grace. It was the Heavenly Father who cared about that. Years ago, I remember Tom Brokaw's book, The Greatest Generation. Maybe some of you read that book because there's some of you here that would still be the greatest generation i think that was a generation that had been through war they had been through the great depression and i remember uh reading that and i remember that that his little statement it is i believe the greatest generation any society has ever produced he argued that these men and women fought not for fame and recognition but because it was the right thing to do i like that i think that's generally true there's a whole generation that was different than our generation but here comes the young brash next generation who has a concern with that generation what was the one great mistake that generation made what did they do with their children, gave them everything. They gave them everything so that their children would not have to go through the hardship. And what did that produce? The 60s. Hippies and long hair and peace stuff. No authority anymore was there. We know in society that that can be a problem. When you hand everything to the next generation, what happens? It's a hard message for them to think that they need anything. That's the problem with the baby boomer generation, by the way. I know I've been kind of hard on the baby boomers, but it's true. John Rainbow and I years ago when we were teaching at Central Valley Christian, we were always finding ourselves in debates in the classroom with the Arminians. And it was always an exciting experience to be in debates with the Arminians. But I remember being so frustrated, and I used to say, how could anyone think that salvation is by their own free will? I'm going to get it into them, you know, that it's not. And John Rainbow smiled at me and told me to calm down. And he said, Chris, he said, you know, let the U.S. hit severe economic downturn. Let a time of suffering come upon us. You'll see Reformed theology take off. The reason I raised this this morning to begin this sermon is to say, do you see what God's doing? Behind all of this, God's testing the next generation. God's testing the next generation. God is working behind the scenes here, imposing similar trials upon them. Why? Well, sure, He'd gladly give it all to us now. You think for a minute we could handle that? He'd gladly give it all to you now. He'd love to give it all to you now. But what would you never realize in life? What would you never grasp in life? You would never understand the meaning of grace. Never get it. You'd never view all that you have, all that you've been given, as special. You would never really understand what something supernatural is. You'd never really begin to rest upon something that is completely outside of you. You would never learn to rest and trust Him and lean upon His power to fulfill what He's promised. And all of us are trying desperately to get through the trials, man. We're trying to get through them and overcome them. And look at what the Lord's telling us. People like that, when everything's handed to them, are incredibly ungrateful. And Christianity just becomes kind of a tack-on to your already busy, successful lives that you've built by your own wisdom and your own power and your own human ingenuity. And what do you see here in Genesis? God the Father is absolutely committed to the next generation, and I love that. He has been faithful all the way through. He's committed to the next generation to make sure they understand grace and learn about sovereign grace and that His people would always learn to trust Him, His power to fulfill what they never could fulfill. And we have to remember this as we suffer and we go forward and our children, the next generation suffers and go forward. It's not always some great evil you just got to get through and get done with. I know it may be hard. I understand that. But the Lord is telling you here, remember, His fatherly care to the next generation is his care to teach grace. And the Lord begins to explain this to Rebekah this morning. They have to learn this, don't they? They have to learn this. Abraham's gone. So Isaac comes to the Lord after 20 years of struggle. 20 years. And Rebekah concedes. Now, at this point, we should be thinking, great, it's all set. The promised son has come. But a shocking thing happens. There are two children in the womb. The first instance we have of this, my mother is an identical twin. That's when one of the fertilized eggs splits and develops into two babies who are genetically the same. But then you have fraternal twins, which also runs in my family, too. And what happens is two separate eggs are fertilized, producing two different unique children. That's what you have here. Houston, we have a problem. Only one son can be the son of promise. Only one. But two are here. Who's it going to be and who decides? You know, this is really fascinating because as the text intensifies, we read in verse 22 that the children begin to struggle within her, and she says, she's troubled by this. If all is well, why am I like this? The children are literally smashing together in the womb. There's warfare in the womb. They're fighting in the womb. So she goes to the Lord, and she begins to plead with the Lord, and she wants to understand this, and the Lord answers her. The Lord answers her and he's answering us and he's helping us to understand his work. But notice what he says, two nations are in your womb and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger. Now, what did the Lord just reveal? Well, you remember how Paul applied this in Romans chapter 9, when Paul said, not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac, for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, it was said to her, the older shall serve the younger. Now, what Paul was doing there was quoting Genesis chapter 25, and he was explaining for us giving some commentary for us on what the lord was explaining to rebecca what he meant when he said that to rebecca the lord wanted something impressed upon isaac and rebecca and the lord wanted something impressed upon every generation that ever comes he wanted you to marvel at something he wanted you to stand back at something and gasp in awe at grace look at what he says the older shall serve the younger or the younger shall serve the older shall serve the younger rebecca i'm going to let you in on my divine counsel for a moment which is a remarkable moment that god lets rebecca in on the divine counsel and he says two nations are in your womb not one of them has the privileged position not one of them has any single claim to my favor i'm choosing the younger i've chosen jacob and i'm doing that before either of them are born and i'm doing that before any of them had done one work there's nothing in my mind that that changes the determination i'm not doing foreknowledge I'm choosing this before anything had ever been done, choosing Jacob. Everyone's a little bit uncomfortable with this teaching today. I understand it's not a popular teaching. It's something that repulses us, actually. But you need to stand back from this and ask, well, why is God telling us this? Why is God opening up His counsel and telling us this? And the first thing I want to say as a pastor is I don't want you to see this as a monster. What is God doing? He's teaching the next generation that His promises that were to be fulfilled could never be by a natural work or a natural choice. I'm going to show you why. Look at verse 24. When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in the womb. The first one came out all red, red. And his body was like a hairy cloak. So they called his name Esau. Afterward, his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel. So his name was called Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in tents. This is fascinating. We typically read this and think, well, this is kind of, you know, something like out of a cowboy movie, you know. Here's Esau, he's your average cowboy. He has chew in his mouth and the rifle on the back window. And this is the guy you never want to mess with, you know. Jacob is your kind of average mama's boy. He carries, pushes around the vacuum and helps mom around the house. I'll correct a little bit of that in a minute. God wants us carefully to look at these characters and ask the question this morning. who's worthy to receive? Who's worthy to receive to be the promised son? I could try to describe them in terms of occupation, and it's true that there's all sorts of plays in this. It's been a confusing section. If you go through commentaries, they're all over the map on this. It's really fascinating. In fact, I do agree with Bruce Waltke that he said the descriptions here are deliberately poking fun at both of them. And I think that's absolutely right. When it comes to Esau, it says he's red. He was like a hairy garment. His body was like this hairy mantle. When you read this, what's being described, it's like this big red animal popped out. And what you have is a picture of incivility. It's a description of an untamed man. He lives out in the fields. you know he's this powerful figure red and look this is this is this is a powerful man and then you get to Jacob and you come to Jacob I'm perplexed because it says he's a quiet man dwelling in tents I'll come back to that some translations use mild there's a lot of confusion with how to describe Jacob and I think there's a purpose in that what the text is doing is offsetting the main point is The text is offsetting Jacob and Esau as one being civilized and the other being not. And what imagery do we have here? God is challenging us to look at this. And what does the Lord look at? When the Lord looks at people, remember what the Lord said, how do we look at people? The Lord said when it came to David and Saul and all this, man looks outwardly, but the Lord looks at the heart. Here is Esau. He's a man's man. In fact, Isaac in verse 28 loves Esau. This guy can bring a stake home. Rebecca loves Jacob. He works in the tent. If I had to make a choice of whom I'm choosing, and I think this is the point, if I had to make a choice between whom I'm choosing, If Clint Eastwood and Richard Simmons were set in front of me, who am I choosing? You have the outward perspective, but interwoven in this is a different perspective. And I believe the Lord is challenging us to look at things from His perspective. How do we look at things? Oh, these little twins, they're so cute, you know, they come out. Oh, look at them, they're so cute. I don't believe that anymore. I have never had to tell my children to be mean. I've never had to tell my children to hit. I have always had to say, stop it, stop it. You stop that, constantly. What does God see? There's none righteous. No, not one. Here's what I see, says the Lord read in Scripture, often connotes hostility. See that red one there? He's a beast-like figure to me. He's fiery red. He's a seed that wants to devour. He is a beast-like figure, using the language of Revelation, in total hostility to me and my promises. That's what I see from the womb. And you know, you're really wrong about Jacob. You're really wrong about Jacob. You look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. And don't think that's a compliment when he looks at the heart. He came out grabbing. He came out grabbing that heel. And you know, the name picks up on his character. His name means supplanted or deceitful. Jacob was a master schemer. He just did it in the tent. God will change it. Remember, God has to prevail over Jacob. God has to wrestle Jacob down. Christ has to take him down and dislocate him and change his name to Israel, which means God prevails because this one's a deceiver. This one's a big deceiver. And Jacob's name means that, heel, grabber, deceiver. You have all this language here describing him. These are two vicious fighters from the womb. And you want to see what it looks like? I'll show you. It's almost as if the Lord is saying, I'll show you what this looks like. Let me show you what I constantly see in life. Let me give you the first opening scene with Jacob and Esau. Once, when Jacob was out cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew. I'm exhausted. Therefore, his name was called Edom. Jacob said, sell me your birthright now. Can you hear it? Sell me your birthright. I'm about to die. What is a birthright to me? Jacob says, swear to me now. So he swore and sold away his birthright. And then Jacob gives him a feast. He gives him bread and he gives him a lentil stew and he eats and he drinks and he rises up and he goes his way. You notice that? He ate and drank and rose and went his way. That sounds a little bit like Jesus' description of people, doesn't it? Let's start with Esau. let me gulp down some of the red give me some of the red therefore his name's edom what's my birth right the imagery you have of esau he treated everything with contempt this was a circumcised son of promise it's a little serious doesn't it and firstborn had all the rights and privileges of the birthright. And for a pot of stew, he sold it. What are you doing? This is the question you should come to with Esau. It's a heartbreaking section. What are you doing? Humanly speaking, he was the one. But he counted God's promise less, worth less than a bowl of soup. And I could beat that into people and say, well, you see, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do that. Of course you shouldn't do that. But God is saying, this is the natural response. I don't care about the promises. You know, all this, it just isn't that interesting to me. What's my birthright? I'm going to live for today. It's all about today. It's all about eating and drinking and being merry. And then you have this last statement by Esau, is that he despised his birthright. Hebrews says he was profane. he sold for one morsel of food his birthright for you know that afterward he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he sought it diligently with tears esau shows us what by nature we would never choose and what we do choose that's the first message we don't want any of this you know and it really does get to the point when we take the whole mentality of let's wait and see what our children are going to do and give the sign on them to wait and see what they're going to do i can tell you what they're going to do well good thing we have jacob good thing we have jacob i mean we got the really good one here what do you see in jacob you see the greatest schemer ever look at the deception he knows his brother's starving and he cooks up the best meal he could cook up hey brother tell me your birthright once the oath was sworn it was a legally binding agreement right then and there this deceiving heel grabber surpasses his brother whom he didn't love whom he hated. Shamefully steals away his rights and blessings that came to him as the physical heir. Never for a moment waiting upon the Lord. Not waiting. He's doing it his way. And thus a long war begins between two nations, Israel, the unfaithful son, and one of their great enemies, Edom. And you'll remember when the son was born in Bethlehem, who was sitting on the throne, a son of Herod and Edomite. What is God telling you this morning? I'm looking at these children. One hates me, the other cheats to get it his own way. That's what I see. So here's the preview of coming attractions. Heel grabber steals from the hairy monster. And if you think mom and dad don't have personal election in this, they have personal election in which I find fascinating because I think it's a subtle rebuke to those who want to say that election's unfair. No, your election is unfair. Dad likes the son who gives him the best meat, and mom likes the son who will accomplish her own will. And notice that there's election there, just wrong kind of election. There's all sorts of favoritism in homes. So here's what we have. Dad loves Esau. He can make the best stew. Mom and heel grab her. He'll grabber is not only going to rip off the brother, he's going to team up with mom and deceive dying dad on his deathbed to steal the blessing away from the hairy monster who had the right of it. Heel grabber and hairy monster are going to hate each other so much, hairy monster is going to try to kill heel grabber. Heel grabber is going to flee to a land which he shouldn't flee to, never to see dying dad again. Hairy monster will take a pagan wife to the grief of mom and dad. The family is so dysfunctional it wouldn't make it on Oprah or Dr. Phil. This is Jerry Springer. And now my question is, do you see why there has to be election? You really want to fight against it? Look at this mess that your God cares to enter into and to fix. Look at this disaster play out. And God never leaves. God never forsakes. God comes and he enters into our lives and he steps into these messes. And you know what? We all take off the fine garb today. These messes are in all of your homes. These messes are in all of your hearts. This is what God sees. And now we can begin to understand the marvels of grace. The one thing that strikes me about Jacob's description, and maybe I'm making too much of it, he uses a baffling word to describe him. The word for mild actually means complete. Let me show you where that word has been used before. Job 1, have you considered my servant Job that there is none like him on the earth? a, here's the word, a blameless man. Genesis 6, Noah was a just man, and here it is, blameless, perfect in his generation. Genesis 17, when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to him and said unto him, I am almighty God, walk before me and be blameless. Jacob is my blameless. Now, have I gone through enough to show you that his life was a mess? You'll see it. And the only way I can understand that is that a future son would come and that it would be said of him that there is the true righteous elect one, the Father says, in whom is all my delight. Jacob would learn something along the way. God was with him and God blessed him and God would view him as blameless because of that almighty son. And ultimately that is true for us. When Jesus came, there was an Edomite sitting on the throne. There was a direct son of Esau sitting on the throne in Herod. And Jesus overcame and he prevailed. He was faithful unto death and he cherished his birthright. He cherished that birthright, the firstborn among many sons, and giving all of his brothers to be, what, co-heirs with him. He didn't rip off. He had the right to it and gave for you to become a co-heir, that you would receive all those rights and blessings and would purchase for himself a whole multitude that no man can number, sons of Jacob, and would free a multitude that no man can number. And he would care his whole life to feed you with the good food from heaven. God wants every generation to understand sovereign grace. Boys and girls, every generation to get this. Because if you consider your life from God's perspective, it's not good. You'll never choose. You'll never pick God. We are rotten and scheming, rejecting and living for ourselves, and he, you're going to see in Jacob's life, he is going to make him Israel. Jacob is going to come down the road and repent and reconcile with his brother, and that's going to be a glorious moment. Anyone here who's going to enter the kingdom this morning, you need to understand one thing very clearly. You've earned not a bit of it. To the young and the old alike, none of your good ever will just outweigh the bad and get you into heaven. God knew all of this when He chose. He saw everything you would ever do, that you would ever decide. He saw the good and the bad, and the bad far outweighed, trust me. And he wants you to know that when he saves, it's a free, generous gift of free grace because of his beloved son that he freely gives to you. I pray that every Jacob and every Esau would bow the knee in repentance and faith. That's the perspective. Everyone. The Lord wants that announced to every single one of you. And that you would begin to know as you turn to the Lord and believe in Him, what it means in life that the God of Jacob is with you. Every time you read that in the Scriptures, every time you open up, I read for the beginning of the service this morning, Psalm 135. I'm going to close with this. Every time you read this, remember this. Listen to the beginning. Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Give praise, O servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of God. That's you. You're here. In the courts of the house of our God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. You want to know whether He's good? He's brought you here, and He's giving you this message of grace. Sing to His name for it's pleasant, for the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself. When you understand that and you understand that you, that same thing can be said of you and that nothing separates us from his love, that's a story. That's a message that really changes things. And I pray it has for you that you've come and bowed and believed and today can sing, praise God for the grace that I've received. Let's pray. Oh Lord, the God of Jacob is our refuge and our strength. And we understand this morning what a privilege we have to be able to say that. You've included us and you've loved us. We ask, Lord, that we would never be despisers of grace, despisers of your promise like Esau who sold it all for what this world has to offer. But that we, Lord, would marvel to see how you reach down and pull us off out of the pit and clean us up and make us servants of the King, seeing us as blameless in the perfect righteousness of your Son. May that leave us today praising you and glorifying our God in heaven who has considered Jacob. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.