Genesis: Process of Breakthrough

Yes, grab your Bible's turn Genesis chapter twenty seven. We're

continuing the story of Jacob and Esau. We're continuing to

talk about breakthrough. Last week I shared with you that

God sets us up for breakthrough, and we see we

are given basically a fly on the wall perspective of

this interaction between these twin brothers, fraternal twin brothers, meaning

they didn't look alike, Jacob and Esau. Let me describe

them for you, maybe for a handful of you that

weren't here last week. The Bible is awesome in the

way that it describes. It describes Esau as very redheaded

and harry. This is the image I have of Esau

right here, describes Jacob as being very smooth skinned in

a homebody like this in all honesty. In my notes

it says, I want a picture of David Diaz and

this one popped up instead, So blame blame the staff. Uh.

The Bible tells us that Isaac the dad loved Esau,

Rebecca the mom loved Jacob, and we're given this perspective

that Esaw as the firstborn, he was born a minute

before his twin brother was given the birthright, and because

he was his father's favorite, was promised his father's blessing,

and back in the ancient times, this birthright and blessing

was really significant. I went into detail on that last

week again, you can go back listen to that message.

But Jacob coveted that birthright and that blessing even though

it wasn't his. The name Jacob means deceiver, and as

Jacob got older, he became the epitome of his name.

He was a schemer, a planner, a plotter, and a deceiver.

And he manipulates and tricks his brother Esau out of

his birthright and then eventually deceives his father Isaac into

giving him the blessing instead of Esau. And I shared

with you last week that when it comes to breakthrough,

there's a setup for being in a position to receive

a breakthrough. And the setup is, first, you need to

destroy an undisciplined appetite that if you have a price,

the devil will find your price and he'll pay it.

If you have an airy of your life that is undisciplined,

you need to crucify that area. Then also last week

I shared with you the other thing that the Lord

wants us to do is to deal with our past,

and that was the issue over and over again. Esau

didn't deal with his past. It came back to haunt him,

and eventually he lost his birthright and his blessing. That

leads us to Genesis twenty seven, verse forty one says

Esau held a grudge against his brother Jacob because of

the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself,

the days of mourning from my father are near. Then

I will kill my brother Jacob. I want to ask

everyone to buy her heads. Close your eyes. I want

you to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus,

speak to my heart, change my life in Jesus' name. Amen. So,

Esau's decided he's gonna take vengeance against his brother, but

he wants to wait until his father passes away. Now

we end up finding out that dad actually lives another

forty years. But Rebecca, mom hears about Esau's plans, grabs

her favorite son Jacob, and says, you have to run

away and hide. In fact, I want you to go

to my brother Layman's house and stay with him until

your brother mellows out. I'll send word and then eventually

you can come back to us today. I want to

explain to you what I believe is the process that

each one of us must go through to receive our breakthrough.

You're gonna see through the life of Jacob the same

process that he went through. Now there's three parts to

this process. You'll see the order that Jacob went through.

And God doesn't necessarily bring us all through this exact

same order, but you will have all of these steps

for you. It might be in a different order, but

this was the order for Jacob. Number one, you want

to see a breakthrough, you must have a dream and

make a vow with no deals. You must have a

dream and make a vow with no deals. So Jacob

is told go to Uncle Laban's I'm gonna show you

a map. You'll get an idea perspective of where this

is taking place. So Jacob and Esau, their parents, Isaac

and Rebecca, all of their families live in this region.

Down here, Bearsheba. If you go all the way to

the top, you'll see it, says Heron. That is where

Laban lived. So Jacob is on the run, escaping Esau,

traveling this journey all the way up to Heron. But

we pick it up in the story right here. It

says when he arrived at this place, it is a place.

It's called Bethel. That is where et or that is

where Jacob is at at this moment. He reaches a

certain place he's camping out for the night. Bible says,

he puts a rock underneath his head and he falls asleep.

First off, I don't know how you fall asleep when

there's a rock underneath your head, but he did. Then

it tells us this Genesis twenty eight, Verse twelve, Jacob

had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting

on Earth and its top reaching to Heaven, and angels

of God were ascending and descending on it. Like before

Led Zeppelin ever wrote the song Stairway to Heaven, Jacob

had a dream of a stairway to Heaven. Other translations

referred to it as a ladder. If you're a fan

of the Simpsons, Homer Simpson had this image and he

saw it as an escalator, you know, so whatever that

image is. Jacob saw a stairway, a ladder that went

from Earth all the way to Heaven, and angels were

climbing up and down, and at the top of the

ladder the top of the staircase. Verse thirteen stood the Lord,

and the Lord said, I am the Lord, the God

of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. And

then the Lord begins to remind Jacob the promise that

was given to his grandpa Abraham and his father Isaac.

It says, this land where you're at, this is your land.

Your descendants are gonna be like the dust of the earth.

I'm gonna be with you. I'm gonna bless all nations

because of you, and I'll not leave you. So the

same promise he gave Abraham, the same promise he gave Isaac,

God is now giving to Jacob. This is the key part, though.

Verse sixteen says, when Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought,

surely the Lord is in this place, and I was

not aware of it. How often does that happen to us? Like?

How often is God moving in our circumstances? Is God

moving all around us and we are clueless to the

fact that it's happening. The amount of time we are

so obsessed with our problems and our struggle, or maybe

our plans and our dreams, that we failed to recognize

that God is at work, that God is orchestrating all

these pieces all around us, that maybe where we've ended

up isn't because we are so great. Maybe we've ended

up where we are because God has hooked you up.

He has been working behind the scenes over and over

and over again. You just failed to recognize it. I

always say that every single person has to have that

moment where they have an AHA experience with God where

it becomes more than our Grandpa Abraham's faith, where it

becomes more than our father Isaac's faith, but it becomes ours.

One of the number one things that I've prayed for

my kids who are now adults, is that I don't

want them to live on mom and Dad's relationship with Jesus.

So I was a youth pastor for twelve years. I

saw this with the church kids all the time. They

didn't experience or have the encounter that their parents had

that changed the course of their family. They just kind

of grew up in it. And as a youth pastor,

the most complicated kids I ever had in my youth

ministry where the church kids, and it was because they

didn't have an encounter with Jesus. They were just living

out their parents' relationship with Jesus. You have to have

that moment where He transforms you, where he changes you.

I to this day still remember those initial encounters with

Jesus that I had, Like the hair on the back

of my neck stood up, like I'd be in a

worship service. The presence of God would rest on the place,

like every goose bump in my body had goosebumps. And

I would look around and be like, is anybody else

experiencing this same thing? And then I would see my

peers that had grown up in church and they're like

oblivious to it, like God is here, and they didn't

recognize that He was in this place. And that was Jacob.

The thing that I will tell you about Jacob is

this was Jacob's first real encounter with God. I always

tell everybody. For some of you, salvation was an event.

I mean, you remember that moment you got saved, Your

life was transformed. But for most of us, this is

a journey. This is a process. For most of us,

it takes years of our lives for us to grow

and develop and transform into the image of Jesus. It

takes a lot for Jesus to become Lord of your life.

It doesn't always happen in one event, one moment. This

was the beginning of Jacob's journey with God. Jacob has

a dream, has this vision from God, sees angels, sees Jesus,

reminded about the promise for his family, and then he

responds by making a vow which is good with a

deal which is not good. Says this. Then Jacob made

a vow saying, if God will be with me, if

God will watch over me on this journey, if God

will give me food to eat, if God will give

me clothes to wear, if God will bring me safely

back to my father's household, then you'll be my God.

So he has a dream, he makes a vow, but

he attaches strings to it. Did you know you can't

make a deal with God. God makes deals with you.

The Bible is full of these. If then promises, God says, hey,

if you do this, then I'll do this. We don't

get to do the reverse. We don't get a hey

to God. All right, God, here's the deal. If you

do this, I'll serve you. People try to do that

with tithing all the time. They're like, all right, no,

I'm supposed to tithe, Jesus, here's the deal. You hook

me up, You open up the floodgates of heaven and

pour out so much blessing that I don't have room

enough for it. Then I'll tithe. You let me get

that deal. You let me pull that lever on that

slot machine, hit that jackpot. A'll tithe. And God's like,

I don't play that game. An't work that way. Now

he's patient with us, and he's patient with Jacob, and

Jacob's on a journey, so he allows this because of

his love and patience for us. But I will tell

you these deals with God do not show spiritual maturity.

Your relationship with Jesus is not supposed to be transactional.

If it is, it's a sign that you're not really

spiritually mature. So how do you have a breakthrough? You

have to have a dream and make a vow with

no deals. How do you have a breakthrough? Number two?

You eventually got a face Laban verse Chapter twenty nine,

Verse one. Jacob continued on his journey and he came

to the land of the Eastern Peoples. So it describes

this setting. Jacob's not quite sure where he's at yet,

but he comes upon a well and he sees these

different flocks of sheep and goats and cattle around this well,

and their shepherds would walk up to the well and

they would lift this big stone that was covering the

well and they would water their flocks. And Jacob begins

a conversation with one of the shepherds. He says, hey,

will you tell me where I'm at? And the shepherd says,

you're in the region of Haran, and Jacob's like, that's

where I'm going. Hey, any chance you know my uncle.

His name is Laban. And the shepherd's like, everybody knows Laban.

Laban is infamous, and Jacob's like, that's who I'm going

to see. And in the middle of this conversation, the

shepherd says, hey, in fact, that's Laban's daughter, Rachel right there.

She's bringing up his sheep to water them at the well.

And Jacob looks up and sees Rachel. Church this is

full on love at first sight. I mean, he is

smitten when he sees Rachel. Bible tells us that he

runs up and he kisses Rachel. He says, I'm your cousin.

This is the Bible. Don't like stress it out. This

is the first time and the only time in the

Torah where a man kisses a woman that is not

his sister, mother or wife. So that shows you how

smitten he was with Rachel. And he begins this conversation.

He's talking to her. She's going to the well, and

I think it went like this, So are you you

seeing anybody? She's like, no, I'm single right now. Well,

what type of guys do you like? I like really

strong cowboy type men. Have you ever seen movies and

stuff where guys and girls are driving in the car together,

they're hanging out and the guy is interested in the girl,

but the girl doesn't know yet, and she'll say I

like muscular guys. And the guy's driving and he's like, oh,

you like muscular guys, And he kind of rolls up

his sleep and he starts flexing, pointing at his muscles.

Jacob's like, you like strong guys? Hot, this is the

Brandon version. So he walks over to the well. He's like,

picks up the stone that was covering the well, puts

it down like winks' his peck says go ahead, so

she waters her sheep. Eventually they go back to uncle

Laban's house. The Bible is so incredible. These are the

words of the Bible, not mine. So this offends you,

It's not my fault. This is what it says. Don't

shoot the messenger. So it says, after Jacob had stayed

with Laban for a whole month, Laban said to him,

just because you're a relative of mine, should you work

for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.

Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older

was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.

It's all innocent so far. This is the description of

both of them. Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had

a lovely figure and was beautiful. Jacob was in love

with Rachel, and he said, I'll work for you for

seven years if I can marry Rachel. Now people have

read this, they've argued about this. Scholars have debated what

does it mean Leah had weak eyes and like we

always pick on Leah. Scholars are very divided. Some scholars

say it could mean her eyes were soft. In other words,

they were light blue, so was actually meant as a

compliment some scholars. Other scholars say those weak eyes meant

she had poor vision, and she squinted, and she looked.

The Bible is either describing the positive attributes of both

of these girls or it's contrasting their attractiveness. All I

know is Jacob wanted Rachel, and then the most romantic

verse in the entire Bible happens. Like Nicholas Sparks could

not have written this better himself. Here it is, ladies

are going to elbow your man Verse twenty Jacob served

seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only

a few days to him because of his love for her.

Some of you are like, PB, I'm starting to understand

why you named your daughter Rachel. My son in law

Ben is obligated to volunteer for fourteen years at the

church before he can even bring up moving away. Eventually,

after the seven years, Jacob goes to lab and he says,

all right, give me my lady. Let's have a wedding.

And so Laban throws this huge wedding feast and back

then these wedding feasts last week, and the first day

is a party that they get married, consummate the marriage

that night, and so the party is going on Verse

twenty three. When evening came Laban took his daughter Leah

and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her.

Laban pulls a fast one on Jacob. Jacob wakes up

the next morning and he realizes he had slept with Leah,

not Rachel, and he's ticked. He's furious, he feels tricked,

he feels duped, he feels deceived. People have asked, for generations,

how is it possible Jacob did not know this wasn't Rachel.

People have argued for generations about that. Here's my simple explanation.

It was dark and he was quite inebriated. Verse twenty five.

It's probably the most ironic verse in the Bible. When

morning came, there was Leah. So Jacob went to Laban.

What is this you've done to me? I served you

for Rachel, didn't I Why have you deceived me? Jacob?

A deceiver faces a deceiver, and he hates it. Oftentimes,

the only way God can get us to change is

he has to bring us face to face with ourselves. Church,

I'm telling you be careful what you hate in other people.

God might be bringing a Laban into your life. Jacob

was tricked, just like you tricked his father, Isaac. That's

what comes around goes around. Laban says, here's the deal.

It's not our tradition to marry off the younger daughter

before the older daughter. So if you work for me

for another seven years, I'll give you Rachel two. Jacob

didn't have an option, so he agrees. So they finish

up the wedding week with Leah. Laban gives him Rachel.

He has another wedding week celebration, and now he's spend

the next seven years serving his uncle again. We actually

find out that he actually stayed with his uncle for

thirteen years. A lot happened during this time, which I

don't have time to cover, but let me give you

the overview. In these next thirteen years, between Rachel and Leah,

their two maid servants, Bilpah and Zilpah, Jacob has twelve children.

He also becomes incredibly wealthy. He actually manipulates and twists

his uncle because his uncle says, uh, what should your

pay be? And he said, why don't you give me

the sheep and goats and cattle that are blemished, that

have these stripes, And Jacob fisigured out that if I

feed these certain twigs to the animals. They they produce

babies that have these stripes, and he becomes incredibly wealthy

over this period of time. That leads us Genesis thirty one,

Are you still with me? So it has now been

twenty years since Jacob fled Bearsheba because Esau wanted to

have him killed, and he went and hid with his

uncle Laban. That was twenty years ago. Genesis thirty one,

verse three. The lord says to Jacob, I want you

to go back to the land of your fathers, to

your relatives, and I'll be with you. So it's time

to go back and face Esau. So Jacob rounds up

his wives and his kids and all of his wealth,

and he begins to head out. The problem is Laban

had sons, and the sons figured out what Jacob had done,

so they tell their dad, and their dad says, we're

gonna go make this right. So now Jacob is fleeing Laban,

hoping to hide with Esau. This kid does not learn,

and eventually, over the next chapter in fact it's Genesis

thirty one, Laban and his army and his family catches

up to Jacob. They have this conflict. It eventually leads

to a resolution where he releases Jacob. And now Jacob

is heading to face Esau. What are the steps that

you need in your life for a breakthrough. Number one,

you have to have a dream, make vow with no deals.

Number two you're gonna have to face Laban, and finally,

number three, you're gonna have to have a moment where

you wrestle with God. Jacob, go ahead and put the

map back up there. It is so Jacob started here,

ends way up there. Now he's heading all the way

back and he's right about here. And at this point,

Jacob is assuming Esau has been stewing for twenty years,

like he is imagining Esau. This is twenty years of

planning revenge, twenty years of plotting my death, twenty years

of stewing on his anger and his resentment and his

hatred towards Jacob. Jacob couldn't even imagine what Esau was

planning for him. There's a proverb that says a brother

wronged is more unyielding than a fortified city. So Jacob, ever,

the schemer, sends some messengers to Esau, and he says,

when you eventually see Esau, tell him that I'm coming. Please,

tell him about all my wives and kids, his nieces

and nephews, and also tell him how wealthy I've become. Now,

he was doing this with the hope that maybe his

wealth would appease Esau. Then maybe they could make a

deal that Esau would say, even though you're wrong me,

give me all your wealth. We'll call it even. So

they send the messengers. Eventually the messengers report back to Jacob.

Here it is verse six, chapter thirty two when the

messengers return to Jacob. Remember, he's worried about his brother.

We went to your brother, Esau, and.

Now he's coming to meet you, and four hundred.

Men are with him. So Jacob he's assuming the worst.

Esau is on his way to take vengeance. Church a

guilty conscience makes to see the darkest possible outcomes. So

Jacob starts praying, and this is part of his prayer

verse eleven. See he was beginning this journey with God,

but he was still stuck in this place. Have you

ever been there where it seems like you get closer

to Jesus, but you hit this wall and you're just

stuck and you don't quite see your breakthrough, and you

can't figure why you keep getting stuck in the same spot.

Jacob prais this. He says, Lord, save me from the

hand of my brother Esau, because I'm afraid he's gonna

come and attack me and also my wife and our kids. See,

Jacob's problem was he thought Esau was the issue. He

thought his problem was Esau. The reason he kept hitting

this wall wasn't seeing this breakthrough is because he was

his own problem. God had a incredible destiny for Jacob,

but Jacob had to change first. Every single person has

to have a personal encounter with Jesus. We don't plan

revival worship nights because the staff needs more stuff to do.

We plan those things because we're hoping maybe you'll come

in a position where you're ready to face Laban. Maybe

you'll come in a position where you're saying, I'm ready

to wrestle with God. That night, Jacob got up, took

his two wives and his two female servants, his eleven sons,

and he crossed the ford of the Jabbek. In the

ancient world, whenever there's a story where someone crosses a

river that is a monumental task, you should pay attention

because something important is about to happen. It's believed that

crossing a river is full of deep significance Verse twenty four.

So Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with

him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could

not overpower Jacob, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip

so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with him.

The man said, let me go, it's daybreak, and Jacob replied,

I will not let you go unless you bless me.

Then the man asked him, what is your name? So

Jacob was left alone. Did you know sometimes God has

to get us in that spot where it's just us

and him. We have no one else, no other resources.

It is in that moment that God can come to us,

do something in us and for us. I've heard it

said its solitude is the audience chamber of God. I mean,

twenty years before Jacob met God in a dream, and

twenty years later, near the same spot, he's wrestling with

God again. Church. God will meet you at whatever level

he finds you in order to lift you up to

where he wants you to be. And I'll tell you something.

When you wrestle with God, there's always three things that

happen Number one, You'll leave with a limp. You'll have

a scar that limp. It's a reminder of an encounter

with God. Years later, as Jacob walked with a limp,

people would say, what's the matter? Do you do you

want us to pray for you? Do you want us?

Maybe there's someone you can see that can help with

your limp. Years later, Jacob would say, I like my limp.

My limp reminds me of who I used to be

and how God changed me forever. So when you wrestle

with God, you'll you'll have a limp or a scar.

You'll have a reminder. The second thing that will happen

when you wrestle with God is that you'll leave with

a firm grasp on your blessing. Or you'll leave with

a firm grasp on your breakthrough. The last thing that

will happen when you wrestle with God is that you'll

leave with a new name. He'll change you, You'll be different.

What is your name? I mean? Jacob is at his

lowest point, he is broken to pieces, He's got nothing left,

and he says, I'm I'm a deceiver. I lie, I plot,

I scheme, I plan, I manipulate. My name is Jacob.

And then the Lord says, no longer will your name

be Jacob. From this day forward, your name will be Israel.

Because you wrestled with you struggled with God. What are

the steps to break through? You gotta have a dream,

make a vow with no deals. You're gonna have to

deal with your laban. And then finally, every one of

us needs to wrestle with God, have an encounter with

God where we're changed in different How do I know

Jacob was different? Chapter thirty three, verse one, when he

meets Esau. Jacob looked up and there was Esau coming

with four hundred men. He divided up the children among

Leah and Rachel and his two female servants. He put

the female servants and their children in front, Leah and

her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear.

He himself went on ahead. Number one. Jacob would never

have done that before, would have let everyone else face

Esau first. But he says, you guys, stay here, I'm

gonna go talk to my brother. Then it says this,

He himself went on ahead, and he bowed down to

the ground seven times as he approached his brother. The

Bible other translations say he laid prostrate, flat out on

the ground, bowed down seven times to his brother. It

was Jacob saying, forgive me, Esau man, I am like

a servant to you. I submit myself to you. I

lay myself at your feet. It's him saying, whatever you

do to me, I will take whatever you want to do.

I deserve. I'm yours in that moment, Jacob, he is different,

he has changed. Never get that while God is working

on you, he's working on other people too. Like we

get so consumed in our life and our struggles and

our situation that we forget that he's at work everywhere,

Like he's working on everyone. Like while this was a

twenty year journey with God for Jacob, what Jacob failed

to understand is that God was working on Esa too.

Now we're not given that story, but you can just

imagine what must have happened, because when we left off

with Esau, he was consumed with revenge. Now we see

Esa again, how does he respond to his brother. Esa

ran up to meet Jacob, embraced him, threw his arms

around his neck, kissed him, and they wept together. You

just never know what God is doing. God has a

breakthrough for you. We talked at twenty twenty five. This

is the year that we are believing for breakthrough. I'm

gonna frite our band to come. Is it just your okay?

They want me to pray. First, by your heads, close

your eyes. I'm gonna pray, says David. And then the

band is gonna lead us in a song. Some of

my staff is going to line up across the front.

If you're here today, you're ready to wrestle with Jesus.

You're ready for your breakthrough. We'd love the opportunity to

pray for you. So as the band sings, if you want,

you can come forward. The staff is ready to pray

for you. So let me pray. Lord Jesus, your word

is awesome. It's amazing that something that happened thousands of

years ago speaks to our hearts at this moment. That

the experience Jacob has with you relates to the experience

we need with you. And just as Jacob had a breakthrough, Lord,

I pray that each person here today would have a

breakthrough in their lives. Some need it financially, physically, they

need it relationally. And pray this is our time of breakthrough.

Jesus, we ask that you would meet us in this

place in such a radical way that we would leave, saying,

surely God was in this place.

In your name, I pray