Faithful Then, Faithful Now | Delivered By God - Genesis 32:1-33:20(May 28) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you have your Bibles and I hope that you do, you can open them up to Genesis chapter 32.

Genesis 32 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 32.

Genesis 32 · chapter mention

I want you to know as we begin to set our minds to God's word, I want you to know this that we are in battle.

I don't mean like as a nation.

I don't have any news to break to you about that, but I mean this, that you and I, we were born into a world where spiritually there is warfare.

And we've been reading in Genesis, uh, throughout Genesis, about this warfare, and it started in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, didn't it?

Genesis 3:15

Where we saw that because of sin, God had told the serpent who really started all of this warfare, that he was going to crush his head.

And so you and I were born into this battle between really God and Satan.

There's a cosmic battle happening in our midst, and you and I were born into this battle as sinners.

That means that by nature, each of us need deliverance.

And that's why as we've been reading through Genesis, and really as we continue to read through Scripture, this theme comes up time and time again of deliverance.

And the way that it comes up is often in the word exodus.

Throughout all of Scripture, we hear echoes of the Exodus of Israel.

You may know what I'm talking about.

The story of God's people that's described to us in the book of Exodus, of Israel coming out of Egypt, wandering in the desert, and being delivered by God to the promised land.

And the reality we read throughout all of Scripture is all these mini stories of Exodus, each of these stories pointing us to this reality that you and I this morning, 2,000 years past Jesus, are in need of the same Exodus.

We're in need of the same deliverance.

I mean, we've read about this Exodus story throughout Genesis.

You think about Adam and Eve, who were in the land, in the very presence of God, but then cast out because of their sin outside of the garden.

And really from there, all of Scripture would hinge on this plot line of Adam and Eve and the people of Adam and Eve, the children of Adam and Eve, finding their way back into the presence of God.

You think of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, who is called to come out of Sodom and Gomorrah, to be delivered by God to life.

You think about Abraham, who was called to leave his homeland as a form of Exodus.

And the story of Exodus would really repeat all throughout the scriptures until we come to Jesus, who we are told in Matthew chapter 2, whose family would, just like Israel had to depart from Egypt, his family had to leave Egypt when King Herod had this plan to kill all the babies in order that he might deal with this child who was claiming to be the Messiah, who was claiming to be the king.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Reminded that Genesis was written by Moses to Israel as they were in the desert and just has experienced exodus.

All this to say, this is our human condition.

Each of us are in Exodus, and each of us need deliverance to another place.

The theological reality for us this morning is this this is truth.

Whether you believe in Christ or not, you are not home.

Can you turn to your neighbor and tell them that?

Tell them, you're not home.

You're not home.

Each of us need deliverance.

See, whether you know it or not, whether you experience or not, sin has caused this reality.

Each of us are not where we need to be.

And each of us need this morning to hear this message that we serve a God who wants to deliver us, that our God is a deliverer, that our God's desire in our life this morning is to bring us in an exodus of our own to the place of his glory.

We know this, don't we?

As we look around the world, don't we know that this is this is not home.

This is not the place we're supposed to be.

We see the suffering.

We see the injustice and the equality.

See, no one in this room, believer or not believer, no one in this room is saying, yeah, things are going pretty good in the world right now.

We look around and we know that things are not as they should be.

And I want you to know that for all of human history, every society, every culture has done that exact same thing.

They've looked around and said, this is not the way it's supposed to be.

There's not supposed to be this much hurt.

There's not supposed to be this much injustice.

There's not supposed to be this much pain.

I don't wonder if this this morning, if maybe these realities of suffering and sickness and the lack of nearness that we experience to God and the sin that we struggle with, and the injustice and the equality of this world that we live in, I wonder if this morning you would allow the Holy Spirit to point your eyes to the only one who can deliver you from that situation.

Listen, we live in a world that is messed up, that we can all agree that there it is not going the way that it should go, and there is only one answer for this world, and that answer is found in Jesus Christ, our only hope for deliverance.

So this morning, as we think about our own Exodus, as we think about the place that we are and the place that God is calling us to go, I want you to see that the only way for us to be delivered is as we turn to God.

It's a turning that Jacob does in Exodus chapter 32 and 33.

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

And as we see Jacob turn to the Lord, I want to see through the life of Jacob how we can be delivered by God.

Now I want to read this for us in its totality, Exodus 22, 32 and 33.

So if you have a Bible, I would encourage you to open it and follow along with us.

If someone beside you has a Bible, follow along with them.

Exodus 32, Moses writes this Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's camp.

So he called the name of that place Manahayam.

And God sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, and in the land of Sierre, the country, the country of Edom, instructing them, Thus you shall say to my lord Esau, thus say your servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now.

I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants.

I have sent to tell my Lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.

And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.

He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels into two camps, thinking, if Esau comes to one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.

And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good.

I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, with the with only my staff I have crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

Please deliver me from the hand of my brother and from the hand of Esau, for I fear him that he may come and attack me, and the mothers with the children.

But you said, I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

Verse 13 says, So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau.

Two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milk and camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys, these he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, Pass on ahead of me, and put a space between drove and drove.

He instructed the first.

When Esau, my brother, meets you and asks you, To whom do you belong?

Where are you going?

And where are these ahead of whose are these ahead of you?

Then you shall say, They belong to your servant Jacob.

They are a present sent to my lord Esau, and moreover he is behind us.

He likewise instructed the second and the third, and all who followed the droves, you shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, and you shall say, Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us, for he thought, I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I will see his face, perhaps he will accept me.

So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.

The same night he arose and took his two wives, his female two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of Jabok.

He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had.

And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

Then he said, Let me go, for the day has broken.

But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

And he said to him, What is your name?

And he said, Jacob.

Then he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.

Then Jacob asked him, Please tell me your name.

But he said, Why is it that you ask my name?

And there he blessed him.

So Jacob called the name of the place Penel, saying, For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.

The sun rose upon him as he passed, Penael, limping because of his hip.

Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

CHAPTER thirty-three says, And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, four hundred men with him.

So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel, and two female servants, and he put the servants with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel with Joseph, last of all.

He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.

But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept.

And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children, he said, Who are these with you?

Jacob said, The children whom God has graciously given your servant.

Then the servants drew near, they and their children, and bowed down.

Leah likewise and her children drew near and bowed down.

And last Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down.

Esau said, What do you mean by all this company that I met?

Jacob answered, To find favor in the sight of my Lord.

But Esau said, I have enough, my brother.

Keep what you have for yourself.

Jacob said, No, please, if I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand.

For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.

Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, because I have enough.

Thus he urged him, and he took it.

Then Esau said, Let us journey on our way, and I will go ahead of you.

But Jacob said to him, My Lord knows that the children are frail, and that the nursing flocks and herds are care to me.

If they are driven hard, for one day all the flocks will die.

Let my Lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me, and at the pace of the children, until I come to my Lord and Seir.

So Esau said, Let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.

But he said, What need is there?

Let me find favour in the sight of my Lord.

So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

But Jacob journeyed to Suchoth, and built himself built himself a house and made booths for his livestock.

Therefore the name of the place is called Succoff.

And Jacob came safely to the city of Shekem, which is in the land of Canaan.

And on his way from Padan Aram he camped before the city.

And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent.

Therefore he had erected an altar and called it El Elho Israel.

First thing I want you to see about the deliverance that we need, about the deliverance that God is offering to us, is that it comes when we recognize that there is a promise to be regarded.

There is a promise to be regarded.

Now notice in chapter 23 at the beginning, we are told that, sorry, chapter 32, at the beginning we're told that Jacob went on his way.

And we need to ask the question, where is Jacob going?

We need to place ourselves in the context of this story.

And we remember from chapter 31 that Jacob was going home.

Jacob for 20 years had been away from his homeland.

He had left there because his brother Esau was looking to murder him.

And he found himself really as a slave under Laban, who kept deceiving, you know, Jacob, the master deceiver.

Well, he met his match because Laban kept deceiving Jacob and kept him there for 2 years.

Finally, experiencing really a mini deliverance, we find Jacob going home.

Now notice what happens to Jacob on his way.

It says in verse 2, and uh sorry, verse uh yeah, two.

Sorry, verse 1.

Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

Now, this is not the first time that Jacob has been in the presence of God.

You'll remember, remember little boy Jacob 20 years ago when we were with him?

And he left his home, his mother out of concern that Esau might it might kill him.

Jacob left his home, and by himself one night he puts his head on a rock as a pillow.

Things are as horrible as they could possibly be.

And what does Jacob find?

He is in the presence of God.

Through an angel.

Jacob finds God's presence as he leaves for the land of Padanaram.

And now we find as Jacob is going back home, he finds himself in the presence of an angel.

This should remind Jacob that everything is going to be okay.

To be in the presence of an angel is to be in the presence of God, it's to be in the protection of God.

And so Jacob really should be overflowing with confidence.

And yet we find through this story, as we just read it, that even though Jacob is growing, we mentioned last week, this is one of my favorite things about the story of Jacob, that you see the progression of this man from deceiver to saint.

We still find that Jacob doesn't really totally trust God.

Like the presence of this angel should be like when you're a kid, you know, and your older sibling comes, you know, you're getting bullied, your older sibling comes and just like wipes out the bullying.

Jacob should know who God is.

Like, God has delivered Jacob time and time again, and here he is in the presence of this angel.

And yet in verse 13, we find Jacob still filled with fear.

And so it says in verse 13, just to jump down a few verses, it says that he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him, he took a present for his brother Esau.

Now, this present, this word present in the Hebrew is the same word as offering.

And you'll remember that Jacob told God that he would give a tenth of his offering to him.

And throughout the book of Genesis, Moses gives us no indication that Jacob did that.

But here we find Jacob willing to give probably more than a tenth of his wealth to Esau in order that he might secure his own safety.

Now, what did Jacob need to believe in this moment?

What Jacob needed to believe was the word of God.

What Jacob needed to believe was that if God had said to Jacob, as he had in Genesis 31, that he would protect him and that he would be with him, then Jacob didn't need to worry.

All that Jacob needed to do was to believe in the promise of God.

I think the readers of Genesis, Israel in the desert, as Moses writes this for them, is probably laughing about this.

They had just crossed through the Red Sea.

They had just escaped Egypt.

And they had learned on their journey that there was no humanly possible way that they could have ever secured their own deliverance.

They're probably looking at Jacob and looking at the Red Sea and laughing about this, laughing at the fact that Jacob thinks that he could do something in order to protect himself, laughing about the fact that Jacob thinks that he could contribute in some way to God's plan.

See, Israel knew as they walked through those giant walls of water, as they escaped the chariots coming against them, that they had nothing to do with their own salvation, that this was all a work of God.

And yet here we find that Jacob still thinks he can offer something to God.

Jacob thinks really that salvation, if you were to break it down into a mathematical equation, okay, you've heard before, if you've been here with me, I'm not good at math, but for whatever reason I keep trying to do it up here on the pulpit.

But some of you love math, and so I want to do this for you.

Jacob has this equation of salvation that salvation comes by faith plus works, plus giving an offering to Esau, plus all these other things.

And what Jacob needs to hear is exactly what God told to Israel in Exodus 14, 14.

There, Moses commended Israel, saying, The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.

Jacob, what is your one job here?

Your one job is to be silent.

See, salvation doesn't have any pluses after it.

True salvation is this: it's Jesus plus nothing, which equals everything.

And the moment you add anything to Jesus, the moment that you believe salvation is accomplished through anything other than purely your faith in what Jesus has done for you, you actually have nothing.

You've lost it all.

And yet some of us, we even hearing this now, we hear this and we say, yeah, okay, faith is good, but you also need to be a good person, right?

And you need to, you know, you also need to serve in the church, right?

Like God's only going to love you if you serve in the church, and you also need to give.

And we have this kind of like secret equation that's working in our heart that's rooting our relationship with God, that salvation comes through Jesus plus all these other things.

And this morning, through God's word, the Holy Spirit is impressing this truth on us again that the only way we can find deliverance is when we cling to Jesus and Him alone.

Nothing else can save us.

Yet what we read in these verses, despite this reality, is that Jacob does have faith.

Though his faith is not perfect, he certainly has faith in God.

And we see this in Genesis 32, verse 9.

Genesis 32:9

Where for the first time, as we have walked with Jacob for so long, for the very first time, Jacob prays.

Jacob prays.

Finally.

And all the difficulty that Jacob has gone through, and all the need that Jacob had for wisdom before the Lord.

In all these things, Jacob had not yet once prayed.

I'm reminded of his mother in Genesis 25, 21.

Do you remember this?

This verse maybe has been impressed on my mind more than any other verse in all of Genesis so far.

And it says this in Genesis 25, 21.

It says, And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren, and the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah, his wife, conceived.

Rebekah had been barren for years.

And the moment that Isaac turns to prayer, Isaac finds deliverance.

Jacob finally prays.

And it's only once he turns to the Lord to depend on him through prayer.

It's only once Jacob believes in the promise of God and prays, expresses that through this prayer, that he is truly delivered by God.

I think there's two applications we need to draw from this really quickly.

The first application is this I think that you and I are gonna get to heaven, and one of the things that we are going to kind of bemoan when we get to heaven is that we didn't pray more.

Because there's gonna be all these instances.

I don't know if we'll really get to see this, but all these like Genesis 25-21 instances where God is like, if you had just prayed about that thing, I was so ready to deliver you from that thing.

One of the things that that God really has blessed me with was starting prayer cards.

And so I would write the things that I'm praying on in a little index card, and the name would be at the top, or the thing that I'm praying for would be at the top, and then there'd be little bullets about what I'm specifically praying for that.

And I go through that, and you know what the shocking thing is?

The shocking thing is that God has been answering my prayers.

It becomes this little hall of fame.

Like I was praying for that thing, it's just not a problem anymore.

God has delivered in a way that I would have never thought imaginable, but he delivers.

And I'm reminded every morning as I turn to the Lord, God answers prayer.

And it creates this hunger to pray more, to give things to the Lord.

Because every time we pray, God answers us, answers our prayer.

Prayer, or he answers it better than we could possibly ask or imagine.

And so I think we're gonna get to heaven and look back on our life, realize there's all these things that we should have given to the Lord, that we should have labored over in prayer, and yet because we are more like Jacob than we are Jesus, we didn't.

Here's my second application from this: the more that God's word soaks in you, the more that prayer will pour out of you.

These things directly correlate.

And it's only as Jacob really begins to believe the promise that he begins to pray.

And so one of the telltale signs that God's work is really changing you, God's word is really changing you, that it's really transforming you, is that you have this growing desire to pray.

You're like Paul, who worked through this theological treatise in Romans from Romans 1 to chapter 11.

And then at the end, as he's explaining who God is, he praises God and exalts God.

He says, Oh the depths of God.

And that's what happens with us.

As we come to know who God is, the overflow of us is praise and prayer.

To Jacob, now he believes God's word is true.

You see that in verse 9?

He says, Oh God of my father, God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good.

Finally, Jacob believes God's going to do that.

He believes God's word is true.

But in verse 10, we see that he believes God's word is awesome, that his steadfast love and faithfulness is significant.

And in verse 11, Jacob believes that God's word is relevant.

He says, Please deliver me from the hand of my brother.

See, Jacob finally applies God's promise to his situation.

And my question for you this morning is this Do you believe that God's promise is relevant to your life today?

Do you believe God's promise is relevant to your life today?

Let me ask you this question, maybe a different way.

Did this book change the way that you live this week?

Some decision you were gonna make, but you thought of something that you read in this book, and it changed the way that you acted that way that that this week.

It changed the attitude that you had.

It changed the thing that you were gonna do.

Does this book have relevancy in your life?

See, I think that the problem often is that we treat this book as though it's kind of like one of the steps in the staircase that gets us to God.

We read this book kind of with like a checkbox mentality.

Well, I want to be close to God, so I gotta read God's word.

But what God wants to happen in our lives when we read his word is he wants life change to happen.

And one of the problems is that too many of us are willing to read God's word without applying God's word.

And so can I press you on one thing?

Let me ask you this question.

Every time you read God's word, do not leave until you have a practical application for that day.

Maybe it's something that, some way that you're gonna change your thinking.

You're praying to God, God, help me to think this.

Maybe it's something that you're gonna do.

But do not leave until you are ready to have a practical, like you've crafted into a sentence, an application that can change your day.

If you live according to the application, if you do this thing that you've read in God's word, it'll change your day.

This is what it means to believe God's promise.

This is how Jacob believed God's promise.

He believed that it was a promise to be regarded.

He believed that it was a relevant promise.

But the second thing I want you to see in the life of Jacob that leads to his deliverance is he believes that there is a person to be revered.

I love Genesis chapter 32, verse 22 and 23.

Genesis 32:22

It kind of sets up the whole situation.

It's in the night, in the middle of the night, he takes his family and all of his things, and he crosses the fort of Jabbok.

And he took them and sent them across the stream and everything else he had.

And chapter 24, it kind of like kind of comes as like a slap in the face, doesn't it?

It's like kind of shocking what happens next.

Everything's going well for Jacob.

And the mothers of boys in this room will understand exactly what happens and how this can erupt out of nowhere.

Verse 24, it says, And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.

That's just out of nowhere.

Like all of a sudden Jacob's on this amazing journey with God, and then it's like you look away for one second, you look back, and there's Jacob wrestling a man.

I wonder what his wives are thinking.

Oh, what's Jacob got into again?

And yet, this wrestling is significant.

The question that we need to ask is this Who is the strange man that Jacob finds himself in a wrestling match with on his way to God's land?

And we're told who that man is in verse 28.

Look what it says.

It says God speaking to Jacob, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.

See, God tells us that this man that Jacob is wrestling with is a messenger from God, so that to wrestle with this man is to wrestle with God.

So also we discover that Jacob is wrestling this man for a blessing.

And we know that all throughout Genesis, that blessing comes from God.

So this man that Jacob's wrestling with is a messenger sent from God, that to wrestle with this man is to wrestle with God himself.

I want you to remember that this is not the first time that Jacob has wrestled.

In fact, the modern equivalent of Jacob's name is like the rock.

Jacob has a wrestling name.

His name is Heel.

We're told that in Genesis that his name means heel.

And the reason his name is he was named Heel is because when Jacob was born with his twin Esau, he was born wrestling with Esau.

He was holding his heel.

So you think you've got a bad with your kids fighting all day.

Well, Jacob and Esau were fighting, coming out of the womb.

And Jacob was named Heel because he had a heel hook on Esau.

Jacob was born a wrestler.

As we read of the life of Jacob, we discover that he spent his whole life wrestling with man, trying to win his own blessing.

That's what God's talking about when he names him Israel and says, You have striven with God and with men.

God's saying, these last few moments you've striven with God, but your whole life you've striven with men.

Jacob his whole life has worked to get his own blessing.

The question for us this morning is this what are you wrestling for right now?

Are you wrestling with God?

Or are you wrestling with the things of this world?

Do you have a grip on materialism?

Do you have materialism in like a chokehold?

You're holding it so close to your heart until it blesses you?

Do you have like a like a wrestling kind of grip with other people's opinion on you?

Like you're working so hard, wrestling with, trying to earn the respect of other people, thinking that that will be the thing that blesses you?

What is the thing that you're wrestling with right now?

What is the thing that you're trying to squeeze the blessing out of right now?

You know what's a really good way to test this, to discover this?

Let me ask you this question.

What's the thing that your mind wanders to when you lose focus on the task at hand?

Here's a really practical way to think about this, okay?

We just read God's word for six minutes, and I'm guessing that many of us spent that time with our mind wandering to other things, and we had to snap out of it and get back into God's word.

And then you looked up and you're like, oh man, this pastor's still going.

And your mind wanders to another thing, and then you snap back, okay.

No, I want to focus on God's word.

And listen, that is not inconsequential.

The thing that your mind wanders to is not consequential because your mind is like a magnet for your heart.

Your mind attracts the things that your heart loves.

And so it's not inconsequential when we're reading God's word or you're trying to focus on doing something, and all of a sudden you find yourself you've been thinking about golf for like 10 minutes.

That one's really relevant for me in these last few weeks.

Or you find yourself looking at God's word, trying to read the Bible, trying to pray, but you you start thinking about the things that are worrying you, the things that are causing you anxiety.

That's important because what that's showing you is the thing that you are really wrestling with.

It's the thing that's consuming your attention, it's the thing that's close to your heart, it's the thing that you believe you will find blessing from.

See, for Jacob, though, Jacob has been changed.

And this wrestling is proof of his change.

Now instead of wrestling with things, he's wrestling with God, and he's discontent to let go until God blesses him.

This is reality for each of us.

Each of us must like Jacob wrestle with God.

We turn to God and seek blessing from him.

For some of us, that's a really difficult blessing uh wrestling match.

For some of us, we like really struggle with God.

We just don't really want to find the blessing.

And yet the need for each of us is to turn to God and grab hold of him until he blesses us.

Here's the question for you: have you wrestled with God?

But there's another question for us in this text, and the question I have for you this morning is this Have you been broken by God?

You notice that Jacob wouldn't leave this unchanged.

His hip would be broken, his thigh would be touched and put out of place.

Forever he would, I'm sure, walk with a limp because of this.

And yet I think God's teaching us something really important here, and that's that our brokenness is significant.

That we really cannot come to Christ unless we are broken.

And you know, in this North American kind of culture that we live in, I think so many have struggled with this.

We just are not broken enough to accept God.

We hear the gospel, we hear that you can be delivered, and yet we look around and we say, listen, life's pretty good.

I don't think I really need to be delivered by anything, and it's not until you are completely broken before the Lord, it's not before until you completely recognize your need for the Lord, that you are lost without Him, that you are on the path of eternal damnation apart from Him, that you will turn to Jesus.

The reason why the gospel has such shallow roots in North America is because so many look at their life and they say, I'm pretty good.

And if that's you, you need to pray that the Lord would give you an honest look at yourself, that you might be broken before him, because it's only in your brokenness that he will bless you.

And it's significant that the blessing of Jacob comes especially through his brokenness.

This is to me mind-blowing.

In Genesis 46, 26, you don't have to read this, I'll read this for you.

It says this, this is in the story of Joseph, but it says, All the persons who belonged to Jacob, who came into Egypt, who were his own descendants, not including Jacob's sons, wives, were 66 persons in all.

What Moses in this moment is doing is kind of doing a census.

How many people now are is Israel?

Israel's going to Egypt, and how many?

Like, let's count them all up.

And what he's really doing is counting the descendants of Jacob.

But he says something really interesting.

He says, All the people who belong to Jacob who came into Egypt who were his own descendants.

And in the Hebrew, that word own is the very same word as thigh in Genesis 32.

So it's something you could trans one way you could translate Genesis 46 is like all of Jacob's thigh descendants.

And what Moses is doing is pointing our attention back to Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestled with God and was broken with God, so as to say this, it's out of the brokenness of Jacob's life that God will advance his mission.

And this is so relevant for us this morning because all of us, some of us unwilling to admit it, but all of us come into this place broken.

None of us are perfect.

As these church members stand on the stage and hear this language of, we're committing to the church, you know what's probably running in their mind?

Like, well, I don't know if I'm ready to be used by God.

I've still got sin, I've got struggles, I'm still a mess.

This is the struggle every preacher goes through every Sunday.

You think you're fit to be used by God?

You're not perfect.

You got so many flaws.

And yet the gospel is this that God is using broken people for blessing.

The result when we come to God being broken is that our name is changed, and so Jacob's name is changed to Israel.

And theologically, this happens to each of us as we come broken to the Lord.

We are not who we were before.

Everything is different.

When this person, who is Jesus Himself, takes the center of our heart, when he begins to be revered, everything changes.

The third thing I want you to see about Jacob and his deliverance is that he believes that there is a provision to be received.

There's a provision to be received.

Jacob meets Esau here.

One of the questions we need to ask is this.

Jacob throughout his life has done nothing but mess up.

And here in the story we read, he gets delivered again.

And the question that I've been asking, and I wonder if you've been asking, is how can Jacob keep messing up and keep getting delivered?

And really the question is this: how could Jacob be so blessed for doing so much wrong?

See, if the gospel is so good that you can just be like a deceiver, you can do, you can sin in all these ways and yet still get blessed at the end, still be saved at the end, then why wouldn't you just keep on sinning?

Paul phrases it like this: after explaining the gospel, he says, Should we sin so that grace may abound?

Like the more I sin, the more God's grace is pouring out on me, right?

So shouldn't I just sin more and more and have more and more of God's grace pouring out on me?

And his answer is surely not.

Absolutely not.

And I think that's what Moses is doing by directing our attention to the story.

Moses is showing us the story of Jacob and Esau to tell us that when you live your life in disobedience, you lose out.

In many ways, this story mirrors Abraham and Lot.

Now, think about this for a moment.

Remember Abraham and Lot?

Why did they split up?

It was a really great problem.

They looked around and they're like, we're too rich.

Anyone want that problem in their life?

Put your hand up if you want that.

Yeah, we're too rich, so we gotta spread out.

We got too much livestock, not enough land, so we gotta separate.

Well, remember what happened with Jacob and Esau?

This is probably more relevant to most of our lives.

Esau looked at Jacob and he said, I want to kill you.

And Jacob said, Well, then I'm probably gonna leave now.

Their life is totally different.

Where Abraham and Lot are separated because there's blessing, Jacob and Esau are separated because there's danger.

And here we find, and you remember actually when Abraham and Lot were reunited?

What happened?

Well, Abraham was so concerned for his brother Lot that he sent an army of people to conquest through Canaan in order to deliver him.

And then when Lot was in Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham appeared before the Lord and prayed to God in order that he might intercede on Lot's behalf and that Lot might be delivered.

And we see this sweet brotherhood in their life.

But Jacob and Esau here, they're gonna reconcile, but it's kind of like you ever know a person who's reconciled with their family, but then just like after the reconciliation, it just nothing ever happens again.

That's Jacob and Esau.

They will not see each other again until the death of their father.

Their relationship always will be stained.

And Moses is telling us this: that there is blessing for obedience, there's curses for disobedience.

We don't look at the life of Jacob and Esau and say, wow, I should just sin all the more.

Jacob has done nothing but lose because of his sin.

And yet what we do recognize is that as God transforms us increasingly, and we see this in the life of Jacob here, we, through our obedience, are blessed by God.

Jacob experiences true blessing in this chapter as he's delivered by Esau, the man that was going to kill him, God delivers him.

And I want to ask this question: how does Jacob get it?

What are the things that Jacob does to place himself in the path of God's blessing?

Well, notice first, there are three things I want you to see really quickly.

Notice first that Jacob puts himself in the front line of danger.

You see that in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 32.

He brings his family with him and all of his servants, but then in chapter in verse 3 it says, He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother.

And it's this beautiful picture of Esau.

He all he's cared for all his life is himself.

He hasn't cared for anybody else.

And yet here in this moment of his greatest danger, he walks in the front of his family, so that if anyone is going to experience the wrath of Esau, if anyone's going to be murdered, it's going to be him.

And the way that Jacob experiences blessing is by putting others first.

Jesus modeled this for us, didn't he?

That's why Paul said, Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not account equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself on the cross, by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This is why in 1 John, the Apostle John can write with such strong language.

He says, If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.

For he who does not love his brother, whom he has not seen, cannot love God, sorry, who he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

Here's a growth check for you right now.

You want to know if the Spirit's working in you to grow you in the Lord?

Are you growing in your desire to put others ahead of yourself?

That's what I love about membership recognition Sunday.

Is this really a this is a supernatural work for people to stand on the stage and commit.

I want to serve the Lord and to look out at you and say, I want to serve you guys.

I want to give my time, my talents, my treasures.

I don't want to use them by myself anymore.

I want to do something like show up at 9.30 and take care of a room of 20 kids who are all crazy.

They're not all crazy.

If it's your kids, okay, your kids aren't crazy, the rest of them are, right?

I'll admit my kids are crazy though.

They'll do things like say, Well, I want to give sacrificially to this church, to see God move in this church, because I want to see his kingdom established in Newmarket.

They do things to the world that's mind-blowing.

You ever talk to someone about, hey, what are you doing tomorrow morning on Sunday morning?

Beautiful sunny day, what are you going to do?

I'm going to church.

And the world can't believe that.

You're what?

Like you only get two days off a week and you're spending a morning at church?

And you're saying this because I want to pour out into other people.

I want this life not to be about myself, but to be about others.

That's the way that we receive blessing is by putting others first.

But notice that Jacob also gives glory to God.

One of the ways that we experience the blessing that God has for us is by giving glory to God.

Notice in verse 5, in conversation with Esau, there's something really kind of hidden here, but important.

It says, When Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, Who are these with you?

Can you imagine this moment?

Pretty crazy moment.

Like Jacob and Esau have been separated for 20 years now in a world where there's no social media.

So Esau probably doesn't even know if Jacob's alive.

He has no idea what's happening.

And there's been these waves and droves and droves of like presents coming to Esau, of all these animals and servants saying, Hey, Jacob's coming.

And Esau's mind is blown.

What has happened to Jacob?

And then he sees Jacob, and Jacob is with this family.

There's been 11 children.

Jacob's mind, Esau's mind is blown, and Jacob said to Esau, The children whom God has graciously given your servant.

Further down, Jacob will attribute the material blessings that he had gotten to God as well, which is really significant.

Because remember when uh remember when Jacob had these children?

Remember the mandrakes?

Rachel wanted to have a kid, and so she turned to the mandrakes.

She didn't turn to God, she turned to the mandrakes.

Maybe these plants with these kind of like super uh natural cultic beliefs around them, maybe they can get me pregnant.

And Jacob says it wasn't the mandrakes, it was God.

You remember when it came to multiplying the flocks of Laban?

What did Jacob turn to?

Not God.

Jacob had like this weird routine with sticks that he thought he could uh change the genetic multiplication of these flocks.

And Jacob now looks back and says, That was foolishness.

It was not my work, it was God's work.

Jacob gives all the glory to God.

That's why we come each week and sing.

Opportunity for us to reflect on this last week and say, This week has all been all about God.

This is God's glory.

I'm pouring my praise out on God.

This is who deserves it.

The last thing I want you to see, last way, the third way that Jacob gets blessing is by clinging to Jesus.

Running through this whole story is this application and a screaming to us.

Cling to Jesus.

Listen, Esau and Jacob, they're not very different, are they?

They're both sinful wrecks.

And yet the difference is this Jacob, having been chosen by God, ultimately is seeking Jesus.

You say, how is Jacob seeking Jesus?

Because Jacob is going to the promised land where God said that the threefold promise to Abraham would be fulfilled, that he would be given seed, that he would be given blessing, and that he would be given land.

And when it comes to the New Testament, we are told this: that all the promises of God find their yes and amen in Jesus Christ.

Jacob did not know it, but who he was faithfully running towards was Jesus Christ.

The fulfillment of the promise is Jesus.

So that the seed ultimately would come through faith in Jesus.

So that Paul says that we are all now sons of Abraham through faith.

The blessing would come through Jesus.

So that we talk regularly about the only way that you can experience satisfaction in this world is that your heart is linked, that your life is linked and connected to Jesus.

And we await the day that Jesus will come back and bring us to the land.

What's going to happen with Esau?

Esau will leave Jacob.

What I truly believe Esau should have done was connected himself to Jacob.

Esau should have heard the gospel that God had preached to Abraham and said, God has chosen to bless this man, so I am going to stay as close to Jacob as I can in order that I might experience the blessings that God has for Jacob that will multiply out to the people.

Instead, Esau will leave and become God's enemies.

It's really interesting if you trace the story of Esau's people.

They become the Edomites.

And the Edomites will appear again in Scripture a few hundred years later, and it will be when King David is fighting against them and defeating them.

The prophet Obadiah will bring up the Edomites.

Bring them up and he'll talk about their pride, their violence, their apathy to Israel's destruction.

Obadiah will look at the Edomites and say, There's a reckoning day coming for you.

There's a day where God's judgment is going to be poured out to you.

Eventually that day does come.

They're driven out of their land by their enemies.

And as sojourners and strangers of any land, they're called the Edomians.

And it's really interesting that King Herod, who tries to murder Jesus as a baby, who institutes a genocide in order that Jesus might be killed, King Herod comes from the line of the Idemians.

See, Esau's heritage would be nothing but enmity.

And here's the problem: if you're not seeking blessing in Christ, you are of the line of Esau.

Either you seek blessing in Christ by clinging to him, and all that he has done for you in his death and resurrection, and all that he has done for you in hanging on the cross, or you are an enemy of him.

As we close, I want you to hear these verses in John when Jesus was transfigured.

John the Apostle says, now about eight days after these sayings, he took him with him, Peter and John and James, and went up the mountain to pray.

And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered.

And his clothing became dazzling white.

And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

And it's really interesting.

There's a footnote in that.

And it says, when he who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, there's a footnote there that says that word in the original language is Exodus.

And what Jesus was speaking about was his deliverance that he would accomplish, we're told by the Apostle John in Jerusalem.

What happened in Jerusalem?

Where Jerusalem was the place where God was dead, Jesus was put to death.

And for three days he was dead.

And then he defeated death.

And he was resurrected to new life.

And he did that so that when you place your faith in the historical Jesus Christ, who was died on a cross and was raised to new life, you too will experience the deliverance that he offers to you.

Let's pray.

Father, God, we thank you.

Thank you, Lord, for Jesus.

Lord, you have displayed your love for us in him by sending him on the cross to die for us.

Lord, you have displayed your love for us by raising him to new life.

And so, God, we give you all the praise.

We give you all the glory.

And God, I pray that our lives would proclaim constantly, today, this week, for the rest of our lives, that through the way that we live, we would proclaim, Lord, that you are the God who delivers, that you are the God who is worthy of praise, that because of all that you have done through Jesus Christ, you are the God who is infinitely glorious.

So, God, we give you all the praise and we thank you.

And Lord, we pray this all in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.