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[0:00] Hebrews chapter 11, verse number 20. By faith, Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. Great, thank you. I want to ask you a question. Do you know what a symbol sounds like?

[0:15] I want to introduce you to a different kind of symbol today, and that is a, it's called a ride symbol. And the ride symbol is normally off to the right side of the drum kit, and it doesn't sound like, that's a crash symbol.

[0:31] The ride symbol sounds like this, right? And then you can do, okay? That's the ride symbol. Now, you want to see if you can all do that?

[0:45] It's like T and S together. Okay, now hold on to that, because we're going to need that in just a minute. But I wanted to introduce it now. God's purposes are fulfilled through faith and through failure.

[1:05] God keeps his promises even when you don't keep your promises. And God's plans are not thwarted by the hurt that others do to you, nor by the hurt that you do to others.

[1:25] God is not hindered by your weakness, and God is not restricted by time. Do you believe this?

[1:41] In 2 Timothy, Paul writes this. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

[1:54] That's good news for us, isn't it? Like really good news. That he will not deny himself, and that he remains faithful.

[2:07] Here's why this is good news. Because our pride and our self-centeredness often leads us into areas of unbelief.

[2:18] And when we find ourselves in one of these areas of unbelief, it is not that we are doubting God's ability to save. It's not that we're doubting God's ability to save us.

[2:29] We are doubting God's ability to work out every circumstance that we find ourselves in for his glory and our good. That's what we're doubting. And when we have this doubt, we tend to fill the gap with fretting about the future, or rushing, you know, when we should be praying, white-knuckle-gripping circumstances to try to make things work out the way that we think that they should work out.

[3:07] Here's what happens. When I think I know what's best for me, and I think I know what's best for you, there is almost no end to the path that I will take to get what I want to happen.

[3:22] That is when I think I know what's best for me, and when I think I know what's best for you. Do you know what this is? This is faux sovereignty.

[3:35] F-A-U-X. It is fake sovereignty. Like fake leather, or imitation fur, or a knock-off Rolex watch.

[3:47] Faux sovereignty. Faux sovereignty. And faux sovereignty is a pitiful substitute for the real thing. In contrast to our faux sovereignty, the scripture reveals that God is sovereign.

[4:04] He is perfectly and completely, powerfully in control of every circumstance that we find ourselves in. And because he is good, and because he is just, we can trust him in all of these circumstances to do what is right.

[4:24] Even when we disagree, or we don't understand, or we desire a different outcome. Last week, Ryan preached faithfully and beautifully about Abraham's faith, evidenced by his obedience to offer up Isaac.

[4:46] And the pointer that this text in Genesis 22 is, to the father, offering his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as a substitute on our behalf. Today's text from Hebrews chapter 11 that Evan read from us is about Isaac.

[5:02] And so I want to back up one chapter to before Isaac was born in order to give us some context on this character Isaac. So this is Genesis chapter 21, and look with me at verse number one.

[5:14] Genesis 21 and verse one. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised, and Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.

[5:35] Did God's word come true exactly as God had said it would? It did. Three times in just these two verses, the narrator tells us this. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.

[5:51] And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

[6:01] And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me. What a crazy story.

[6:12] What a ridiculous story. What a story that is utterly impossible if it were not for God. That a woman who is past the age of bearing children can have a son.

[6:25] And she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Notice that plural there. She's already thinking about future generations.

[6:39] That's faith. The Hebrew word for laugh starts with the sound of a ride symbol.

[6:51] Do you remember what it was? And then you add the word sock after it. So if you say sock, sock, can you do that?

[7:02] Sock. So T-S and then sock. Sock, sock. That is the Hebrew word for laugh. And Isaac's name is the Hebrew word for laughter.

[7:17] And you just put the letters Y and I in our alphabet in front of it. So you end up with Yitzhak. Right? So T-S is laughed, is laugh.

[7:28] And then Yitzhak is laughter. Do you want to try Yitzhak? Yitzhak. Isaac, did you know that's how you say your name in Hebrew? Yitzhak. Maybe your kid, maybe your brothers and sisters are going to practice that on you later.

[7:42] Abraham laughed at the thought of Sarah having a son. Sarah laughed at the thought that she could have a son.

[7:54] She weighed this apparent impossibility. And she laughed. But God, who chose the name Isaac for the child of the promise in Genesis 17, God gets the last laugh.

[8:09] Isaac's name means laughter. Sarah dies. Abraham remarries and has other children. But notice what happens in Genesis chapter 25 and verse number 5.

[8:20] Genesis 25 and verse 5. Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. And then down again in verse number 11.

[8:33] After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac, his son. Abraham. So Abraham has other children and he sends them away with gifts.

[8:46] But he gives everything to Isaac. And then God reinforces that giving to Isaac by saying that God blessed him here in verse number 11.

[8:58] God blessed Isaac. Verse number 19. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham fathered Isaac and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban, the Aramean to be his wife.

[9:19] And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren for maybe 20 years. Why would Isaac pray to the Lord about his barren wife?

[9:35] Because Isaac knows that he is the child of promise that God promised to give to Abraham. And he knows that from him has to come a descendant, a whole multitude of people.

[9:47] And so Isaac prays to the Lord, asking the Lord to give his wife, Rebecca, children. And the Lord, end of verse 21, granted his prayer and Rebecca, his wife, conceived.

[10:07] Notice this in verse 22. The children struggled together within her. The Hebrew words here are really interesting. I learned this this week. It's like the two babies inside of her were smashing themselves together inside of her womb.

[10:23] It's like they were having a WWF wrestling match inside of her. They were smashing themselves together. And she said, if it is this, why is this happening to me?

[10:40] So she went to inquire of the Lord, verse 23, and the Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb and two people from within you shall be divided.

[10:54] The one shall be stronger than the other and the older shall serve the younger. The older shall serve the younger. When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb.

[11:12] The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak. So they called his name Esau, which means something close to the Hebrew word for hairy.

[11:24] Afterward, his brother came out with his hand holding on to Esau's heel. So his name was called Jacob. Means something kind of like the Hebrew word for heel, ankle grabber.

[11:39] Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them and when the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field while Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in tents.

[11:53] Jacob is kind of a mama's boy, I think you would say. That's probably how we would think of him and Esau, on the other hand, is like a mighty hunter kind of a guy.

[12:05] Isaac, verse 28, loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

[12:19] So here's Esau and Jacob. They have this massive conflict in the womb, smashing themselves into one another like their mother's womb is a wrestling ring.

[12:30] And then they come out, Esau first, but Jacob holding on to his heel, almost like he's trying to pull him back and get out first. And they look different.

[12:42] Esau is red, very hairy. It seems very puzzling to me because we would normally say something like Jacob, right? He is smooth as a baby's bottom, right?

[12:56] That's normal what you would expect for a baby. So Esau comes out red, hairy like a fur coat, very strange. And Jacob comes out smooth. And they have these distinct personalities.

[13:08] One is a hunter, likes to be outside. He's an outdoorsman. Jacob likes to stay home, hang around the tents, be with his mom. And so it's not surprising that Isaac loves Esau because he loves to eat his game that he goes and hunts.

[13:27] And it's not surprising that Rebecca loves Jacob because she's hanging around the tent with her all the time. Each parent has a favorite.

[13:41] This is like a reality TV show waiting to happen, isn't it? Verse 29, 25, 29. Once, when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted.

[14:01] And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted. Therefore his name was called Edom, which means red. Jacob, verse 31, said, sell me your birthright now.

[14:18] Now, I'm not sure if this text catches our attention the way that it ought to, and so let me rework this and just illustrate it this way. Imagine that Lydia is at our home and she is cooking homemade pizza, which Samuel loves pizza.

[14:37] And she's cooking pizzas and she's got them in the oven, she's made the dough, she's put the toppings on, they smell great, and Samuel, my oldest son, our oldest son, right, shows up at the house and he comes in and he says, oh, those pizzas smell so great, give me some of that pizza, I'm so hungry, give me some of that pizza, and Lydia says to him, give me your inheritance.

[15:06] You would say, if you were observing this, that's weird. Like one, mom and dad aren't dead yet, and two, why would I trade whatever inheritance we're going to get from our parents for a few slices of pizza?

[15:21] pizza? That's odd. That's the way that you all chuckled a bit, that's how we ought to chuckle a bit when we read this text. We ought to go, oh, that's odd. Why would Jacob do that to his brother?

[15:35] Why would he try to trade him an inheritance for a bowl of red soup? Now, the birthright is a position of honor, and it includes all of the rights and the privileges and the responsibilities of making sure to hand off to the next generation all of God's promises.

[16:02] It's a position of honor to have the birthright, and by default, it goes to the firstborn. Who is the firstborn? Who came out first? Esau came out first, right?

[16:13] Jacob's grabbing him by the ankle, but Esau gets out just ahead of him. So Esau has the birthright and says, give me some soup, and Jacob says, give me your birthright now.

[16:33] Verse 32, Esau said, I am about to die. Do you think he was really about to die? I don't think he was. I think he's exaggerating a little bit, Grant.

[16:45] He's like, I'm so hungry. He wasn't really that hungry. He probably ate that morning. But this is the kind of person that Esau was. He said, I'm about to die.

[16:55] Of what use is a birthright to me? And Jacob said, swear to me now. It's four words in our language, just three words in the original.

[17:06] And you can think of them as punchy words. Swear to me now. He's very eager to make this deal with Esau.

[17:18] So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. And then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way.

[17:31] And then notice this last sentence. Thus, Esau despised his birthright. Esau seems mostly concerned about the right here, right now.

[17:45] He reacts in the present without regard for God's promises in the future. Not concerned about God's promises for the future.

[17:56] I'm hungry right now. No thoughtful consideration of God or his promises, and as a result, we can understand Esau does not have faith.

[18:12] Jacob, on the other hand, grabs hold of God's promise and says, I want that. I want God's blessing on my life. But rather than living by faith, Jacob thinks God needs his help.

[18:29] Foe sovereignty. If Jacob's deal seems unfair, and it does seem unfair when we consider it in this light, doesn't it?

[18:44] If Jacob's deal seems unfair, then God's commentary on the story helps us understand. Esau despised his birthright.

[18:54] God was not unjust to give Jacob the birthright, even to give it to him, as he said to Rebecca, before he was born, because Esau didn't want it anyway.

[19:08] So God didn't give to Esau what Esau didn't want. No injustice on God's part.

[19:19] God's desire to have his best life right now is what leads the author of Hebrews chapter 12 to call Esau unholy, profane, common.

[19:40] He was concerned about right here, right now, and had no time or interest or faith in God's promises for the future. Esau didn't value what he couldn't see, and faith is the conviction of things not seen.

[20:08] Any questions so far? Okay. Chapter 27 and verse 1. when Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau, his older son, and said to him, my son, and he answered, here I am.

[20:33] And he said, behold, I am old and I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver, and your bow, and go out into the field and hunt game for me, and prepare for me delicious food such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat and that my soul may bless you before I die.

[20:53] Who is Isaac getting ready to bless? Who is he getting ready to bless? Esau. Who is supposed to get the blessing?

[21:05] Jacob is supposed to get the blessing. Jacob is supposed to get the blessing. blessing. Now, I don't know for sure whether Isaac knows that Jacob is supposed to get the blessing.

[21:22] I can't say that for sure. The text doesn't tell us that, but here's a few little hints. It's not that God didn't reveal himself, right?

[21:33] If he doesn't know, if Isaac doesn't know that Jacob is supposed to get the blessing and not Esau, it's not because God hasn't said so.

[21:43] God makes it clear to Rebecca when the two children are fighting inside of her womb that the older is supposed to serve the younger. It's smooth-talking Jake who is supposed to get the blessing.

[22:00] Rebecca knew. Rebecca knew. And because Jacob was her favorite anyway, do you think she ever let Isaac forget who was supposed to get the blessing?

[22:11] blessing? I imagine this was a source of contention in their family. In addition to this, Isaac's insistence on a delicious pre-meal blessing links him to Esau and the story of the red soup when Esau despised his birthright and traded it for soup.

[22:37] at minimum, we should be suspect of Isaac's motives and we should at least wonder why is he acting against what God has revealed to us in the text?

[22:53] Verse number five. Now, Rebecca was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebecca said to her son Jacob, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau.

[23:09] Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food that I may eat it and bless you before, notice this, the Lord before I die. Look back up in your Bible. Put your finger there, verse number eight, look back up in your Bible.

[23:22] Isaac made no mention of the Lord. Rebecca adds this to add some weight. She's going to manipulate Jacob to get what she wants.

[23:35] So she says that I may bless you before the Lord before I die. Verse eight, now therefore my son, Rebecca speaking, obey my voice as I command you, go to the flocks and bring me two good young goats so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father such as he loves and you shall bring it to your father to eat so that he may bless you before he dies.

[23:59] But Jacob said to Rebecca his mother, behold, behold, this is kind of like, hold on here one minute. My brother Esau is a hairy man and I am a smooth man.

[24:16] Perhaps my father will feel me and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing. His mother, Rebecca, said to him, let your curse be on me, my son, only obey my voice and go bring them, bring the goats to me.

[24:36] Verse 14. So he went and took them and brought them to his mother and his mother prepared delicious food such as his father loved.

[24:47] Then Rebecca took the best garments of Esau, her older son, notice how the text points that out, her older son, which were with her in the house and put them on Jacob, her younger son, and the skins of the young goat she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck and she put the delicious food and the bread which she had prepared into the hand of her son Jacob.

[25:13] Listen, it is a good thing that Isaac's eyesight is poor because Jacob looks absurd.

[25:25] He's wearing his brother's clothes and he has these skins of the goats, furry goat skin wrapped on his arms and around his neck and then he walks in carrying some kind of a platter of food and bread like a waiter.

[25:42] He looks absurd. The greater absurdity is this.

[25:53] Rebecca and Jacob think that God needs their help. pride will lead us into all kinds of absurdity.

[26:09] Pride will help us to justify deceit and gossip and slander. Pride will lead us to rationalize doing what is wrong in order to get what is right.

[26:23] pride will sanitize any means as tolerable so long as the outcome is desirable.

[26:37] As Paul facetiously says in Romans chapter three, why not do evil so that good may come? pride leads to faux sovereignty.

[26:54] It leads to taking matters into your own hands rather than trusting God. Verse number 18.

[27:05] So he, Jacob, went in to his father and said, my father and he said, here I am. Who are you, my son?

[27:17] Notice this, Jacob's lies. Jacob said to his father, I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me.

[27:32] Now sit up and eat of my game that your soul may bless me. But Isaac said to his son, how is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?

[27:46] Jacob answered, because the Lord, your God granted me success. He brings God into his lie. Then Isaac said to Jacob, please come near that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son, Esau, or not.

[28:07] So Jacob went near to Isaac, his father, who felt him. And Isaac said, the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

[28:18] And he did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. So he blessed him and he said, are you really my son, Esau?

[28:29] And he answered, Jacob answered, I am. five lies. Then he said, bring it near to me that I may eat of my son's game and bless you.

[28:45] So he brought it near to him and he ate and he brought him wine and he drank. And then his father, Isaac, said to him, come near and kiss me, my son. So he came near and kissed him.

[28:56] Can you sense the way that the author of Genesis is building the tension here? Came near and kissed him and Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him.

[29:09] I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this with my cold, but it's like this. Oh, it smells like the outdoors. It's my son, Esau.

[29:25] He blessed him and said, see the smell of my son. Is as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of earth.

[29:41] Notice that heaven and earth, dew and fatness. It's the idea of rain or richness and plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you and nations bow down to you.

[29:55] Be Lord over your brothers and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be everyone who blesses you.

[30:08] Heaven and earth, this is an all encompassing blessing. Dew and fatness. It is about fertility and fruitfulness, dominion in his interpersonal and also in national relationships.

[30:23] gifts. And he confers on Jacob at the very end the blessing of Abraham. Whoever blesses you, I will bless and whoever curses you, I will curse. Jacob receives a blessing in disguise.

[30:41] Jacob and Rebecca are guilty of deceiving Isaac, but Isaac also rejects God's revelation to Rebecca.

[30:51] Isaac demonstrates faith by passing on the blessing to the next generation. But as far as Isaac knows, who did he bless?

[31:05] Esau. Through faith and failure, God fulfills his purpose.

[31:18] Verse number 30. As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, right?

[31:30] There's just this drama that's happening. Esau, his brother, came in from hunting. He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, let my father arise and eat of his son's game that you may bless me.

[31:43] And his father, Isaac, said to him, who are you? And he answered, I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.

[31:59] father, I thought to you. Then Isaac trembled very violently and said, who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me?

[32:13] And I ate it all before you came and I have blessed him. Notice Isaac's faith. Yes, and he shall be blessed.

[32:25] blessed. As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceeding great and bitter cry and said to his father, bless me, even me also, oh my father.

[32:43] But he, Isaac, said, your brother came deceitfully. This is one of those interesting questions here in verse 35. How does Isaac know? He thinks that he has blessed Esau.

[33:00] Now he realizes that he did not bless Esau and he immediately knows who it was.

[33:15] Your brother came in deceitfully and he has taken away your blessing. Does the Holy Spirit ever give you those aha moments?

[33:29] Like what happens here with Isaac? Where suddenly something is clear to you that has not been clear before?

[33:44] This happened to me this week. I was driving home from work and God brought to my mind something that happened five years ago.

[34:01] And I realized in that moment driving around the roundabout by our house, I sinned against someone. And then what's worse, when I had committed the sin that I did that I thought was the good thing to do, and that person told me how much that had hurt by what I had done, I said you're wrong five years ago.

[34:32] How kind of the Holy Spirit to show us our sin. I texted my friend last night and asked him if he would forgive me.

[34:42] We have already forgiven one another for some crazy things that happened in our world five years ago. But I asked him if he would forgive me very specifically for something that the Holy Spirit brought to my mind.

[34:54] I wonder if similarly to how he brings this to Isaac's mind, where in this moment he realizes, what have I done? It was your brother.

[35:06] And he realizes in that moment, God has fulfilled his purpose in spite of my failure. fear. My friend was kind to forgive me last night.

[35:27] How kind of the Lord to show us our sin, to enable us to confess it. I'm not the hero in that story, by the way.

[35:40] Five years, you should all be looking down your noses at me. But God is good. And the Holy Spirit is strong and powerful and is able to do amazing, wonderful things in our lives.

[35:52] Verse 36, Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob, the heel grabber? For he has cheated me these two times.

[36:03] He took away my birthright. Is that true? Nope. You sold him your birthright, didn't you? It wasn't true. He didn't take it from you. You traded it for a bowl of red soup.

[36:15] He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing. And then he said, Have you not reserved a blessing for me?

[36:25] He shifts the blame over to Isaac. It's your fault. Where's the blessing for me? Isaac answered and said to Esau, Behold, I have made him lord over you and all his brothers.

[36:40] I have given to him for servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son? Esau said to his father, Have you but one blessing, my father?

[36:51] Bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. Then Isaac, his father, answered and said to him, Behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be and away from the dew of heaven on high.

[37:13] By your sword you shall live and you shall serve your brother, but when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck. Isaac knows that his blessing to Jacob is irretrievable, irrevocable, undoable, and so Esau's blessing is a blessing in disguise.

[37:39] Did you notice that? It's actually more of a curse. He says to Esau, you will be blessed with parchedness and barrenness and fruitlessness.

[37:53] You're going to be away from all the fertility and fruitfulness of the land. You don't get dominion. You're going to fight for your life, for your whole life and you have to serve your brother.

[38:06] And did you notice there is no God in this anti-blessing? Verse 41. This is not surprising, right?

[38:19] Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are approaching.

[38:30] Dad's going to die soon. And when he dies, I will kill my brother Jacob. But the words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebecca, here she is again, manipulating, white knuckle.

[38:41] So she sent and called Jacob her younger son and said to him, behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you. Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice, arise, flee to Laban, my brother in Haran, and stay with him a while until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him, then I will send and bring you from there.

[39:05] Why should I be bereft of both of you in one day? By faith, Isaac invoked future blessings things on Jacob and Esau.

[39:22] But notice this, friends, there are no good people in this story. Not one of them deserve God's promises. Not one of them have earned God's favor.

[39:34] Isaac is not walking by faith. He follows his sense of touch and smell and taste, and his lack of eyesight physically points to his spiritual blindness in ignoring the word of God to Rebekah.

[39:50] Now, Rebekah, she's just white-knuckle gripping circumstances around her. She's trying to control everything to get what she wants, and in the process she ends up losing both of her sons.

[40:03] Esau is indifferent to God's blessing. He despises God's promises. Why? Because they pertain to the future, and he is concerned about right here, right now.

[40:14] Esau has no faith binoculars that let him look off into the future and grab God's promise and bring it into the present, and in the end, what does Esau do?

[40:26] He premeditates his brother's murder. This links him with Cain, and with the seed of the serpent in the garden.

[40:40] Jacob tries to help God. He plays dress up in order to deceive his father. He invokes God's name in his absurd scheme. Do you know what we call that?

[40:52] Blasphemy. He cheats his brother rather than trusting God to fulfill his promise. There are no good people here. There are no heroes. There are only broken sinners, prideful manipulators, and little faux sovereigns.

[41:08] people. But I want you to notice this, that Genesis 27 is not only a record of sinful failure of God's chosen people. Genesis 27 is also an assertion of God's sovereign grace.

[41:24] It is through faith and failure that God fulfills his purposes. And Paul makes this application for us in Romans chapter 9. The stories of Isaac and Jacob and Esau point us towards God.

[41:41] Hebrews, sorry, Romans chapter 9 and beginning at verse number 6. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

[42:01] This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said about this time next year.

[42:13] I will return and Sarah shall have a son. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born, notice this, and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she, Rebecca, was told, the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

[42:53] Grace, by definition, cannot be earned or deserved. You don't receive God's grace on the basis of what family you are born into. Ishmael and Isaac, both sons of Abraham, but only one is the child of the promise.

[43:12] Jacob and Esau, both sons of Isaac, and Esau is the older one, but you don't get grace on the basis of your superiority or being greater than someone else, stronger, more powerful than someone else, that won't get you grace.

[43:32] But you also don't receive grace by earning it. Neither Jacob nor Esau are the good guys in the story. Neither of them deserve God's promise.

[43:45] And yet, God gives it. Both Jacob and Esau are dirty, rotten scoundrels. We should not wonder at all that God did not love Esau.

[43:59] We should wonder that God could love a schemer like Jacob. And follower of Jesus, you can also wonder and worship that God loves a scheming sinner like you.

[44:20] Sovereign grace over sin abounding is why our statement of faith includes these words from Article 9. We believe that election is the eternal purpose of God, according to which he graciously regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sinners, that being perfectly consistent with the free agency of man, it comprehends all the means in connection with the end, that it is a most glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, being infinitely free, wise, holy, and unchangeable, and that it utterly excludes boasting and promotes humility, love, prayer, praise, and trust in God.

[45:09] Friend, you will not manipulate or scheme your way into God's grace. You cannot earn his love, you cannot deserve his mercy, but you may have the fullness of his love, and you may have the richness of his mercy, and you may have the sufficiency of grace by faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

[45:37] See, Jesus suffered and died because he was sinfully rejected by those people who should have joyfully welcomed him.

[45:48] this is what we read in Acts chapter 2 and verse number 23. Acts 2 and verse 23. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

[46:11] God raised him up. through faith and failure, God fulfills his purpose. If I can say it with all due respect, God gets the last laugh again.

[46:28] You schemers think that you have rejected and crucified the son, and you have, and you are guilty for that, but God says this was according to my definite plan, it was according to my foreknowledge, you have not steered this thing off course.

[46:43] see in contrast to our faux sovereignty, scripture reveals that God truly is sovereign, he is powerfully and perfectly in control, and because he is good, and because he is just, we can trust that he always does what is right, even when we disagree, even when we don't understand, even when we desire a different outcome.

[47:11] by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you, God calls you to be faithful and not manipulative, he calls you to be patient and not anxious, to be humble and not proud, to give up your faux sovereignty and rest in his sovereign sufficient grace, to cling with all you have to Jesus, knowing that it is Jesus who is holding fast to you, to give careful thoughtfulness to God and his promises, so that your hope is nourished and your obedience is catalyzed.

[47:54] Let's pray. Good Father, we are grateful to receive your word. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for being with us.

[48:06] Would you please help us as we take a few moments moments? We consider the things that we have heard and maybe we consider things that we haven't even heard. As we are quiet for a few moments, we ask that you would do work in our hearts.

[48:21] Where conviction is necessary, please grant that conviction, that guilty feeling that leads us to run to grace. Where we need encouragement, grant that, please, Holy Spirit.

[48:35] Where we need to be comforted, please grant that. Where we need to be reminded of our Savior Jesus and his patient willingness to trust you all the way to and through the cross.

[48:53] Please grant us that kind of confident faith in you. Help us as we take a few moments to be quiet now. In Jesus' name, please. Father, we love you and we are grateful to be your children.

[49:11] Thank you for taking our sin and putting it on Jesus and giving us his righteousness. Thank you for welcoming us into your family, for adopting us.

[49:25] Thank you for not being ashamed to be called our God. thank you for preparing for us a city in a heavenly country, a city that's not made with hands, that you have designed and built.

[49:43]  Thank you, Holy Spirit, for continuing to do work in our hearts. Please help us as we continue in our time of worship. In Jesus' name, amen.