The Case of the Man with Decision-Making Myopia | Genesis 36 | Jonathan Huang | August 30, 2026

Our scripture this morning comes from the book of Genesis, chapter 36.

Genesis 36 · chapter mention

We're gonna be reading verses 1 through 30.

And if you're using one of our black Bibles, it's on page 28.

Those are free for you to take home if you don't have a Bible.

So please turn with me to Genesis 36.

And again, we're reading verses 1 through 30.

Please stand for the reading of God's holy and inerrant word.

These are the generations of Esau, that is Edom.

Esau took his wives from the Canaanites.

Ida, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, the Holybamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite, and Basamath, Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebaoth.

And Ada bore to Esau.

Eliphaz, Basamath bore Rul, and Aholubamah bore Jaush, 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, and all the members of his household, his livestock, all his beasts, and all his property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan.

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 sojourning could not support them because of their livestock.

So Esau settled in the hill country of Seir.

Esau is Edom.

These are the generations of Esau, the father of Edomites, in the hill country of Seyr.

These are the names of Esau's sons.

Eliphaz, the son of Ida, the wife of Esau, Rule, the son of Basamath, the wife of Esau.

The sons of Eliphaz were Timna Timan, Omar, Zepho, Agatim, and Kennaz.

Timnah was a concubine of Eliphaz, Esau's son.

She bore Amalek to Eliphaz.

These are the sons of Idah, Esau's wife.

These are the sons of Rul, Nahath, Ziran, Shama, and Mizza.

These are the sons of Basamath, Esau's wife.

These are the sons of Oholibama, the daughter of Anna, the daughter of Zibion, Esau's wife.

She bore to Esau Jash, Jalem, and Korah.

These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau.

The sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau, the chiefs of Temon, Omar, Zepho, Kines, Korah, Gadam, and Amalek.

These are the chiefs of Eliphaz and the land of Edom.

These are the sons of Ida.

These are the sons of Rule, Esau's son, the chiefs Nahath, Zerah, Shemmah, and Mizza.

These are the chiefs of Rule in the land of Edom.

These are the sons of Basamath, Esau's wife.

These are the sons of Aholibamah, Esau's wife, the chiefs of Jaush, Jalem, and Korah.

These are the chiefs born of Aholibama, the daughter of Anna, Esau's wife.

And these are the sons of Esau, that is Edom, and these are their chiefs.

These are the sons of Sair the Horite, the inhabitants of the land.

Lotan, Shobal, Zibion, Anna, Edishan, Ezir, and Dishan.

These are the chiefs of the Horites, the son of Seir in the land of Edom.

The sons of Lotan are Hori and Hemam.

And Lotan's sister was Timnah.

These are the sons of Shobal, Alvin, Manath, Ebal, Sheepho, and Onam.

These are the sons of Zibon, Aya and Anan.

He is the Anan who found the hot springs in the wilderness as he pastured the donkeys of Zibion his father.

These are the children of Anna.

Dishon and Aholibama, the daughter of Anna.

These are the sons of Dishon, Himdan, Ishban, Ithran, and Churan.

These are the sons of Ezir, Bilhan, Zayavan, and Achan.

These are the sons of Dishan, Uz and Aaron.

These are the chiefs of the Horites, the chiefs Lotan, Shobal, Zibion, and Anna, Dishon, Ezir, and Dishan.

These are the chiefs of the Horites, chief by chief in the land of Seir.

This is the word of the Lord.

Y'all hear me alright?

Hey, I think we should give Peggy a round of applause for that.

Like she just she should just get a gold star for all those names.

And we'll be done with the sermon.

It's good to see you all.

Just to give you a heads up, this is our last sermon in the book of Genesis for a while.

We're gonna take a break.

We're gonna finish with the story of Esau, and uh we're gonna we're gonna go to the New Testament for a while.

First Corinthians is our next book, we're gonna tackle for some time.

We'll come back to Genesis and finish off the story of Joseph next year.

All right?

Let me pray for us.

Father, it is a privilege, it's a privilege to come week in and week out and as a church tether our hearts to your word and consider what you have to say to us, even from passages like this.

Where if it were on our own, we would just skim through it, glance over it, and move on.

But as it were, help us to stay in this moment, in this chapter, with these names and places, and meditate on it together.

And as your word says, may your word, may this word that goes out from your mouth not return to you empty, but accomplish that which you purpose and succeed in the thing for which you sent.

It's in the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

So one of the things I loved doing when I was a kid was to sing in choirs.

And I still remember a song that we sung in one of the choirs I was in.

I can't remember, I I was in the I was in the boy choir, Houston Boy Choir, but I I think it might have been with the boy choir, but I can't remember for sure.

But one of the songs we sung was based on a very famous poem by Robert Frost, a very famous poet of the 20th century.

And and the poem opens like this.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

And sorry I could not travel both.

And be one traveler, long I stood and look down as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth.

Now, this is a poem about a man who is taking a walk in the woods, a forested area, and he he comes to a fork in the road, and he's contemplating in this moment which path he should take, because there's really only one way to go that day.

Frost ends his poem with these words Two roads diverged in a wood.

And I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Now, one observer points out of this poem that this poem is really about how choice is inevitable in life.

But the deeper meaning to this poem is that a single decision can really, really transform your life.

Like a single decision.

And I think she's right.

Decisions have this way of when you when you think about what you do now, they have far-reaching implications for the future.

Amen.

We may or may not know it, we may or may not notice it, but they do.

And I bring this poem up because it describes perfectly where we are in the book of Genesis today.

You see, we've covered a lot of ground now, from Genesis 1 all the way to where we are, of a story told by the author of Genesis.

It's a story of how God created a world that was eventually marred and ruined and affected and overrun by sin.

So much so that he has he decided to start over with one family that he saved on an ark, the rest of the world he destroyed with the great flood.

It's a story how from one family he repopulated this earth, but still suffering from the effects of sin.

They had to be scattered throughout the face of the earth by divine intervention because they thought to build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens in order to make a name for themselves instead of glorifying God.

And it's a story of how God chose to reveal himself to a no-name man named Abram, and how he promised to make Abram a great nation, and that through him he would bless all the families of the earth.

It's a story of how that promise would eventually be passed down to his son Isaac and not Ishmael.

And how that promise would then be passed down to Isaac's son, Jacob, and not Esau.

The story of how God's promise to Abraham would ultimately be fulfilled through the line of one of Jacob's sons and not Esau's sons, since Jesus Christ the Messiah would one day come as a far-off descendant from Jacob's fourth oldest son, Judah.

Now, last week in Genesis 35, the Bible tied some loose ends for us by telling us the story of how Jacob came all the way from Haran, all the way back to the land of his father Isaac, and eventually buried him with his brother by his side.

Today, we're looking at Genesis 36.

And we find ourselves with a lot of details that don't really make much sense to leave in the Bible.

After all, it's through Jacob and his descendants that the storyline of the Bible goes through, right?

Why waste all this ink on the brother who seems to end up as nothing but footnotes in the course of history?

Well, I think scripture has some important lessons to teach us from this other brother.

Today we're going to see how two roads diverge for these brothers.

How one brother's life becomes radically different from the others.

And what happens to Esau, I think, can be summed up very well by saying that Esau was a man who suffered from a case, a severe case, of decision making myopia.

That's my way of describing what went wrong with Esau.

Now, myopia is just a fancy medical term for the eye condition, the eye condition known as nearsightedness, short-sightedness.

It's when you can't really see things far away.

It's why you need glasses or contacts.

A lot of us know exactly what that is like.

You see, Esau had this tendency of making decisions in a very short-sighted way.

Just think about it.

Think about how he gave up his birthright in the heat of the moment.

He was hungry.

And for a bowl of soup and for some bread, he gave his birthright up.

He was hungry.

He didn't think through all the implications of what that single decision in his life would one day mean for him.

He was short-sighted.

And I don't think it's a stretch to say that we too can often struggle with decision-making myopia.

Or I bet you can think of friends or family members who have made decisions in the moment without thinking through all the implications of what those decisions would mean and come to find out some major consequences later on in life.

So here's a question I want us to wrestle with today.

It goes like this.

How do we deal with the problem of short-sightedness?

Short-sightedness when it comes to making some of life's biggest decisions.

And I'm going to focus on the kinds of decisions that we see Esau making here in this passage because I want to tether whatever we talk about to scripture.

So what I talk about today, it's not random.

Alright?

So here we go.

Decision number one: the person who you'll marry.

The person who you'll marry.

And that's what the author of Genesis starts out with as we look at Genesis 36.

That's what he brings to mind.

So I'm gonna take us there.

Alright?

Again, this is tethered to scripture.

Let's read Genesis 36, 1 through 5.

These are the generations of Esau, that is Edom.

Esau took his wives from the Canaanites.

Ada, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, Aholibamah, the daughter of Anna, the daughter of Zibon the Hivite, and Basmath, Israel's daughter, the sister of Neboeth.

And Ada bore to Esau Eliphaz.

Basmath bore Rule.

And Aholobamah bore Jush, Jalam, and Korah.

These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan.

The first major fork in the road decision that we see here that changes the entire trajectories of these two brothers' lives is who they each decide to marry.

That's what the Bible's getting at here.

You'll remember from before that it was so vital to both Abraham and his son Isaac that their sons marry within the family.

Which is why Abraham thought it was so important when he spoke with his servant to not let anyone from around the surrounding lands marry his wife.

No, he sends his servant back to his family, back to Padan Aram to find a wife for Isaac.

Isaac cared about the same thing, which is why in Genesis 28 he tells Jacob not to take a wife from among the Canaanites.

He was to go back to Padan Aram to find a wife for himself from one of the daughters of his uncle Laban.

Jacob does just that.

And of course, as the story goes, he ends up marrying two sisters, Rachel, Leah, and he has additional children with their two servants, Bilhah and Zilpah.

Now, I want to turn our attention to his brother Esau.

Because in Genesis 26, the Bible tells us that Esau, when he was 40, marries two women.

Both of them were Canaanites.

They weren't from the family.

And what's more, scripture says that these women, for whatever reason, made life bitter for his parents.

We don't know exactly what caused all the tension between Esau's wife and his parents, but the point of the Bible is clear enough.

They weren't in the family.

Listen to this, you shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons.

For they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods.

That's important.

I made that highlighted and bolded just so you recognize something.

My point is that long after the time of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, God would formally forbid the practice of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, but keep the mind, keep in mind the reason.

This Old Testament law was put in place because God was jealous for his people's affections.

And he knew the moment that his people gave themselves in marriage to people outside of their people and to the other lands, the moment their hearts would turn to worshiping false gods.

And he didn't want that.

Well, just think about what happened to King Solomon.

You remember?

King Solomon at one point in his life was the wisest man in the world, but he did something very foolish.

First Kings tells us the story.

And he began to love many foreign women.

He had 700 wives who were princesses, 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart.

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.

For Solomon went after Astareth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.

Solomon built a high place for Kemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Moloch the abomination of the Ammonites on the mountain east of Jerusalem.

And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

And I think Esau likely faced the same outcome.

The Bible doesn't tell us much more details.

But we certainly don't see the same kind of personal interactions between he and God as there were recorded for us between he and his brother Jacob.

My point is that Esau's life trajectory headed further and further away from the God of his fathers because he intermarried with the women of the land.

And I see the author of Genesis trying to make this point further by showing us just how much Esau's life completely started intermingling with the people of the land.

In verses 9 through 15, the Bible gives us a record of the names of Esau's sons and grandsons.

And then in verses 20 through 30, the Bible gives us this record and this genealogy of a man named Seir the Horite.

Now, that's kind of random.

Like, why in the world do we need to know about the genealogy of Seir the Horites?

Not even an Israelite.

Now the thing to know about the Horites is that they were a group of people who were known to be cave dwellers in the region of Mount Seir.

And they lived in the area that Esau and his family eventually moved to and take over one day.

South and east of Canaan.

I think I have a map just to show you where Seir is in relation to Canaan.

But here's the thing.

As we look at the genealogy of Seir the Horite, there's two things I want you to notice.

First, we come to find out that Oholybama, one of Esau's wife listed earlier on, was actually the granddaughter of Seir the Horite.

The granddaughter of Seir the Horite, which means that Esau came to be directly related to one of the great forefathers of the Horite peoples.

Second, there's this woman you'll recall named Timnah.

Timna, mentioned in verse 22.

She was the daughter of Seir the Horite.

And if you look back at verse 12, we'll find out that this Timna.

Is the same Timnah who became the concubine of Esau's son Eliphaz.

And that together they had a son named Emelech, who became the forefather of Malachites of the Old Testament, who were great enemies to the nation of Israel.

Their lives became so intertwined with each other.

Esau and the Sirites and the Horites.

Seer the Horite.

I think that's why he's in the Bible.

The Bible's trying to show us the trajectory of Esau and what it looks like to be intermingled with the people of the land, something the Lord didn't want to do.

Esau's problem of short-sighted decision making is on full display when you look at who he marries.

And these decisions would go to have, come to have long-lasting implications far after, long after he's gone from earth.

Now, before we move on, I just want to say a word about intermarriage.

It's true that the Israelites of the Old Testament were forbidden to intermarry with people from surrounding lands.

It's true.

But like I said before, the reason, the reason was always, always a spiritual one, not an ethnic one.

God wanted to make sure his people were pure and holy and set apart and not drawn away to worshiping other gods.

That was the underlying reason.

So don't miss that.

And don't also miss the fact that in the New Testament, with the coming of Christ, the Bible tells us that Jesus has, through his own blood, brought peace between Jews and non-Jews.

Listen to what it says in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

For he himself, that's referring to Jesus, is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.

So making peace.

And might reconcile us both, meaning both Jews and non-Jews, to God in one body through the cross.

And you know, I can't think of a more vivid picture to express these truths, this the new reality of oneness between Jews and non-Jews through Christ than when Christians from differing racial, ethnic backgrounds choose to get married to each other.

I mean, just think about it.

It's one thing to be in the same church, it's another thing to get married to one another.

To be a Christian, to be one in Christ, transcends all national, racial, ethnic, social, cultural, linguistic barriers.

And so the problem of intermarriage for us today, if you're a believer, is not interracial marriages, it's not inter-ethnic marriages, it's interfaith marriages.

When a Christian chooses to marry outside the faith, because again, the spiritual oneness is the issue, the same as the old and the new testaments.

God wants our hearts, he's jealous for our hearts, and he knows that marriage will really affect that.

Amen.

This truth hits close to home.

Because it's it's part of my story.

As a freshman, I met my my wife, Aya, and we we we I guess we liked each other.

I liked her, and I'm assuming she liked me.

Sophomore, come sophomore year, uh, have this conversation with my mom.

I called her, I talked to her this morning, she's okay with me sharing this.

My mom.

I wanted to date Aya, but my my dear mom, she was concerned.

She was concerned because, well, she's not Taiwanese, she's Japanese.

Now, for all you Asians, and non-Asians, all you non-Asians who who think, what's the big deal?

You're all Asian.

Well, for some of us, that's a big deal.

Just trust me.

My mom, my mom, she had always hoped, and it didn't come out until that conversation, she had always hoped, you know, that I'd marry a Taiwanese girl.

We'd have large family gatherings eating Taiwanese food and talking in Taiwanese.

That was a big deal to her.

I was at a point in my my faith where I gave it to the Lord and I said something like, you know, if this is of God, I know he's gonna change your heart.

If it's not of God, I know he's gonna change my heart.

I just waited.

Come junior year, about a year later, my grandfather passes away.

He's in Taiwan.

My mom and I, my dad goes ahead first ahead of us.

My mom and I are on the plane together to Taiwan, and I still remember we have this conversation.

And this conversation centered around how difficult it could be to get married to someone who's of a different culture.

Again, Taiwanese, Japanese, it's it's it's kind of different for all you non-Asians.

Different enough that it this conversation was a big one for me, okay?

And I still remember, I thank the Lord for giving me wisdom as I was talking with my mom on that airplane, as we were discussing the reality of intercultural marriages and the possible conflicts we might have, the fact that we were one in Christ should make a difference in the equation.

Like, yes, we might have more conflicts because we have different cultures, we come from different backgrounds.

Yes, we could have, yeah, it'd just be a more challenging kind of marriage.

But because Jesus is in the center, he's gonna take care of us.

He's gonna take care of us.

And uh my mom wanted me to make sure I said that now uh things are all better because by the end of that, by the end of that uh that that trip, the Lord changed her heart.

I don't know what happened, but she would she she changed her heart.

She's open to letting me date her, and as you as they say, the rest is history.

But my mom wanted to make sure we I mentioned things are good between us, and she has come full circle, praise the Lord.

Amen.

Now I just want to speak for a moment to those of you who are in that life stage of single, looking to get married.

The lesson for you from this part of Esau's story is to be distinctly God-centered about your choice of a marriage partner.

Don't be short-sighted.

You see, Esau bucked the wisdom of his forefathers and opted to go with his own wisdom when it came to who to marry.

He didn't think carefully about all the implications that that one decision would make.

And if you're a Christian, then the core of who you are is summarized well in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism.

You belong to Christ, who with his precious blood has fully satisfied all your sins and delivered you from the power of the devil.

So make sure, make sure you look for someone who shares that common trajectory.

Someone who belongs to Christ.

Now there's not enough time to dive into all the details of how to actually go about wisely finding someone.

That's not the point of this message, but I would want to offer you, I do want to offer you a great resource to help you do just that.

I've got a QR code on the screen.

It's a QR code that I want you to go to if you if you're interested.

These are first, uh, this is the first of four episodes on dating from a Christian perspective.

It's part of a podcast called Counseling Talk that I found really helpful.

And so you may not need it, but you may have someone you know that needs it, you can get that link as well.

But very helpful links, a very helpful link to episodes on dating and a lot of wisdom.

Now, for those of you here who are not in that stage of life or are not looking to get married, you've already found someone, praise the Lord.

I want us to spend a moment praying for those who are single in our congregation who are still in that season of looking for a spouse to marry.

It's a big decision.

So let's pray that they would find godly spouses.

Let's pray that the Lord would grant them wisdom and far-sightedness when it comes to this issue in life, that they would choose a marriage partner well.

Amen.

So I just want to spend a moment praying for that.

You just pray on your own.

Going to give us a minute.

Let's pray for the singles who are looking for a spouse that the Lord would encourage them, give them spiritual far sightedness.

Let's do that.

You can pray for them by name if you'd like.

So that's decision number one, the person you will marry.

Decision number two, the place or places you will live.

Again, I'm tethering my time to the word, and so that's why this is coming up.

Where you will live.

Verse six goes on to tell us something else about how Esau chooses to live his life.

Let's look there.

Verse six.

Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his livestock, all his beasts, and all his property that he acquired in the land of Canaan.

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.

Esau is Edom.

Now I got another map just to visualize, help you visualize this.

The land up to the north.

The land up to the north is the land of Canaan.

Esau takes his family and all his possessions, all his property out of the land of Canaan, and he heads to the land of Seir, just south of Canaan.

Mount Seir was this mountainous regions between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea.

And the second major fork in the road decision where we see the entire trajectory of Jacob and Esau's lives totally diverges where they decide to live.

Jacob makes a decision to stay put in the land of his forefathers, in the land of Canaan.

But Esau makes a fateful decision to move away from the center of his childhood, away from the center of his family relationships, and I think what this symbolizes is that Esau is distancing himself even further from the God of his fathers.

He allows, as we'll see, the surrounding people of the land to become more of a shaping influence on his life than vice versa.

In verses 41, 31 to 43, we see a list of the kings of the land of Edom and the chiefs of Edom.

One of those kings is named Baal Hanan.

You know what that means?

It means Baal is gracious.

Like Baal, who was the false god of the lands of the people of the land worshipped by others, foreign god.

It just shows how Esau in this one decision sets himself and the rest of his descendants up for a future that was far, far away from the God of his fathers.

You see that?

It was a short-sighted decision made by Esau because, as one commentator explains, Canaan could actually have supported the two of them, these two brothers.

You remember back in Genesis 34 when Dinah was defiled, and Shechem, her abuser, and his father go and speak to the people of the city.

Do you remember what they say?

They say, and they tell their people, that this land, the city of Shechem, which is located in Canaan, it's large enough for Jacob's family and possessions to coexist with their family and their people, suggesting that there would have been more than enough room for Jacob and Esau in Canaan.

More than enough room.

One other writer suggests that Esau moved to Mount Seir in order to profit from such a move.

In other words, Esau thought he was moving to the better place, leaving his brother behind with the shorter end of the stick.

Little did he know that he was only preparing the way for Jacob and his sons to remain in the promised land to multiply one day and fulfill God's promises for them.

What I want you to see is that there is special meaning to the place or places you or I choose to live in.

In Acts chapter 17, the Bible tells us that God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

Esau chose to move further from the land of promise, further away from the place where his forefathers communed with the Lord.

And his decision led to unintended consequences.

So here's what we can learn from Esau when it comes to choosing a place to live.

There is such a thing as being more influenced by the people living around you than being an influence on them.

The lesson of Esau for us today is not that there are certain places on earth that we should or shouldn't live in.

That's not the lesson.

In fact, I was just at a gathering of pastors or church leaders this past uh week where the speaker was a former pastor who planted a church in the middle of Las Vegas.

There's no place on earth that that is off limits.

That's my point.

That's not the point.

You know, it it the the there's no place on earth God doesn't want to fill with the knowledge of his glory.

Amen.

But sometimes, sometimes when we're faced with the decision of where to move to, one of the last things we think of should actually be one of the first things we think of.

And that's whether or not there is a healthy church near where you're thinking of moving.

Next time you're faced with the decision of looking for a place to move to, make sure that's on the top of your mind, the front of your mind, that there's at least one healthy church nearby where you're planning to move to.

So you can continue to treasure Christ together with the local body of believers.

Don't be short-sighted and only consider what the best school districts are, how close it is to work, is the property value good or bad?

Those are not bad things to think about, but don't let them rise to the top.

Make sure to prioritize being with God's people in the context of a local church where you can serve and worship with your family as you make that decision.

I want you to listen to the rest of Acts 17 that I just read to you.

The whole verse reads like this.

And he, meaning God, made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.

What and why?

That they should seek God and perhaps feel their way towards Him and find Him.

Wherever you are, even in the neighborhood you find yourself living in right now, make sure you're being an influence for the sake of the gospel and the people around you, not just blending into the neighborhood like everyone else.

And I think about Alex and Avette.

A couple years ago, they made a decision to move from the Med Center to West Houston to be part of our church plant, to be closer to where we are.

The center of ministry is the big decision.

And I still remember just noticing, you know, they didn't have, they didn't know anyone in their neighborhood at first.

But slowly and surely they they met people as they went on walks in the parks, just living in the neighborhood, building relationships.

Strangers became neighbors, and neighbors became friends.

And when the group that they host from our church hosts meal nights, we just hang out with people from the neighborhood and hang out with.

We've got Jan and Claudia here.

We hang out together.

We love hanging out with each other.

It's a testament to the fact that they're not just in this home for themselves, they're out there to love their neighborhood.

To be a light for the Lord.

So what about you?

Recognize it's no coincidence where you live right now.

God in his sovereignty has placed you exactly where you are, in your exact neighborhood, on your exact street, in your exact home with your exact neighbors.

It's not a coincidence.

He has you there for a reason.

To be part of fulfilling the words of the prophecy in Habakkuk 2.14.

Is the Lord's.

And you being in your neighborhood has a significant uh meaning to it.

It means that there's significance to the times you and your families walk up and down the streets of your neighborhoods.

There's significance to the conversations that you have at the local gym or the school or at the park.

There's significance to the play dates you schedule with your friends.

Esau left the promised land.

Jacob didn't.

But the nation that grew up out of Jacob's family in the promised land was always meant to declare to the world how great their God was.

Always.

It wasn't meant for them to just keep it to themselves.

Because it was through Jacob's far-off descendant, Jesus Christ, where God would show himself to be mighty to save.

Mighty to save a people for himself from their sins through his son and his son's death on the cross.

Mighty to save and prove to the world he truly is the hope of the nations.

And so as we go about doing life in the place that God has placed us where we live and work and play, let's declare to the world the truth that our God reigns.

And that there is salvation in no one else but Jesus.

For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for the privilege of sitting for your word and contemplating what passages like this mean for us, these names and places of the Bible that seem to have no relevance.

But we thank you, Lord, for your scripture.

There's no ink wasted.

And so even from passages like this, I pray you would take the truths, plant them deep into our hearts, impact our lives.

Father, we thank you that we know the God of the universe who has no problem with short-sightedness, no problems with myopia.

You see the world beginning to end with 2020 vision.

We don't have to be afraid of the future because you see way further than we ever could.

So comfort us, Lord, as we make decisions.

Keep us from being anxious, keep us trusting in you and confidence, knowing that you will shepherd us through every decision of our lives.

2020 vision for your glory and our good.

Amen.

I want you to get into just groups of threes and fours with people right around.