Jacob and the Israel of God

Well, good afternoon again, brethren. It's always a delight to come and be with you and be able to share the Sabbath. And I appreciate Mr. Erbahn's sermonette. Certainly a good reminder of what we went over a couple of weeks ago and how it is that we went over some information about Abel and Enoch and Noah and how those three individuals live by faith and how we want to live by faith as well. That's actually the process through which God is causing his family to grow.

He wants each one of us to be a part of his divine family. He wants us to be like him and like our elder brother, our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. And that involves the process of conversion that we are all a part of. And we've been going over, as I have in several different sermons, we've been talking about the unity of the Bible, about how the Old Testament and the New Testament clearly got tied together in so many different ways, and how it is that you can look through the Bible, you can see even there in Hebrews 11, you see descriptions of people in the Old Testament who were examples of faith, whom God happened to work with during different periods of time in the past.

And we went through some of those the other day, and yet I want to continue in this vein and point out to you that studying and understanding the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings, that's what Genesis actually means, studying that book and understanding that book in many ways opens up a great deal of the rest of the Bible. And you clearly see tie-in between Genesis and things that are noted by Jesus in the Gospels and by others of the Gospel or the Apostles, Apostle Paul, particularly, writing about things that you see in Genesis.

Genesis is really important, and of course, you know, we went through the first few chapters about God creating Adam and Eve and a period or an administration of innocence, which must have lasted just a very short time. And then a period of conscience, human conscience, that we saw over several chapters dealing with Cain and Abel. And yet Abel and Enoch and Noah were, it seems, in the Bible, the only ones mentioned, having walked with God.

And then, you know, beyond that, of course, we have the flood and we have Noah and his family growing after the flood. You have in chapter 11 the Tower of Babel, which is in itself something that we could perhaps go back and cover. But I want to point out what you see from Genesis 12 to Genesis 50. Genesis 12, when you read the beginning of that, is obviously talking about Abraham.

And from Genesis 12 to the end of the book to Genesis 50, what you have there described is what we would say or call the administration of promise. Administration of promise. When God was choosing to work with several of the patriarchs, which include Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and ultimately the children of Israel in Egypt.

That's what you find at the end of Genesis. The children of Israel have been brought to the land of Egypt. They're in captivity. They are in slavery. They ultimately need to be delivered. But it's going to take a while before God, of course, ultimately delivers them. But this administration of promise involves God's promises to Abraham, that we know as we read in the New Testament. He's called the father of the faithful. And there's direct tie-in to us as people of faith and people who are of the household of faith in the New Testament. But this administration of promise deals with God's promises to Abraham.

And then it deals with Abraham's two sons, Ishmael and then Isaac. See, I know all of you can fill in the blanks on any of these questions. And yet, unless you haven't gone over this recently, it's not something that we generally keep in our mind. But see, this administration regarding Abraham, and as I said, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, it involves God's dealing with Abraham and God's promises to Abraham. And then Abraham's two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.

See, God didn't choose to work through Ishmael. Ishmael became a thorn in Abraham and certainly in Isaac's side. And certainly, the descendants of Ishmael are continuing to be a thorn in the side of the people of Israel even yet today.

You also see that this involves God's promises to Isaac and to Isaac's two sons, his twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Now, what happened there? God chose to work with Abraham. God chose to work with Isaac. God then chose to work with Jacob, not Esau. Esau again was the son of Isaac. He was even the firstborn son, apparently twins, one's earlier than the other. He was a little bit older. I don't know how much, but not much. And so you see Isaac and his sons, but then the son that God would work through would be Jacob.

And then as you study the life of Jacob, you see that he has 12 sons and he had a favorite son out of those 12. His name was Joseph. Ultimately, it would be through Joseph, his favorite son of Jacob and Rachel. Rachel was the wife that he truly loved. You see that Joseph ended up in Egypt and Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, were particularly favored by Jacob.

They were in essence elevated to be in the same role as the other sons of Jacob and even predicted to have a greater power or authority eventually over the rest of the sons of Jacob. And we know of the descendants of Ephraim and the descendants of Manasseh to be the people of the United States, the great nation that would come upon the earth and the people of the company of nations, the British Empire, again both of which right now are in somewhat decline. The British Empire has been more powerful in the past.

It's lost a great deal of power. The United States actually has been more powerful in the latter part of the last century than we are today. We're under attack. And we are declining. And the influence that we have around the world is declining. But I want, as I lay the groundwork for what I want to cover today, I want to cover the life of one of these individuals.

Now, you might think I would start with Abraham, but I'm not. I will go back to Abraham because he's clearly a significant figure. But I want to cover the lessons we learned from the life of Jacob. Jacob was his name originally, and later his name was changed. And there was a reason why it was changed. It was a reason that God actually brought about in his life to change his name to Israel.

And I guess you would have to say that the word Israel or the name Israel has a great deal of prominence of the Old and in the New Testament. It has prominence in the world to come. It has prominence in the fullness of time. You know, as we go forward, Israel is always going to be, as a nation, it's going to be recognized as a people that God is working through. But this is how God actually developed that. And like I said, God chose to deal with Abraham. He chose to deal with Isaac. He chose to deal with Jacob.

He chose to deal with Joseph. Is it unusual that God would choose to deal with us today? Sometimes we can think about God has drawn us or calls us to Jesus Christ. We might wonder why. Well, he has a pattern. He has a pattern. Has he used in the past? He didn't deal with the entirety of humanity at any time in the past, even as he's not directly dealing with the entirety of humanity today.

But he is dealing with sons who will become the sons of God, sons and daughters, who will become the sons and daughters of God. And we are very blessed. We are tremendously blessed to be able to be a part of what we can call the Israel of God today. Now, I'll reference that later in the sermon. But, say, we need to understand that our calling, our Christianity, our desire to follow Jesus Christ, our desire to proclaim the message of the kingdom of God, our desire to have a part in the leadership or rulership of the world to come.

What is beyond today? We're preparing for that. We are being prepared by God, even as, I hope we will see as we go through this, even as Jacob was prepared by God for a role in that kingdom. You see, we see statements about David in the world tomorrow, about David being a king, being a ruler once again, in Israel in the world to come.

Now, was David a perfect individual? Well, clearly not. His sins were graphically described. And yet, what we do know about David was that God loved his repentant heart. God loved how it was that he approached God. And even though it appears he was off track quite a bit of the time, or at least some of the time, God was able to retrieve him. God was able to get him to come back because he had a repentant heart.

He had an attitude that God could work with, even as we saw reference in the sermon at Abel was pleasing to God. He was accepted by God whereas Cain refused to yield to God's instruction. And of course, he was overcome by his own sins and by going his own way. But I want us to see, as we read through some of this about Jacob, that God always has chosen to deal with very fallible men. Even though these individuals were discussing, in a sense they almost seem larger than life. Do we, in a sense, have a way to compare to John or Peter or Luke or Paul as we read the New Testament or in the Old Testament, Moses or David or Abraham or Isaac?

Those all seem like, you know, we know they're listed as paragons of faith and they are listed as servants of God. But sometimes we can separate that and perhaps not understand, but they too were very human. They were very subject, very much subject to frailty and to sin. And as we study about Jacob here in the Bible today, we'll see he had some flaws. He had some serious flaws that God helped change. And see, that in essence should give us hope. Whatever we see as our flaws or our sins or our need for help, God is clearly available.

He is clearly able to help us. And so as we read about Jacob or any of the others in the Old Testament, every one of them, all of them were sinners. All of them needed forgiveness and redemption through Jesus Christ. Now, how God brought that about is something that we need to be able to study through. I'd like to go through. It's amazing to see Jacob as a son of Isaac and a grandson of Abraham.

And you watch or you read about Jacob from Genesis 25 through to the end of the book. Genesis 50. There's 25 chapters that in some way or another have something to do with the life of Jacob. And of course, as I mentioned, his name was later changed to Israel. And that in itself is quite a significant factor.

So I want us to start here in Genesis 25 because here you find the descendants of Isaac and the birth and the youth of Esau and Jacob. Jacob and Esau are the sons, the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah. And as Rebekah was about to give birth in verse 27 of chapter 25, the children struggled together with dinner.

And in verse 23, the Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided, and one will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. Now this was God's prediction. It was His determination, His direction for them even before they were born.

They were about to be born. Verse 24, when time came to give birth, there were twins, and the first one came out red, and his body was like a hairy mantle. And so they named him Esau. Esau means red. And so whether he had red hair or whether he just had a ruddy look, or whether, you know, however, you know, that's the description that we find. And afterward, it says in verse 26, his brother came out, and with his hand gripping Esau's heel. So it doesn't look like Esau is very far ahead of Jacob. And they called Jacob his name. And Isaac was 60 years old when Rebekah bore these two boys. And when the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man in the field while Jacob was a quiet man living in tents.

And Isaac just loved Esau. Esau was his firstborn. Esau was, I guess, maybe kind of like Isaac in that he liked the outdoors. He liked to hunt and fish. And he just was an outdoors person. That's what he related to.

And yet it says, Isaac loved Esau because he was fond of game. So I guess he also liked the fact that he could find Quail and Duck and Dove and Turkey and and venison and buffalo and whatever else they were able to hunt at the time. But it says Rebekah loved Jacob. So clearly there was already some family undoing there. If you're going to have that kind of favoritism among children or with children from parents, that's going to lead to some distress, as perhaps all of us know. And so I just want to introduce that as the birth of Jacob and Esau. Esau was older.

Esau, in a sense, then, as the oldest had a right to a birthright from Isaac.

And yet here we start seeing in verse 29, you see what happens between Esau and Jacob as they had grown older. Again, 20s, 30s, it doesn't say exactly how old. But in verse 29, once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stuff, for I'm famished. And Jacob said, first, sell me your birthright.

And Esau said, I'm about to die. What use is a birthright? Jacob said, well, swear to me first. And so he swore to him and he sold his birthright to Jacob. And then Jacob gave Esau bread and little stew and he ate and drank and he rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Now, we have a brief description of the selling of the birthright. And I think you would have to say, if you read that, and that, I believe, is the only account that we have of the activity, what do you learn about Jacob? What do you learn about Jacob's... Did he just, at one point, think of, well, I'm going to get him to sell his birthright. Jacob had been thinking about that for a long time. Jacob was considering the fact that Esau, being the older, was going to be given more benefit, more blessing from Isaac. He coveted that. He was jealous over that.

He finally had an opportunity and he saw over a barrel. And so, you know, he made a very slick move here and got Esau to sign over the birthright.

And, of course, as it says, Esau disrespected or he despised that birthright.

See, that, in a sense, is the first inkling of what kind of nature do you see Jacob having.

Now, you would have thought someone who had the love of God and was going to be a major patriarch of God and who had the love of God and someone came to him and needed food, he would give him the food. Not Jacob. Not Jacob. You know, Jacob was conniving. He was cunning. As we're going to see, he was very deceitful. He was a liar. And he pretty much just lived by his instincts. He looked out for number one. That's what we see about Jacob to begin with. Let's move on to chapter 27. And I'm not covering all of these chapters. I'm going to rush through some of them.

But I'm going to just point out what we can learn about Jacob. We've seen an introduction, so we kind of have an idea of what it was to grow up as the grandson of Abraham, the son of Isaac. And yet, actually, you often see Jacob refer to God as the God of my grandfather, Abraham, the God of my father, Isaac, but a God that I don't really connect with yet. That's what he reveals. Here in chapter 27, you have the account of Isaac growing old and of him knowing I'm about to die or I'm going to die. I'm telling Esau, my firstborn, I want him to go and get some game and come back and give me a great meal, and I will bless you. That's what we see in the first part of chapter 27.

And in verse 5, it says, Rebecca was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Isaac left, she called Jacob and said, I heard your father say to your brother Esau, get me game and prepare for me the food I like so that I can bless you before I die. Now therefore, son, I want you to obey what I tell you. Go to the flock and get me two young choice kids so that I may prepare them as savory food for your father, just like he likes, and you shall take it to your father and eat so that he may bless you before he dies. Now, obviously, Rebecca was in on this, and perhaps even the main instigator of it. And you see Jacob, in a sense, almost thinking, oh, that really sounds cruel or that really sounds deceitful.

He goes on to say, Jacob says, I might get caught. Verse 11, Jacob said to his mother, look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I'm a man with smooth skin. Perhaps my father will feel me, and it will seem like I'm mocking him, and he'll curse me and not give me a blessing. And his mother said, verse 13, let your curse be on me, my son. Only obey my word, and go and get them for me. And so he went and got them and brought them to his mother. She prepared what she knew Isaac loved. Some kind of fancy venison lasagna, I imagine.

I don't know what it was, but whatever it was, she knew what to prepare.

And so not only was Rebekah complicit to this deception, but clearly Jacob was the one who was directly involved. And of course, Jacob had pulled a slick move on Esau before about the birthright.

And now it says in verse 18, he went into his father and said, Father, here I am.

Oh, he said, my father. And Isaac said, here I am. Who are you, my son? Then in verse 19, Jacob said to his father, I'm Esau, your firstborn.

Now clearly, you know, he saws or Jacob's character is being reflected here. He is just clearly lying. He is not. He's being deceptive. He's being cunning. He's not wanting to get caught.

But he's clearly lying when he says, I'm Esau, your firstborn, and I've done what you told me.

Sit up and eat so you can bless me. And Isaac is a little, you know, he's not in just recently fall off the turnip truck. He said, man, that's strange. How come you go out and find, you know, wild game and able to kill it and bring it in and prepare it? How did you do it so quickly? And so he thought something may be up, but he says Jacob said, well, the Lord granted me favor.

Now, again, that was stretching the truth at best. Out and out lie is what, you know, it appears to be. And so Isaac says, come here, I want to feel or touch you and know whether you're really my son Esau. See, he's still not convinced. In verse 22, Jacob went to his father and he felt him and said, the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau because he, what had Jacob done? Well, he had gotten a goat and he had put on a coat of some kind or some kind of skins on his arms and on his neck where he felt different whenever Isaac would touch him.

And so the voice is Jacob's, but the hands are Esau's. And so Isaac did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau. And so he blessed him. He even says, are you really Esau? And of course, in verse 24 again, Jacob says, I am, yeah, I am, out and out lying. You know, his nature of deceit, his nature of cunningly shading everything in his favor, his nature of lying. I mean, he was just a flat-out liar. Verse 27, he came near him and kissed him. He smelled the smell of the garments. You know, it smells like Esau. So finally, he went ahead to give the blessing in verse 28. May God give you the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine, and let people serve you, and nations bow down to you, and be lord over your brothers. And may your mother's sons bow down to you. Curse be anyone who curses you, and bless be anyone who blesses you. See, this was a powerful blessing that Isaac had, that he was passing on, in this case, to Jacob, not to who he thought it was, he saw, but to Jacob.

And as you can clearly see, Jacob was cunningly deceiving his father.

And of course, in chapter, the remainder of the chapter, you see Esau coming back and finding out what's happened. And of course, Isaac is alarmed as well, because Esau comes to him, and Isaac, trembling violently in verse 33, said, Well, who is it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and ate it all before you came? And I blessed him, and blessed he shall be. And when Esau heard his father's words, he cried out, Bless me as well, Father. Verse 35, Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing. And Esau said, Isn't he rightly named Jacob? See, Jacob meant supplanter. It meant one who grabs by the heel, as that occurred when they were born, but it meant supplanter. It meant deceiver. And clearly, that was the nature and the attitude that Jacob displayed in these incidents that are remarkably well defined here. He is truly rightly named Jacob, for he supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright. And look, now he's taken away my blessing. And he asked for a blessing, and Isaac could say, Well, I'm going to bless you, and I am concerned about you, but your blessing is not going to be like what I gave Jacob. And you can read how it was that it is worded. And in verse 41, Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing that his father had blessed him with. And Esau said to himself, The days of morning my father are approaching, and then I will kill my brother Jacob. It doesn't sound too far different from Cain. It sounds very much like Cain. It sounds like human nature. It sounds like the nature that Satan injects into the world. The nature of hatred and anger. The nature of wanting to take revenge and wanting to damage others. And so, whenever you've got a family conflict of this type, Rebecca and Isaac realized, and I can't imagine that Isaac and Rebecca were getting along very well right at this point. They were probably not getting along at all, but they could decide that well, Jacob can't stay around. And you see in chapter 28, that may be me. I don't even have my phone here.

Oh, it's Fran. Okay. Anyway, we see in chapter 28, Isaac and Rebecca send Jacob away, and they send him to Rebecca's brother. His name was Laban. That's what you see in verse 5 of chapter 28.

And, of course, amazingly, when you read through chapter 29, you see Jacob comes to Laban. He gets acquainted with the people there. These are his cousins. These are his family, his people, the people he was to marry into. Actually, Esau had married into the Hittite nation, and that created great grief for Rebecca and for Isaac, actually. And yet, they had sent Jacob to live among the people of Rebecca, and Laban was her brother. And, of course, Laban had a couple of daughters. And it says in verse 18, Jacob really loved Rachel. He wanted. He worked for Laban. He had gotten acquainted. He really loved Rachel. And so, you know, he worked for seven years so that he could have her. But what we find in verse 21, Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife, that I may go into her, for my time is completed. And so Laban gathered everything together, all the people of place, and made a great feast in the evening. He took his daughter, Leah, and brought her to Jacob.

And he went into her, and Laban gave her his maid, Zilpah, to be Leah's maid. And when morning came, it was Leah and not Rachel. And Jacob said to Laban, what is this that you have done?

Did I not serve with you for Rachel? And why have you deceived me?

You know, what's happening here? Now, I don't know exactly how this could happen.

Jacob really is just either not all that sharp, or he was somewhat impaired, or maybe he was just somewhat blinded. Whatever it was, and of course you see, Laban said, it's not done in our country, giving the younger daughter before the firstborn, complete the week of this one, Leah, and we'll give you the other one in return for some of me another seven years. So, see, this is going to be a real mess. Jacob was getting into a deeper and deeper mess, and actually what you find was Jacob had run into somebody who was just as cunning, just as much of a liar, just as much deceitful as himself. He was, in a sense, kind of getting what he deserved. It was coming back to haunt him. And of course, you read the rest of chapter 29 and the rest of chapter 30, and you see that between Leah and Rachel, and then two handmaids, Jacob has 11 sons that are listed here. And it's not my point to go through all of that. You can read through, you can see which ones are the sons of Leah, which ones the sons of the other two handmaids, and the one who is the son that Jacob really favors, the son of Rachel, whose name is Joseph. Joseph is ultimately to be a promised individual. He's going to be a blessed individual. His family is going to be blessed. His children will be blessed.

But what we're learning about Jacob, in a sense, is remarkable. You see, Jacob interacting with Laban here for several chapters, and I want to jump on to chapter 32. Because after a while, after Jacob had fulfilled his responsibility to Laban, after he had worked for him for the years that he was to work, and actually he had gained in prosperity, he had gained in herds and flocks, he was becoming abundantly wealthy. He was blessed. And yet, ultimately, God told him, I want you to go back. I want you to go back to your family. I want you to go back to Isaac and Jacob, or Isaac and Rebecca, and I want you to go back and even see that brother that you deceived named Esau. And so, in chapter 32, you see some amazing information about Jacob.

Chapter 32 records Jacob preparing to go back. He's pretty skeptical. He hasn't really fully figured out, you know, how is this going to go? This could be the biggest disaster yet.

I bring my wealth, my herds, my flocks. I bring my wives, my children. I bring everything back, and Esau kills all of us. That's what he says. Here in, let's see, verse 11 of chapter 32, it says, Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau. For I am afraid of him. He may come and kill all of us.

Kill all the mothers, kill the children, kill everything. He still didn't know exactly how the reception with Esau was going to go. And yet, as he was preparing, and he was preparing a, a piece meant for Esau, he was going to send, you know, some good cattle, and then he's going to send some good sheep and some good goats and some good camels. And later, you know, he had lined up the family that he would kind of, in a sense, present to Esau. He, he had this all figured out in his head. But in chapter 20 or chapter 32, verse 22, you see the strangest wrestling match in the world. This is not a, you know, WWF SmackDown. You know, this, you know, this was a completely unfair fight.

Because Jacob, here in this occasion, throughout this night, is going to wrestle with God.

In verse 24, after he had prepared everything, approaching to seeing Esau, it says in verse 24, Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

So he had a, you know, a very unusual encounter with the God of the Old Testament, with the one that's referred to as a man, later referred to as an angel, later by Jacob, referred to, I've seen God face to face.

But in verse 24, Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. And when the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, Jacob kept struggling. He kept fighting. He kept trying to headlock or, you know, scissor hole, you know, this evasive creature that he was struggling with. And when the man saw that he didn't prevail against Jacob, he said, he struck him on the hip. And Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled. You know, unfair fighting here, I'm telling you. You know, Jacob was at a huge disadvantage.

He could clearly have been easily overthrown right then. And yet, this had far more meaning.

In verse 26, he said, let me go. The man did, for the day is breaking, but Jacob said, I'm not going to let you go. I'm not going to let you go until you bless me.

And he said to him, well, what is your name? And he said, well, my name is Jacob.

And so then the man said, verse 28, you shall no longer be called Jacob.

There's a transition occurring in your life, in your outlook, in your mind, in your heart, in what you are going to do for me. You shall no longer be called Jacob, but you shall be called Israel. For you have striven with God and with humans, and you have prevailed.

You know, Israel met the one who prevails with God. And so clearly, a transition was taking place in the life of Jacob. And we can read on a little bit. Verse 29, Jacob said, please, tell me your name. And he said, why is it that you ask my name? Yet he did go ahead and bless him.

So he clearly had the authority, he had the power, he had the ability to guide or direct Jacob wherever he wanted him to go. And so Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been preserved.

See, again, kind of up to this point, Jacob's interaction with God had been through his father and grandfather. But now, having been the deceitful supplanter, the lying thief that he had been, he ultimately was having to face God. He ultimately was wrestling with God. And God said, because you have prevailed, I will bless you, and your name will be Israel.

And you see that reiterated again. Let me see if I hear in chapter 35.

God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Padana Ram, and he blessed him. And God said to him, your name is Jacob. No longer shall you be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.

And so he was called Israel, and God said to him, I am God Almighty.

I want you to be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall spring from you. And the land that I give to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.

This was a tremendous blessing that Jacob was to receive, and yet, what we read about in chapter 32, that wrestling with God was truly remarkable.

And I want to point out a few of the lessons that we can learn from this. But if we go forward, we see in chapter 33, back up a page, you see that Jacob met Esau. And I'll explain a little later how that went. As you know, it went well.

But it went well because of God's blessing. It went well because of God's intervention and God's blessing in giving Jacob favor. And whatever we see here in this wrestling match that Jacob endured, you'll see some transition in his thinking. You'll see some transition in his praying.

But ultimately, in chapter 35, you see Rachel giving birth to the 12th son, Benjamin, a son that Jacob also loved. He loved Joseph. He loved Benjamin, both of the sons of Rachel. But when Benjamin was born, Rachel died. And so Benjamin was certainly a favored individual in Jacob's eyes. Throughout the remainder of the book, you see Joseph being sold into slavery, being sent down to Egypt by his brothers who brought a coat back to deceive Jacob with.

He brought a coat and a goat, this time a little bit different setting. He brought a coat of many colors that Joseph wore and had blood all over it from a sling goat or sheep. And they deceived Jacob into thinking Joseph was dead. And he went for a long time believing, thinking that Joseph had to have been killed by a wild animal. See, now I point that out simply because of, I think, the lessons that we can derive from what we've read about the life of Jacob, the one whose name would be turned to Israel and the one that we read about as far as his descendants throughout the Old. And then, as we study the New, we understand the background of how the Old and New Testaments tie together. But first of all, I have three points that I'll make about Jacob's life. One of them is that Jacob reaped what he sowed. See, Jacob's life lies in the seat of cunning, of relying on himself, making this cunning business deal with Esau whenever he should have just given him the food. Now, that was going to come back to haunt him. See, he deceived and repeatedly lied to his father, Isaac, in order to receive the blessing. But as we know, a little later on, when he met up with Laban, he got some of his own medicine. He reaped what he sowed when he started dealing with a family that began pretty much in chaos between Leah and Rachel, and the kids, and quite a bit of conflict. Even though God was going to work through this, as I said, God works through fallible, flawed, sinful people. Thankfully, he does work with us. And in Galatians 6, I'll point this out simply because it's a lesson to us, Galatians chapter 6.

Paul writes about this as he is helping a congregation in the area of Galatia who was made up of Jews and Gentiles.

And they should not be bothered with circumcision. That was not required. It was not something that God required or wanted, at least physical circumcision. But here in chapter 6, this is in the closing chapter of what Paul is writing about. He says in verse 2, to bear one another's burden, in this way you fulfill the law of Christ.

See, if we have the love of God for each other, if we are concerned and helpful to each other, if we even help someone out of their sins, out of their despicable situation, of course, they have to want help. But he says, bear one another's burdens. He says, if there's nothing, for if those who are nothing think they are something, then they deceive themselves, but almost test their own work. And then that work, rather than their neighbor's work, will become a cause of pride, for almost carry their own load.

Verse 7, he says, don't be deceived, brethren. God is not mocked. For what you reap, you will reap what you have sown. If you sow to the flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh. If you sow to the spirit, you will reap eternal light from the spirit.

And so here he was pointing out something that Jacob very graphically described, or displayed in his life. Being, at least in the flesh, a deceiver and a liar, being someone that could not be trusted and could not be respected or uplifted for that, it took a major change in Jacob's life for him to be able to look to God as he would come to look to God. It's the fact that he just didn't look to God, even as we saw with David. You read of David's life and there's times it looks like he's not looking at God at all. And then at other times he's clearly being guided by God and directed by God because he's yielded and he's in submission. And that's what we really find that happened to Jacob. But the first point I make is simply Jacob reaped what he sowed. And so will we. See, all of us need to live lives that God can give us respect for. He wants us not only to obey, but to be honest, to be forthright, to be truthful. Those are things that seem to escape Jacob. The second thing I'll mention is simply that Jacob's life was truly transformed. He went through a process of character development and he actually suffered a good deal thinking that Joseph was dead and wondering whether he would get Benjamin back when he finally sent Benjamin down to Egypt. He didn't want to send him, but he had to. But God, of course, did that to bring Israel into Egypt, to bring the nation, which was simply a family at the time, to bring them into Egypt so that the book of Exodus and the Exodus would occur where God would deliver them out of slavery. And, of course, that's a tremendous example and illustration in itself. But, secondly, Jacob's life was transformed.

He had been, as his name reflected, the supplanter, the deceiver. And clearly, that's what he reflected much of his, at least, younger life. And yet, in his adult life, we see in Genesis 32, he was a prevailer with God. He had striven with God. And, in a sense, what we learned from that was that he had realized that he clearly needed God's help. That transition, even in names, from Jacob to Israel, it was very notable. And I want to point out the third thing, because as Jacob wrestled with God, what he displayed in his perseverance and in his prevailing with God was that he was no longer, he was going to turn from his self-reliance, from his self-dependence, from his tricky, cunning, deceitful way to where he would in faith look to God to guide and to direct and to give him hope in the future. What we find here in Genesis 32, as Jacob wrestled with God, even though he was in pain and even though he was suffering, he was going to Genesis 32, if we look back at that again. See, Jacob was blessed because of his perseverance.

He was blessed because, now I'm not talking about, sometimes we can discuss perseverance or persistence.

And see, there's a difference between being stubborn and pigheaded and being persistent.

There's a difference. The difference is the attitude that's behind that. There are some people who are stubborn who think they are persistent. And we need to all be persistent and persevere, but not out of stubbornness, but out of true submission to God. See, because that's what Jacob, you know, what this wrestling match was about was a test of Jacob's attitude and of his perseverance. It was a test of submission. Clearly, Jacob wanted God's blessing. He kept saying, I want you to bless me. I'm not going to turn you loose unless you bless me. He had come to realize, I can't do this on my own. I'm not going to be able to live life successfully without your help. See, he had a feeling of total reliance on God and upon God's blessing, instead of relying on himself, which he'd always done, somewhat successfully, you could say. But he said, I see that's empty. If I'm simply relying on myself, I've got to rely on you. He knew he had to trust in God alone. And this is what I want to point out in chapter 32. Genesis 32, this wrestling match is in the last part of that. But I want to read the prayer that Jacob prayed right before this, because it does reveal him surrendering to God. As he was getting ready to meet Esau, and as he thought, you know, I might well just be walking into a death trap.

In verse 9 of chapter 32, Jacob said, Oh God of my father, Abraham, and God of my father, Isaac, the God who told me returned to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good.

See here, this was a test. See Jacob really, you know, he didn't know what would happen whenever he would go into his conflict with Esau. He said, you told me to do it, and I'm going to do it, because you told me that you're with me. You told me that I will be with you, and I will bring about good. And he was thinking in his mind, I don't see how this could turn out good.

But he went ahead to say in verse 10, and this is a revealing statement, and one that we ought to mark, like you have Psalm 51 marked as far as David's psalm of repentance and saying he wanted to be a contrite and broken spirit. He says, I know that's what God will want. I think it's verse 17.

Here in Genesis 32 verse 10, Jacob recognizes, I am not worthy.

I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. He understood, I'm not worthy of your grace, of your calling, of your direction, of your blessings. He says, I realize that I need to repent. I realize that I need to be in submission to the great God, one that I've been exposed to, but one that I not fully understood.

He says, I'm not worthy of the least of the steadfast love and the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. For with only my staff, I cross this Jordan, and now I'm coming back with two companies. He had been blessed greatly. He had grown over the last 20 or 30 years.

His family had grown. His wealth had grown. He had been greatly blessed and was able to return to the land that had been promised to Abraham and Isaac. And as we read, as God said, I promise to you too. But he says in verse 11, deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau. For I am afraid of him. He may come and kill us all, the mothers and the children. Yet you have said, I may surely do you good, or I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number. God says, I'm with you. I will help you. You have to be in submission to me. You have to live by faith, even as we talked about with Abel, Enoch, and Canoa. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph are all listed in Hebrews 11 as people who lived by faith. See, Jacob, the one whose name was now going to be referred to as Israel, it actually kind of went back and forth. Sometimes he'd be referred to different ways, and clearly sometimes he still suffered from some of his own stubbornness and some of his own deception of the past. He had reaped what he had sown.

But see, just as Jacob had prevailed with God, God expects all of us to look to God in faith, to be prevailers with God through the trials and through the tests that we have in this life. He's brought us into this little nucleus where we can grow and develop and gain an understanding of his mind and understand what it is to be crucified with Christ. See, that's what he tells us. If we're going to be Christians, we've got to be crucified with Christ. Christ has got to live in us.

We need to seek the mind of Christ. And this is what Jacob was learning, and he had to learn the submission that was necessary. So if we think back through what it is we learn with the life of Jacob, we see that he clearly was not a perfect individual. But he had come to see God in a way that he has certainly never seen him before. He had prevailed with God, and his name Israel would be carried on through the tribes, the nation, later the people of Israel. And yet, as we think of these traits that Jacob had and the lessons we can learn, I want to close with what we read once again in Galatians 6. Because in Galatians 6, I read this verse about reaping what you sow, and that is in the latter part of Galatians 6.

And I want to continue in the concluding words that Paul has to say to this church of God in Galatia. He's talked about circumcision, and he's told them that's not necessary, that's not needful, that's not something the Gentiles need to do. That's not, if they're going to turn to God, they're going to need to obey God, but they're not going to need to be circumcised.

And he says in verse 14 of chapter 6, May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I've been crucified to the world.

See, Paul never apologized for the devotion and the commitment that he had made to Jesus Christ. And of course, he had a startling, as we went over earlier, he had a startling encounter with Christ himself. But he says, I don't want to boast in anything except the cross of Christ.

He says in verse 15, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but what really is everything is a new creation. See, that's what Paul told the Christians.

That's what God tells us today. What is everything is a new creation. We want to be, putting to death the old man, we want to be rising and living in the new man.

That's an ongoing battle. It's an ongoing struggle. We've got to prevail, as Jacob did with God. And he says in verse 16, as for those who will follow this rule, for those who will embrace the Word of God and the message of the Bible, he says, peace be upon them and mercy upon the Israel of God. See, that's a reference to the Church of God, to the people that God would call to know Jesus Christ and to be a part of His Church, to be what you would call spiritual Israel. And clearly, it ties together with what we read in the Old Testament, where they were, they were, for the most part, faithless and disobedient. God continued to work through them.

He continued to work with certain leaders, even in a more direct way, and ultimately at the coming of Jesus, who was going to come through the line of Israel.

We know that Jesus would come as a descendant of David, but he would also be a descendant of Judah, and of Jacob, and of Isaac, and Abraham. And so, we have a connection to what Jacob went through, and I hope that we can learn the lessons that are pointed out here about Jacob, as we continue our journey, as we prevail with God, like Israel prevailed, or Jacob prevailed with God, and then was named Israel as he was blessed. We need God's blessing. We need His encouragement.

We need to be led by the Spirit of God, and we certainly want to understand, whenever God references the Israel of God and the spiritual Israelites described in the New Testament, and as we understand that to apply to us today, and we fully want to learn those lessons that Jacob learned, to know we'll reap what we sow. If we sow bad things, then we can expect bad things.

And if we prevail with God, then God will create and perform a miracle of transforming us to being the converted sons and daughters of God.