Genesis Week 41 • Be Blessed

- Welcome to the Willow Ridge Sermons Podcast.

We're so glad you chose to listen today.

In this week's message,

we explore the lives of Jacob and Esau,

two brothers whose choices led them down

very different paths.

As we look at how God's blessings

impacted their family's legacy,

we're invited to reflect on our own journey of faith

and what it means to be blessed by God

and to be a blessing to others.

Thanks for listening.

- Well, good morning.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do,

I want to invite you to join us in Genesis chapter 35.

Genesis 35 · chapter mention

We're gonna start with verse 16 here in just a little bit.

If you're a first time guest,

I do thank you for being here.

Thank you for worshiping with us.

One small favor, if you wouldn't mind.

For all of the first time guests in the service,

we would love, my wife and I will be back here to my left.

We would love for you to come back there

and for us to meet you.

We're nothing special, but you are.

And we want to be able to meet you,

to thank you, to learn your name.

And if you do have any questions about Willow Ridge Church,

we would love the opportunity to answer those for you.

So if you wouldn't mind taking a couple minutes

after the service is over with,

and we will be back there in the back.

A couple of things, Harvest Hangout, it is tonight.

Want to encourage everyone to be there.

It is from five to 6.30.

Wonderful time for us to gather together

as a church family, fellowship together,

but then also how we can bless and be in ministry,

in partnership, and begin relationship

with those in our community.

So this is something for you to come to.

Hopefully this is something that you've already

been inviting, but for you to invite others to,

and would love, love, love to spend time.

There is candy, popcorn, hot dogs, and snow cones.

No broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, or Brussels sprouts.

All of this candy is organic and healthy,

and does not have anything processed in it,

just like the hot dogs.

All right, so glad that you guys can come

and hang out with us.

Do want to remind you, church, if you could be praying

tonight after the Harvest Hangout,

about 22 men from our church, we will be leaving

and departing and heading up to Black Mount

and Children's Home to serve for the better part

of next week.

We'll be returning on Thursday after lunchtime.

Please be in prayer for this team.

You know, it has been a wild week.

I'm so grateful.

So many of our men have stepped up, not only to go,

but when you find out that you're gonna do a mission trip

seven days before you're supposed to leave,

it can get a little overwhelming.

And from everybody on staff to various men

that have stepped up this week to help us plan

and coordinate that, it's just been remarkable.

And so many of you I know are prayers,

and will be praying for us.

I want to encourage you to do that.

The work there is daunting.

There's a lot to be done, and we just count it

as a privilege and an honor that God would choose us

to have the opportunity to go up there and do that.

So pray for us as we go up there to minister.

If you are a man who's going on the trip,

just a reminder, we will meet in room 200,

that's next door in building two,

the large room on your right as you go in,

for just a few minutes after the service is over with,

just to make sure that we all have our details

that we need so that we can leave out this evening.

Well, before we pray, I want to read this verse to you.

In Ephesians chapter one, verse three,

God's word says this.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us in Christ,

with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Would you join me in prayer?

God, we come to you this morning thanking you

for the wonderful privilege that we have

to open up your word.

God, I echo what Pastor Dave said.

Word may in our worship, in our study,

may we know that we are in the presence of the living God.

God, do what you would do with us,

or speak through me.

If there's any part of this that is of me,

Lord, remove it, so that you will be seen,

so that you will be heard,

and so that you will be glorified.

In the name of Jesus, we pray, amen.

So if you're there with us, in just a moment,

we're gonna start reading in Genesis 35, verse 16.

Genesis 35:16

We'll read all the way through.

We come to, I think this is the third time so far

over the book of Genesis that we come into

one of these special passages of scripture, right?

We see in chapter 36 at the very top,

at least the top of my Bible, it says,

Esau's descendants, it's the genealogy that we come to.

And oftentimes within those, I think the lesson

that we've learned is it's easy to skip over those.

We'll get some final details here in 35,

and then we'll get an abbreviated genealogy,

and then in chapter six, we're gonna get

a very, very, very, very, very, very, very long genealogy.

So here's what we're gonna do today.

Today, we're gonna draw out what God has for us within this.

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, for those of you,

I shared a couple weeks ago, we were saying,

hey, a genealogy's coming up.

I'll be praying for me, 'cause we've got some names to read,

and we're not necessarily naming our kids.

A lot of these names, right, they haven't really taken off

the way that maybe some of us thought that they would.

And so, but we are not gonna go past 36, verse nine.

And so if you're curious, we'll kind of speak

to what the rest of that is about.

If you would like to read that,

I definitely encourage you to.

Next week, though, we're gonna be starting in,

and excited about that, with looking at the life of Joseph,

one of my favorite Old Testament people

that we see in God's word.

And so I encourage you to join us back next week

as we go through that.

So let's start, Genesis 35, we're gonna read

verses 16 through 21 as we get started.

Then they journeyed from Bethel.

When there were still some distance from Ephrath,

Rachel went into labor, and she had hard labor.

And when the labor was at its hardest,

the midwife said to her, do not fear,

for you have another son.

And as her soul was departing, for she was dying,

she called his name Benoia,

but his father called him Benjamin.

So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath,

that is Bethlehem.

And Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb.

It is the pillar of Rachel's tomb,

which is there to this day.

Israel journeyed on, and pitched his tent

beyond the tower of Eder.

So here's what we see as they travel,

this thing's important as we iron out the final details

of this part of the history of God's people,

the history of God's story,

as we jump into the next part for Joseph.

As they travel, Rachel, the favorite wife of Jacob,

goes into labor and gives birth to Benjamin, the 12th son.

And now what we see is the 12 tribes, or Israel, are complete.

We've seen the names leading up to,

but historically this is when we find the fullness of this.

And as what will be a little bit of a theme in Genesis 35,

in her giving birth, she dies.

The next verse that we'll read in just a second,

it's kind of a random, why is that verse there?

Not a whole lot of commentary,

we'll try to explain it a little bit.

Verse 22, while Israel lived in that land,

Reuben went and lay with Bilhi, his father's concubine,

and Israel heard of it.

So let's just kind of pause there.

If this is your first Sunday with us,

let me invite you into the dysfunction

that is oftentimes found in the families of Scripture,

and this is one that we find.

We will see that these families

have some really big problems,

and they will also continue to have

these really big problems.

I don't know about your family,

but there's things that we've seen so far in Scripture

that are not necessarily the tendencies

that are happening in my family,

but what we can draw from is the dysfunction that's there,

the problems that are there,

and the problems that continue.

If you don't remember, Reuben is the son of Leah,

Jacob's first wife, the one he was tricked into marrying,

and so sometime after Rachel, the preferred wife, dies,

Jacob's firstborn son sleeps with his father's concubine

who had born him children.

We continue on, now the sons of Jacob were 12.

The sons of Leah, Reuben, Jacob's firstborn,

Simeon, Levi, Judah, Iscar, Zebulun,

the sons of Rachel, Joseph, and Benjamin,

the sons of Vilha, Rachel's servants, Dan and Naphtali,

the sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant, Gad and Asher,

these were the sons of Jacob who were born to him

and paddened them around.

Verse 27, and Jacob came to his father Isaac and Mamre,

and Kerath, that is Hebron,

where Abraham and Isaac sojourned.

Now the days of Isaac were 180 years,

and Isaac breathed his last,

and he died and was gathered to his people,

old and full of days,

and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

That's the end of chapter 25, 35.

Isaac dies at the age of 180 years old.

His two sons who have had animosity between them

but have come back together,

come back together again and they bury him.

And what we see here in the life of Jacob

is he's experiencing the deaths of two people

that he's got some complicated relationships with.

This isn't two relationships that he has

that neatly fit together.

It's relationships with deceit,

it's relationships with lying,

it's relationships with mistrust,

it's relationships with forgiveness,

it's a relationship about coming together,

it's relationships that have been torn apart.

And we see this.

And I think that the Bible here

is giving us some great reminders.

I mean, it feels like, why is there so and so in the Bible

where it will say so and so lived a certain amount of time

and then they died and then they lived and then they died

and they lived and then they died.

And as a pastor, this might sound really morbid,

but it is a wonderful part of our scripture that we have

because I believe what God is doing graciously

through his word is reminding his people

who can sometimes begin to think that they're invincible,

who sometimes begin to think that every breath,

that every moment isn't a blessing, isn't an honor,

isn't a gift from God, we begin to think,

oh, sure, another day, another day, another day,

I will live to be this, but it is the great reminder

that at one point in time in the course of history

that you and I, we will pass.

And a group of people will gather in a space,

sometimes small, sometimes large,

they'll tell stories, they'll shed tears,

and even oftentimes they'll look back and they'll remember

and they'll talk.

Last night, my family and I went in,

yesterday was my mom's birthday.

I've got in here her age.

I'll ask for forgiveness later.

My mom turned 69 years old yesterday.

We gathered in her house, we had a wonderful time,

and we started talking.

And recently, we've had a family member that's passed,

and in just typical conversation that comes up,

which by the way, teenagers,

I remember being your age a long time ago.

And I remember thinking like, wow,

my parents and grandparents sure do talk about people

who died a lot, right?

And I used to like, why are we always talking about this?

And then now I've come to that age

where we just talk about people who died a lot.

So extend us grace and you will be there one day as well.

But we didn't just talk about this person that died,

we started talking about other individuals as well.

We talked about my grandfather,

who passed away over 20 years ago.

We talked about my aunt who passed away

just a few years ago, this was her son who had passed,

and we began to share stories and have all of these things.

And it's this reminder in here that in our life,

there will come a point in time in a day

where there's no tomorrow for the do-over,

that there's no next hour to have that conversation,

that there's no point in time where we can say,

well, you know what, next time I'll handle it this way,

that there becomes a point in time in our life

where it's over and we pass.

But in Christ, there's a hope for a future.

And without Christ, there's not a hope for a future.

In having the opportunity to speak at a lot of funerals,

I've noticed that one of the greatest compliments

you can give someone, both in life or in their passing,

is to say, you know, that person was blessed.

Or if you're still living, you know, that person is blessed.

It's a phrase that we use,

it's used by people of faith,

it's used by people not of faith,

it's used by religious people, it's used by Christians,

it's used by those who aren't religious,

but we use this word that so and so is blessed

or so and so was blessed.

Now I believe that when the world speaks of that,

what they often refer to and refer to someone as blessing

is they look at the production of their life

and they see of what's there,

whether that's financial production,

whether that's influence production,

whether that's family production

and relationship production,

and they look at that and they say,

you know, that person is, based off of what I see

of what they have done, that person is blessed

or that person was blessed.

But we as Christians also do that

and I think what we are doing is we're giving a summation,

at least I hope we are, of that person,

of what we see in their life,

of what we see that they've produced,

but also what we know of them,

what we know of their story,

what we know of them and their relationship with God

and what we see in that.

And so we look at the summation of a person in their life,

of who they are, of what God has done in them,

and while their finances might be overly exceeding,

while their life might be filled with stress

and with issues and all the factors of what's there,

we can look at that and say, man, they're blessed.

God blessed them.

What we see so far in Scripture

and what we've read in Ephesians 1 as we began this,

that as a Christian, where our mine house to go

is that our source of what it means to be blessed

is found and is centered in our relationship with God.

If I were to ask you, do you want to be blessed,

you would say, absolutely.

If you ask me, do you want to be blessed,

you bet that I do.

But in Christianity, what we find is that our blessing

is found in whose we are,

not just in who we are.

So Christianity teaches that who I belong to is Jesus.

I belong to him.

I am his, and the beauty of that is he is mine.

And so from that determines, though, who I am.

Who I belong to, Christ, determines who I am.

It determines what I do.

It determines how I think.

It determines how I speak.

It determines how I live my life.

So if you see the overall sum and the production of my life,

I hope what you see is whose I belong to,

not just simply who I am.

In correct theology, you see, flips that.

In correct theology, reverses that.

In correct theology says who I am, what I do,

how I think, how I speak, how I live my life,

then determines who I belong to.

So act right, do right, live right, belong to God.

Act right, do right, live right, become blessed.

Act right, do right, believe right,

well, this is what we have.

But what we find and what we know is that

who I belong to matters.

It's been the story that we see as we've slowly

and methodically begin to work our way through Genesis.

It's why chapters like this matter,

as we take a step back and we look

from one generation to the next.

You see, Jacob doesn't pass here,

but we see a movement of what's next.

From Scripture, we've seen with Adam and Eve

in Genesis 1, 22, and God blessed them,

saying, "Be fruitful and multiply,

"and fill the waters and the seas,

"and let the birds multiply on earth."

Right, the blessing of God coming in this

perfect relationship of whose they were.

And God blessed them.

It's not that they did something and then got blessed.

God says, "No, no, no, here's what I'm gonna do.

"I'm gonna bless you."

We see in the call of Abraham where this story

began for us and seeing this genealogy

come all the way through to now,

we found ourself for the grandson,

and we'll see ourself in the great grandson

here in next week, Genesis 12, verses two and three.

The blessing of God to Abraham,

"And I will make you a great nation,

"and I will bless you and make your name great."

For a purpose and a reason,

"So that you will be a blessing.

"I will bless those who bless you,

"and him who dishonors you I will curse.

"And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

There's this layer of obedience that Abraham is called to.

There's this layer of obedience of what we've studied,

of what we've seen, and what we'll continue to see,

that we see in the life of God's people, of what's there,

but we have to understand that what God is doing,

what God has done, what God has set in place,

what God is orchestrating.

Because of what we're finding in these chapters,

and it's why, and I hope you're enjoying this study

as much as you can with me as we work through Genesis,

because it's telling the story of what we'll see

and what we'll be coming to understand

all throughout the Old Testament,

all throughout the New Testament.

It's the story of what God's doing.

It's the story of God's name.

It's the story of God's people.

It's the story of God creating for himself a people.

It's the story of God mobilizing a people.

It's the story of the proclamation of God's people.

And it's the story of God.

It's not the story of me, and it's not the story of you,

and it's not the story of Abraham,

but it's the story of God.

And so from the very beginning,

what we see is the blessing that blesses.

The blessing that blesses.

God comes to Abraham, and he says,

"I'm gonna make you a great nation."

He says, "As many as the stars in the sky.

"I'm gonna make you a great nation, many people.

"I'm gonna make," God says, "I'm gonna make within you.

"I'm gonna make your name great."

God's gonna change it because before his name was Abraham,

and his name's gonna become Abraham.

He's gonna become Father Abraham.

He's the Abraham that we see in Scripture,

and that others will know as they study the story of God.

God says, "I'm gonna give you great protection.

"I'm gonna bless those who bless you,

"and curse those who dishonor you."

And God says, "All of this is for a purpose."

Not so that in this, so that Abraham can build

within himself the sense of morality,

the sense of his kingdom, that Abraham can build

for himself, for his greater name to expand his borders.

But God says, "I'm gonna do all of this

"for this great calling."

It's the part of this that can be easily missed.

It's the part of this that can be intentionally ignored.

It's the part of this that we can forget

and move beyond from, but this great calling.

God says that you will be a blessing.

It's not just to receive the blessing,

but it's to be the blessing,

and from this, all families will be blessed.

And as we look at a transition from one generation

to the next, of what we've seen from Abraham

to Isaac to Jacob, we can't ignore the fact

that this doesn't end with Abraham.

This isn't a nation that ends.

This isn't a business that closes.

It's not a strategy that fails.

And so if we were to jump, as right now,

there's this strange assortment at Lowe's

of Happy Halloween and Merry Christmas as you walk in.

It's like, I don't even know what's what anymore

as we walk in.

I did see at Costco, though, for some of our young families,

they've got Christmas inflatables of Bluey's whole family.

So I waited 'til your kids were out,

and now you can go and buy those, right?

All right, we see this.

God calls Abraham, and to Abraham and Sarah,

he promises Isaac, and God fulfills,

and God is faithful, and then God blesses

them with Jacob and Esau, and then from that,

God chooses Jacob, and then God names Jacob.

God names him Israel.

We see the plan of God of working and moving

and the formation of his people,

his people that he promised to bless, to be a blessing.

And if we jump forward, the reason that somehow

I ended up at Lowe's and Bluey,

the oncoming of Christmas, we see in God's word

that from the lineage, from the names that we just read,

from the tribe of Judah, God sends Jesus.

God sends Jesus.

A family to be a blessing.

A family that was blessed for a purpose and a reason.

And we all see this movement.

We all see this trajectory.

We've got the beauty of it that we know the beginning

and we know the end, and we know the details in between.

And none of this is found in the goodness of Abraham.

None of this is found in the faithfulness of Isaac.

None of this is found in the consistent morality of Jacob.

But as the story of Scripture, it's found

in the holiness of God and in the plan of God.

But we see this family.

We see this family that's called to be,

that is blessed to be a blessing.

And as we look through, so this is the theological pieces

that we draw from this, but what does it mean

when we look at, and we look at our family?

And I'm not just talking about those of you

that are married, with kids.

I'm talking about the family that we have of some of those,

it is that dynamic within your family,

but some of you, it's different within that,

of what does it mean to be a blessed individual?

What does it mean to be blessed

so that we can be a blessing to others?

What does that mean within our life,

that when I am his,

what are some of those markings that I see?

What are some of those identifiers that reassure me

and that push my heart and my life

to greater devotion for him?

And I think we see some of these

as we've been journeying through chapter 12 now,

through chapter 35.

And as we've talked about and as we've seen,

we're not talking about a perfect family.

But we're talking about a family that God has chosen.

We're talking about a family

that finds their identity in him.

We are talking about a family of faith.

So what does that look like?

What have we seen?

The first thing that I think we've seen

from 12 to 35 is this.

We see a believing family.

We see a believing family.

You know, they were not a perfect family,

but they were a believing family.

What does it mean to be believing?

It means they trusted, they had faith,

they talked, they knew.

There was a confidence that was there.

There was a determination that was rooted within them

of who he was and therefore who they are.

Well, let's not miss, if you were to go all the way back

to Genesis chapter 12, what we find is that Abraham

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

was not a pastor's kid.

Abraham did not come from a family of missionaries.

Abraham did not come from a family of priests.

Abraham did not come from a family, from a land,

from a people who knew God and worshiped him.

That God chose for himself this pagan man

from a pagan family, from a pagan nation,

and then God says, hey, hey, just really quick,

here's what I'm gonna do with you.

And I know you don't know and I know you don't understand,

but here's what you gotta do, you gotta believe.

You gotta believe.

He said, I think for so many of us,

what we're trying to grab a hold of, to hold on to,

is a full comprehension of what it means to follow God

and still sitting there and saying,

well, no, no, no, no, I just gotta have faith like a child.

I gotta have faith for this next step.

I've gotta have a faith for this next piece.

I just gotta believe, I gotta believe, I gotta believe.

And while knowing is great, man, study God's word,

dive into it, consume as much of it as you can,

read books, listen to messages, ask questions,

do all those things, where it begins is with faith,

where it begins is with believing.

And as you lead in your life, as you lead in your family,

as you lead in this world of what it means to be blessed,

may what marks you above all things

is that you believe.

Believe.

Believe in God.

Believe in Christ.

And then from this, what we have seen,

what we will see is they're a following family.

They're a following family.

Now, they were a family who wandered.

From Genesis 12 to Genesis 35,

they're a family who moved and who moved a lot.

Physically, they wandered.

And what's amazing with that is what Scripture does

is it takes their physical wanderings from Abraham,

from Isaac, from Jacob, and connects their physical

wanderings to their spiritual wanderings.

You know, they weren't always neat and buttoned up.

They weren't always the individuals in the family

who got it right.

They weren't always the ones who sought

and who desired to always follow God in all things.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I look at my life,

when I look at my family, when I look at those things,

while the desire is there, the litmus test of what lines up,

it isn't lining up 100% of the time.

But they were a following family.

But even in their wandering, when God called them back,

their desire above all things was not an explanation

of practices, but was a desire to join Him.

Again, where you are in your life,

where you've wandered, is your desire to follow.

The third thing that we see from this family

is they were a worshiping family.

They were a worshiping family.

They were a family who had idols,

but they were also a family who built altars.

I love this, that when we see so many times

in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,

when these moments happened, when God showed up,

now, there wasn't a church for them.

There wasn't a temple to go to.

There wasn't an organized form of what was there

for them to partake in.

But in their moments of life, as they journeyed through,

they would build altars, they would establish places,

they would remember back on God's faithfulness,

they would say things about Him,

they would talk about who they know Him to be,

that in these pieces that they would worship Him.

Now, they were a family, if you don't remember

from last week, as they get ready to move,

as God's dealing with Jacob and the things

that are going on in Jacob's life,

that He calls Jacob and his family to get rid of the idols,

and Jacob's like, hey, hey, well, here's what we gotta do.

Like, we know, we acknowledge there's some idols,

but we're called to worship God,

we're called to follow Him, we're called to believe in Him,

and so what we do is we gotta cast out the idols

so that we can worship Him.

And I don't know about you, but sometimes

when I come into worship, the preventative peace in my life

that is pausing me from experiencing

the blessing that is worship,

it's not the performance of a song,

but it's the idol of my heart.

And what I've gotta do is I've gotta get rid of the idols

so that I can worship the Creator.

I've gotta get rid of the idols

so that I can worship the one and true and holy God.

And then what we see from this family

is that they were a forgiving family.

I believe that this, what we find in this family

is a family who often fell short,

but who passionately knew grace.

They were forgiven and they forgave.

Time and time again.

Did you hear what they did?

Did you see what they were a part of?

It becomes more and more difficult

for me to hold animosity to those

who have sinned against me

when I understand my sin against God.

That every sin is an offense at the very least

is an offense at the very character

and nature of a holy God.

And He, in my offense,

not just loves me through it,

not just forgives me in spite of it,

but who made a sacrifice because of me.

I watch families, I watch individuals

who fail in living in the blessing of forgiveness

because they harbor, they harbor the sin of anger.

They take on themselves and ignore

what has been given to them.

So we see this family in the midst

of all that's gone on, a faithful God

who is working and moving.

We see that same continual story

of a faithful God who saves His people,

a faithful God who calls His people,

and a faithful God who blesses

so that they will be a blessing.

But there's another brother.

You see, the end of 35 is with Jacob,

but then 36, all of 36 is with Esau.

Two brothers, twins.

I know a little bit about twins.

They're fantastic.

But we see this dynamic of what's there.

So let's just read the first nine verses.

I think the first nine verses tell us

what we need to know from this chapter.

These are the generations of Esau that is Edom.

Esau took his wives from the Canaanites.

Ada, the daughter of Lan, the Hittite.

Oholabamah, the daughter of Anah,

the daughter of Zibion, the Hivite.

And Basmuth, Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebaioth.

And Ada bore to Esau Eliphaz.

Basmuth bore Reuel.

And Oholabamah bore Jeush, Jalem, and Korah.

These are the sons of Esau who were born to him

in the land of Canaan.

Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters,

in all the members of his household.

His livestock, all his beasts, and all his property

that he had acquired in the land of Canaan.

And he went into a land away from his brother Jacob.

For their possessions were too great

for them to dwell together.

The land of their sojournings could not support them

because of their livestock.

So Esau settled in the hill country of Seir.

These are the generations of Esau,

the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir.

It's very interesting.

When you study and when you look at genealogies,

it's interesting to see not just who people came from,

but where people came from.

To be able to track and to be able to look at,

and there's been a, I would argue,

maybe a billion dollar industry, right,

going on with the genetic tracing of what people can do

so they can find out these things about them.

This is something that we've been interested in

and that we've had.

But what scripture points us to

is if Jacob's lineage will take us to Jesus,

a family chosen, a family blessed,

a family blessed to be a blessing,

a family that we see these characteristics with,

that we see them coming from not what they've decided

in and of themselves to be, but whose they are,

which then influences who they are.

What about Esau?

What about his twin brother?

Same house, same parents, same teaching, same standards.

I remember there's some dysfunction that's happening there.

But what we're gonna see different.

We see Jacob to Jesus and what we see here is Esau

to the Edomites.

You know, that doesn't mean anything to me.

When we look at history, there's some things

that we understand about the Edomites.

The Edomites were not for God's people,

but opposed to God's people.

And if you follow the lineage,

there's a man who's born whose father

is from the line of Esau.

This man will play a role in scripture,

particularly in this season of time

that we're gonna be talking about here in the next few weeks

as the Christmas season approaches.

It's a man who also, as we know King Jesus,

it'll also be a man who's given the title of King.

But it's not King Jesus, it is King Herod.

We'll read a story in Matthew chapter two.

He's the king who has the encounter with the wise men.

He's the king who feels threatened by the coming Messiah.

He's the king who orders the death

of all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two.

But Mary and Joseph escape with Jesus.

And I believe what God is painting for us,

of what we see, of what we understand,

is this picture of Jacob who wandered and returned

but we see this story of Esau who broke and never went back.

We see that in the land that God had called Jacob to be,

that there wasn't enough resources,

there wasn't enough things that were there for them

and so Esau broke.

And we see the difference in two families.

You don't have to look just at Herod

to understand the plight,

but look at the foundation of what was laid.

While we saw a family of faith, we see a faithless family.

We see here in the very beginning

from these passages of scripture

in these verses in chapter 36,

we see a faithless family that would embrace culture

over God, who married pagan women of the land.

He simply did what seemed right to him and to the people.

You see, we gotta be careful

because certain points in times in your life

and in my life, there are things that happen

and things that exist and what culture will tell us

is right and good because culture decides

that it's right and good,

but yet God's word stands in opposition of that.

But for Esau, what he'd seen and what he had heard

of, what even times he'd experienced wasn't enough.

So the foundation was faithless.

What we see is a disobedient family.

My kids will turn 17 in four months

and as you guys know, I have a hard time

with a lot of things.

Lately, I've been journeying back and forth

into the memories of my phone to look back

and see pictures of my kids.

One of the things that my kids love to do

as a young age was take selfies of themselves.

I guess in their young mind, they didn't know

that there's this thing called the cloud

and those pictures will be saved for all time.

I found, Emma was about seven,

I don't know where we were,

but she snapped a portfolio of pictures on my phone

that I just had a wonderful time

of reminding her about last night.

As they get older, the season of life

that we find ourself in is there was a season

where we told our kids, this is what you must do.

And we're walking into a season,

don't get me wrong, on some things we tell,

on a lot of things we instruct,

but in a lot of ways,

Grayson, buddy, you gotta make your choice.

You gotta make your choice for college,

for life after high school, for career.

Emma, I can't determine for you

what's gonna make you happy

and what you are going to pursue within this.

We hit the point in time where the hardest thing

as a parent, and those of you who have been here before,

is the releasing of your kids

so that they can make their choice

of what they're going to do.

You see, at some point in time in Esau's life,

he came to the point of making the choice.

Is it following God and be obedient to him,

or is it choosing something different?

And he chooses different.

He chooses different.

The choices may be subtle,

but it's disobedience to the God who calls him.

I think the hard thing with Esau,

if we were to look at his life,

if we do a character study of what's there,

that the world would look at Esau,

the world of his day,

and maybe even the world of our day,

and say, oh, he was blessed.

Large family, blessed.

Faithful servants, blessed.

He had resources, blessed.

He had borders for himself, blessed.

He had finances, blessed.

But the issue is that he went for good, not godly.

Verse eight, the wording of what's there,

I think, is so important.

So Esau settled.

He settled for the blessings of the world.

He settled for the sinful desires of his heart.

He settled for the cravings of his flesh.

He didn't follow, he didn't obey, and he didn't believe.

And so in the world's terms, maybe he was blessed,

but in godly terms, he was cursed.

Jesus, in the beginning of his public ministry,

begins to teach about blessing.

My challenge for us as a church today

is this, what will you settle your life on?

When you look at your today and your tomorrow,

when you look back at your past to learn for the future,

where will you settle your life?

Do you want it to be blessed?

Absolutely you do.

But do you want the blessing of Jacob?

Or do you want the blessing of Esau?

Jesus, in the beginning of his ministry,

gives us the greatest definition of blessed.

These verses aren't on the screen,

'cause I just want you to listen to his words.

I want you to see about how what he talks about

begins to attack the very fiber

of what our world determines,

and oftentimes what our hearts want.

Matthew five, and he opened his mouth and taught them.

And taught them, saying,

blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed is those who mourn,

for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted

for righteousness' sake,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you,

and persecute you,

and utter all kinds of evil

against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad,

for your reward is great in heaven.

For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Church, be blessed in Christ.

Be blessed in him.

Be blessed in who he is.

Be blessed in that you are his,

so that you can go and understand

what it means to be blessed,

is to be a blessing to others.

Would you pray with me?

(pages turning)

God, we thank you for the complexity

of your Word.

We thank you that at the end

of one season into the next,

your Word so graciously lays out

the difference between two.

What was in common was much.

Family same.

Influence.

Wealth.

Power.

But what's different

is found in whose they are.

God, may we agree in our mind and in our heart

that as children of God, we are blessed beyond blessed.

And Lord, may we not look at it

like the summation of a bank account

of what we've acquired, of what we hold,

of what we are privileged with,

but Lord, may we look at our blessing

in a means, in an opportunity,

in a calling to be a blessing,

to live a life of faithfulness,

to live a life of following,

to live a life of belief,

to live a life of forgiveness,

that in every aspect of who we are,

or my story is not told by my faults and my failures,

my story is told by my victory

in spite of those faults and failures.

And it tells the story of my Savior.

Gotta thank you for this long journey

that we've been on with a complicated family.

Made some good choices,

and made some bad choices.

But for Abraham, he trusted you.

For Isaac, he trusted you.

For Jacob, he trusted you.

And God, may we today make the same choice

to trust the same God who was,

who is, and who is to come.

In Jesus name we pray, amen.

- Thanks again for listening

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