How God works through flawed people

Introduction

We started this last week, but the story of Jacob and Esau is a really messy family. They have serious dysfunction going on. Isaac favors Esau, Rebecca favors Jacob, so there’s tension in the family over that. It seems like everyone’s aware of that, and everyone has different dynamics going on because of that.

In the previous story, we saw that resulted in a moment where Jacob actually negotiates with Esau to sell him his birthright for some food. He says, “I’m starving to death. Feed me something.” Jacob says, “Well, you give me the birthright, and then I’ll do that.” In this story, we see a continuation of some of those problems. Isaac is still showing his favoritism towards Esau. We don’t know if Isaac knows that Jacob sold his birthright. If he does and he says, “Come to me. I’ll bless you,” then he’s going directly against an agreement that the two brothers made. If he doesn’t, we still see in the words of his blessing, he’s showing significant favoritism towards one son over the other.

Esau knows he sold his birthright to Jacob. He knows that he’s done the wrong thing. So when his father says, “Go prepare some food and come, and I’ll bless you,” Esau straight up is just disregarding the deal he made with Jacob. He’s just like, “Whatever. If dad’s going to give me the blessing, I’ll just take it anyway.” Probably the darkest bit is really the deception we see from Rebecca, the mom, where she hears that is happening, and she concocts this plan to say, “Jacob, come here.” While he’s out, we’re going to set this up, and you can actually get the blessing. And so she schemes this plan to take this blessing from Esau.

Jacob, while he’s not the one that’s brought up the idea, and maybe while he’s one who feels like he already deserves the birthright because his brother sold it to him, he certainly goes along with this scheme. In fact, he doesn’t say, “No, it’s wrong to deceive my father,” or, “We don’t need to do this. He sold the birthright to me anyway. Let’s just go explain the situation, and we’ll be fine.” Instead of doing those things, the only thing we get from Jacob is he says, “What if I’m discovered? What if dad figures out we’re trying to deceive him?”

Maybe a step even darker in this story is what he’s genuinely scared of. He’ll see that I’m trying to trick him, and then he’ll curse me instead of blessing me. This is the dysfunction that’s happening in the family. There’s favoritism, there’s deception, there are children that are fearful of being cursed by their own father. As we jump into this story, the first thing that stands out to us is the dysfunction that’s going on, the tangled tricks that are happening. What we see is that even this family of faith is flawed. It’s a reminder to us that even families of faith are flawed.

It’s a reality that’s encouraging to us at times. There are times where we certainly want to present a perfect face to the world around us. We want people to see things that are perfect, and in reality, we know that things aren’t perfect. It can be easy to portray things as perfect from the outside. I was thinking about this with when you see movies, and you see movie props that are sometimes not built that well, but we see them and are sold on the story. This week, I saw the prototype of the Ark of the Covenant from Indiana Jones. This popped up on Antiques Roadshow. This guy has the prototype for the Ark of the Covenant from Indiana Jones.

Even Families of Faith are Flawed

Things Look Good From a Distance

It is just the prototype, so when you get in a bit closer, you see the details. You see the bottom left-hand there; that’s hot glue for the ornate swirls on it. On the bottom right there, those are picture frames that they’ve glued together to get the ornate edging. The angels on top are actually trophies that have been modified, and wings put on them. It is just a prototype after all. It’s not the one that was in the movie, although from a distance, it still looks quite good. The guy tells the story. He’s like, “I grew up with this in my house, and I tell my friends, I’ve got the Ark of the Covenant in my house, or at least the prototype of it.” That’s pretty fun. Sometimes things look good from a distance.

Spielberg says this about some of his movies. He says about ET, that ET was just papermâché, some foam, and some paint stuck together, a bit of a wire model. Of course, this is what ET looks like these days. He’s a little worse for wear. You didn’t realize the sequel to ET was a horror movie where he went home, and then they experimented on him. You can see a little bit in that picture of some of the working there and just how rudimentary and basic something like that was. But you get bought into it. You get sold on it. From a distance, it’s easy to feel like something is perfect. It’s all together.

It feels like we do a similar thing with our own lives and our own families. We want to be portrayed as everything’s together and working and perfect. The reality is we know that it’s not. In fact, sometimes I think we believe the lie ourselves and say, “I got things together pretty well,” or we compare ourselves to someone else and say, “Well, at least my life is more together than their life, or at least I can portray photos on Facebook that make my life look more together than their life.” Even families of faith are flawed.

The Troubled Trust

The flaw in this family is far deeper than just the tricks. The flaw in this family comes down to the troubled trust that is going on here. It’s the troubled trust with God that is the root of the big problem here, and it ties back to that prophecy that we read. Rebecca has been told the older son will serve the younger son. That’s what God revealed to her before they were born. We don’t know who else in the family knows that, but she certainly knows it. Yet, this moment comes where Esau’s going to be blessed. Rather than trusting that what God said would come true, Rebecca sets about making what God said would come true come true.

Rebecca doesn’t trust God is going to do the thing he said he’s going to do. Instead, she starts to try to engineer things so that what God says will happen. The reality is we know that God, while he calls us to his purposes, he never calls us to pursue good things through bad means. God never calls us to pursue godly things through evil means, and that’s precisely what’s happening here. The idea that Jacob might receive this blessing has been promised by God. It’s possible that this is a godly thing for her to pursue because God has said it’s going to happen, but he never calls us to do that through evil means.

We sit in a space where we not only try to present a good outside facade, but we also attempt to try to reach godly things through ungodly means. We do it through things like self-esteem or self-worth. It’s a good thing for you to have a healthy view of your own self-worth, but sometimes, in order to build ourselves up, we pull others down. In order to feel better about ourselves, we look at the flaws with someone else, especially when we’re in a place of tension against them, and we’re tempted to pursue something that can be a godly thing, but we pursue it in ugly, ungodly ways.

We might choose to give towards a charity or something like that, but do it for the purpose of looking good or doing it because of the purpose of feeling good, rather than a desire to actually be generous. It’s a desire for ourselves, and so something that is a good and godly thing, giving to a charity, becomes quite a selfish and self-serving thing. Or you see the scenario in a business where someone feels like surely God wants my business to be successful. Surely God wants me to achieve things that I set out to achieve, but the moments that it comes where we might be tempted to do unethical things or bend the rules or be quiet about something someone doesn’t know about in order to get ourselves ahead, we pursue good things through godly means.

Maybe even in a darker space in the place of relationships, this happens sometimes when someone has an affair, and they say, “Well, surely I deserve to be happy,” and so I justify my actions based on the fact that I deserve to be happy, and we pursue good things like happiness and love and a healthy relationship. We pursue it through ungodly means. God never calls us to pursue godly things through evil means. In fact, one of the greatest temptations I think we have for this is our relationship with God himself. That’s exactly what’s happening in this story. It’s seeking God’s favor is the very thing that Rebecca and Jacob are seeking to do and do it through their own means.

You can see how reversed that is. The idea that they would do the wrong thing in order to get God’s favor on them is the very opposite. We have that temptation all the time that we think we can achieve God’s favor on our own merit. We can achieve God’s favor by doing the things that we want to do. The reality is that we will never be good enough to achieve the favor of a perfect, holy God, and we’ll never be able to do that on our own. This trouble with trust becomes a problem for us as we seek to do that.

God Still Works Through Flawed People

Triumphant Truth

This story gives us a triumphant truth: God still works through flawed people. That’s probably the hardest thing to grasp in this story. The hardest thing to grasp is not to see that these guys are doing the wrong thing, but to see that God’s promises are actually fulfilled through them doing the wrong thing, that they actually receive the blessing. Jacob actually receives the blessing from God through doing the wrong thing. They set about tricking Isaac. They grab some of Esau’s clothes and put them on Jacob. You can see just how hairy Esau is by the description of they get two goats, one for the food, and the other one to put on his body so that when Isaac touches him, he feels like Esau. I mean, he’s as hairy as a goat.

When I was preparing my sermon, I Googled “hairiest men.” Don’t do that. That was a mistake. I’m not going to share it with you. Just take my word for it. Esau is hairy as a goat. That’s the story. He puts this hair on his body in order to trick his father. He takes in this tasty food for him. When his dad says, “How did you find it so quickly?” I find this part strange because they clearly have goats out the back, but he’s told poor Esau to go off and hunt something down. Jacob could have just shot one of the ones out the back, and then he would have been back here. Jacob and Rebecca have done that.

When you catch this bit, when Isaac leans in to kiss him, he smells him, and he says, “Ah, the smell of the outdoors.” They didn’t have deodorant back then. In the Mr. Sherman and Mr. Peabody story, Achilles puts his arms up and says, “Smell my victory.” That’s what I think whenever I hear this. That’s a saying in my household as our kids come into their teenage years. “Smell my victory.” He says, “You smell like the outdoors.” They deceive him, and it works, and they get the results thereafter. The tricky thing, but the triumphant truth here, is that God works through flawed people.

What’s still happening in the story is still the work of God. There are two ways we see that this is the work of God. The first one is the blessing that comes to them is a direct fulfillment of the prophecy, even though it was actually out of their control what the blessing was going to be. Part of the blessing includes these words: “Be lord over your brothers.” He blesses him with, “May the sons of your mother bow down to you.” The promise was that the older would serve the younger. They’ve tricked their father, and their father has uttered this blessing over the top of Jacob. It’s out of Jacob’s control that this would be the words of the blessing, and yet God still works his promise in this situation. Even the things are out of their control, God uses.

God’s Plan From the Beginning

The second part of it is that this has been God’s plan from the beginning, before Jacob and Rebecca had any scheming plans. This has been God’s plan before Jacob did anything wrong to get it. Many years later, the Apostle Paul, when he’s writing to the church in Rome, he makes this very argument. He points out that before they were even born, God had already made these plans. This is Romans chapter nine. Before Jacob and Esau were born, before they had done anything good or bad, Rebecca received a message from God. Paul adds this note for us. He says, “This message shows that God chooses people according to his purposes.” This is still God at work even through flawed people.

That is a triumphant truth because we are flawed people. If God didn’t work his purposes through flawed people, then he would never be able to work through us. It does become difficult when we see someone who we feel like doesn’t deserve something, and they get it. There’s also a reminder we don’t deserve, and yet we still get. It’s only in our arrogant moments that we think we deserve everything that we have, and we feel like we’ve done the things to achieve what we’ve achieved, the opportunities we’ve had, forgetting the circumstances around us that have enabled that to happen. Not saying we haven’t worked hard for things. I’m not saying you haven’t had to overcome obstacles, but there’s a certain arrogance that says, “Well, I deserve it. I earned it. It’s mine,” whereas someone else in a totally different situation that didn’t have any of the opportunities we had might not have the gifts we have.

This is most true about the love of God. If we are a flawed people, then we will never add up to the perfect God. We will never be able to attain a relationship with a holy God. We’re reminded that God does work through flawed people, and that’s good news for us. It draws us to a key part of this story, which is the true treasure.

The True Treasure

The Blessing Given to Abraham

The true treasure underlying this whole story is the blessing that has been given to Abraham. God said to Abraham, “All nations would be blessed through you.” This is the words of Genesis chapter 22. “Through your child, all the nations on the earth will be blessed.” This blessing is not just for them, but it’s a blessing that’s going to flow out of God’s people to all nations. That is the true treasure. What is that treasure? That true treasure is Jesus. Once again, Paul in the New Testament explains it to the church in Galatia. He’s writing a letter to them, and he says this, talking about Jesus, verse Galatians 3:16, “God gave the promises to Abraham and his child.” Then Paul makes this point. He says, “Notice that the scripture doesn’t say to his children as if it meant many descendants. Rather, it says to his child, and that of course means Christ.”

Paul’s argument is right from the beginning when God told Abraham, “All nations will be blessed through your child,” he was meaning all nations will be blessed through the descendant that is Jesus. This is the true treasure underlying this whole story. Why is Jesus the true treasure? Because he is the way we are able to attain favor with God even though we’re flawed people. He is the only way we can obtain favor with God. In fact, in Paul’s letter to Galatia, this is the whole argument he makes in chapter three. Everything he’s saying in chapter three is drawing towards this idea that the blessing that’s in Abraham can come to us even though we’re a flawed people and necessary because we’re a flawed people.

This is what he said in verse three. He says to the church in Galatia, “Why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” pointing out, reminding them that they can’t be. Later on, he draws us in verse eight to the good news from Abraham. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.” So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith. Then he finishes that chapter by reminding them that it’s by faith that they become children of God. He says, “For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” This is the message. This is the true treasure that underlies this story, that there is an opportunity that even though we’re not worthy of being friends with God, through faith in Jesus, we can become his children, quite literally in this idea, children of Abraham, the ones who have received that promise.

What is Faith?

That does raise the question, what is faith? We use the word faith in a number of different ways. We talk about someone has their faith that that often synonymous with religion. A faith is a religion. You can put faith in something. What is faith? I think the true understanding of faith is more than just a belief. Faith is not just believing in something. It’s putting trust in that belief. Sometimes we use the phrase faith is active trust, or sometimes we teach it as faith is belief plus trust. The classic example is a chair when you say I can say I believe that chair will hold me up, but faith is actually treating it like it will hold you up. That is sitting on it.

I remember in school we had these plastic chairs. Teachers say, and I know there are lots of teachers in the room, teachers say, “Don’t swing on your chairs.” We had these plastic chairs that had these springy back legs that when you swung on them, you could actually bounce on them. Of course, over time, plastic, if you work it like that, eventually it just exploded at the join. It was just a fun thing to do in class was not just swing on your chair, but actually try to get it to the point where it exploded, and the legs went sprawling. That’s not faith; that’s stupidity because that’s doing something that you know isn’t trustworthy. The whole point of this story is that even in their flawed state, Jacob, our God was still trustworthy. The message is true for us that it’s not faith in us and our flawed state. It’s faith in the God who is trustworthy and is more than just belief.

This is good news as we think about baptism and raising children up in the church because we know that we’re not going to be perfect. We know that our kids will see things that we do that don’t honor God and don’t point them to him, but we want to point their hearts not to trust in our faith, but to put their trust in him for themselves, not just to believe in a God, but to actively trust him.

Let me finish with this story. This is a story of a guy called Jack. Jack grew up in a Christian household. His mom was a daughter of a minister. Her grandfather was a minister. Her father was a minister. She grew up in the church. She loved Jesus. She raised her kids to love Jesus. Jack’s mother and father were both Christians, but in his young years, his mother felt quite ill. She was very, very ill. Her love for Jesus didn’t waver. Even in her illness, she still held strong to her faith. She gave him, when he was nine, a Bible to all her kids, and she wrote, “Love from Mommy” in the Bible, but sadly that was the last gift she ever gave Jack because she passed away when he was nine. That really set him on a course of questioning God. How could a loving God allow something like that, someone who trusted you, to die?

To make things worse, his father didn’t cope with the death of his mother, and he fell into despair and depression, became quite had a bad temper and was quite emotionally distant. Jack felt like he had lost both a mother and now really also lost a father in the way things had gone. That hardened him further to think this God can’t exist. He pursued atheism. As he hit his young adult years, Jack says he found his atheism started to wane. He found that the arguments he had against God were weaker than he thought. One by one, he felt like things that he had held on to that this is proof God doesn’t exist, he realized it wasn’t actually as solid proof as he thought. He says his heart was so hard against God that he was scared that he might have to believe in him because he didn’t have any arguments left against him.

This is one thing that Jack writes about that. This is his experience as he comes with no more arguments against God. He’s writing in his room, and every time his mind pops to think about God, he feels like it’s inevitable. This God is creeping up on him. This is what he says. “You must picture me alone in that room night after night, feeling whenever my mind shifted for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of him who I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me.” He says that he was the most reluctant believer in that moment. Jack recognized that wasn’t enough. He hit a point where he said, “I can’t no longer say there’s no God. That argument’s not working for me.” He recognized that wasn’t enough to really be a person of faith. That was just a belief or a lack of evidence against.

His journey to Jesus took some time longer as he found more and more the arguments for Jesus became more and more real. One of the things he really speaks about is one of his favorite atheists said once that the arguments against Jesus are not as strong as we think. This atheist says, “I’ve come to conclude there has to have been a historical Jesus.” The evidence is there that there must have been a guy who lived that was Jesus. Jack saw even his heroes starting to question. He felt like they were questioning his faith, but he knew just holding to belief wasn’t enough. He needed to take that next step. His journey to Jesus was quite similar to his journey to belief in God. He says, “I was just traveling to the zoo with my brother one day, and there was just nothing left for me to reject Jesus with.”

These are his words. “When we set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but when we reached the zoo, I did. I had not exactly spent the journey in thought or in great emotion. It was more like when a man after a long sleep, still lying motionless on the bed, becomes aware that he is now awake from death to life. The fog had lifted, and the sun was now shining bright.” That story, Jack, that is C.S. Lewis. He was known as Jack to his friends. He is the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, one of the most influential writers in Christian history, a significant mind in thinking about engaging with Jesus and what it means to us. He recognized just belief in there might be a God, maybe there’s a God wasn’t enough. Even belief that there was a God wasn’t enough. At the end of the day, he needed to have active faith in Jesus if it was going to mean anything to him. Eventually, he found no more reasons to stop believing, and he chose to believe.

This is the picture we get from this story that while we are flawed, while we do our own schemes and try to achieve things on our own, we can never achieve a place of favor before God. Even in our sinfulness, even in our flaws, God sent Jesus that he might make a way that we can be called children of God, quite literally in this idea, children of Abraham, the ones who have received that promise. It’s an invitation for us not just to have some faroff belief, but to have a true and active trust in Jesus.