Well, we will spend the next four weeks in the story of Jacob and Esau.
So this is in the first book of the Bible in Genesis.
In Genesis, we see a family becoming a people group.
And then in this family, we have Isaac who marries Rebekah.
And they finally, after having a difficult time getting pregnant, they have two boys.
They have Esau and they have Jacob.
So as Sam read in Genesis chapter 25, even in the womb, these two boys are beginning to fight and have conflict.
And then Rebekah receives the prophecy that the two will be in conflict, and then the older will serve the younger, which would have been against all the culture and all the ancient institutions at the time.
So Esau was older.
Ever since birth, he was hairy, came out with red hair on his body, he became an outdoorsman, a skilled hunter.
We would have seen him at Bass Pro Shop.
Jacob comes out, he's more of an inside guy, he's cultured, he's quiet.
He would be sitting right next to my wife watching Barefoot Contessa.
Like that's that's Jacob's mood.
And the text says from the very beginning that the two parents actually favored the two kids differently from the very beginning.
I mean, so this is just a soap opera of dysfunction.
Like right away, this whole story is just total dysfunction.
So one day Jacob's manning the stove, and Esau comes in from the field.
Esau's hurting, he's hungry, he's exhausted, he's starving, and Jacob tells him, Hey, I'll feed you if you hand over your birthright.
That's so out of touch for us.
Well, here's what a birthright is: if you're the firstborn, you would have received a double portion of inheritance, leadership over the family, so honor, prestige, and a blessing from the father.
A blessing from their father, a blessing of honor.
Once it was pronounced, it was never pronounced in vain, it couldn't be retracted.
Now, can you imagine that?
Can you imagine that kind of blessing, that kind of honor, that kind of money, right?
And then Esau trades it away.
Right?
I mean, it's kind of like Prince William having a moment of exhaustion, just trading it away for the, you know, hot dog from QT, the roller hot dog.
I love the roller hot dog, right?
But still, like I'm not trading, I'm not trading double portion inheritance for a roller hot dog.
Now here's what we learned.
Point number one is this temporary emotions and circumstances can cloud wise decision making.
Right?
If you're over the age of 25, you can just go ahead and say, Amen.
Like you know, you know.
History's full of bad decisions.
I just thought of a couple uh this week.
Uh you remember this company?
So uh here's a picture of this company.
Maybe you remember being in this store as a teenager.
Blockbuster, hello, remember?
Maybe you remember, you remember that?
If you're over maybe 30 or so years old, and you got in a car with your friends.
It was a whole event.
I loved it, right?
You got in a car with your friends, you didn't just like watch a movie, it was an experience.
You went to the store, and once you're in the store, you divide it up.
Everybody divided up.
Each of you picked a movie, you came back in the middle of the store, and you all kind of like submitted your movie to the group.
You had to convince each other which one were you gonna watch that night.
An event.
Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for$50 million.
They had the chance.
They passed on that needle, they passed on it.
Horrible decision, right?
Horrible decision.
Now, what about these two?
I thought about these two when it came to bad decisions.
Well, that's a bad decision if you know what that is, right?
Kodak.
They invented the digital camera.
They decided to not do anything with it because it might threaten their business.
Okay?
Bad decision.
And then these two, this is a picture of 16 years ago.
16 years ago.
And then you remember what happened if you're my age or so.
Brad broke up with Jennifer.
I'm still not over it.
I I also this week when I saw this picture, I was like, oh, they are the most beautiful human beings.
I mean, have you ever have you seen anybody more beautiful than these two?
And I was like, well, what do they look like today?
So I found this picture, this is more current.
And I did like, like at first I was like, oh, like, like, you know, I mean, they're they're they're older now, right?
Um, but then I kind of looked at it, I was like, they're still good looking.
Like, like if you the longer you look at it, you're like, no, they're still good looking, which didn't help my self-consciousness at all, or my like image.
But that's not my point.
But my point is, I'm still not over that horrible decision of Brad breaking up with Jennifer.
It's been 16 years.
Horrible decision to break up with America's sweetheart.
Horrible decision.
We know bad decisions, right?
Esau, Brad, Kodak, Blabuster.
And we produce bad decisions.
We wish we didn't.
We wish we just were like just a series of wise decisions that led to increasingly great joy and peace and life and harmony.
Wouldn't that be great?
I mean, we want wise decisions about who to marry, who not to marry, who to be friends with, who to date, how to date, right?
How to date in 2022.
How to handle conflict, whether to go to Georgia or Old Miss or maybe Auburn or maybe Georgia, perhaps Georgia.
Maybe Georgia, maybe.
Take the job in Kennesaw, or do you take the job and move to Nashville?
Right?
Most of us want to make wise decisions.
Because we know wisdom is good.
Here's a few ideas just with wise decision making.
Six kind of quick thoughts on this.
These are more observations.
I probably could have assigned a Bible verse and hunted that down for you.
You can do that at home.
The problem number one, the process of decision making can be formative to your heart.
See, sometimes we just want to make a decision, get it over with, right?
I do.
Just have the decision over.
But actually, the process of the decision-making itself, because God is with you, Emmanuel, with you, the decision-making process itself can be formative to your heart.
That's good news because it means even the anguish of a decision-making process can be formative to your heart.
Number two, having a peace about it, having a peace about it, can stop us from making a right decision that's difficult.
Now, there's nothing more wonderful than having a peace about your decision.
Wouldn't that be wonderful?
Every decision, you had full 100% peace and certainty before you made the decision.
But sometimes, and what my wife says is she says, it's just time to put on the big girl pants or the big boy pants.
You had to put on your big boy pants and go make a decision, right?
Sometimes you have peace before the decision.
Isn't that wonderful?
Sometimes you have peace as you're making the decision.
Sometimes you have peace after you make the decision.
Sometimes you just gotta make a right decision because it's right.
Number three, don't expect a divine text message from God at every intersection.
Wouldn't that be nice?
It's not GPS, though.
It hasn't been for me.
We live in faith and wisdom even if we don't have certainty.
Maturity is not growing in certainty with every decision you ever make in your life.
Maturity is making wise decisions over time in faith, even if you're uncertain.
Therefore, next three points, therefore, number four, seek God's wisdom in Scripture.
Not just at the point of the decision making, but over time building an equity of God's word in you.
Right?
So you have an equity of God's word in you because day in and day out, you're just building an equity of God's wisdom inside of you from his scriptures and your heart and in your mind.
So as decisions come, you have sort of this foundation, this equity of wisdom.
Number five, seek God's wisdom from wise people in your life.
Make the phone call.
Call the person who's already done something like this.
Shoot them an email.
Grab coffee with that lady.
They've been through it.
You've noticed them.
There's something about them.
Pretty sure they've gone through this.
Well, let's call them.
Let's do that.
Seek that wisdom from people.
And then number six, be prayerful, not hasty, seeking God's leading as you make decisions.
Now that's not an equation, those six things, or even the last three.
It won't work perfectly.
It's more of a description of what it looks like to be a decision maker in wisdom.
And even then it's hard, it's filled with mistakes because sometimes we're selfish or we're prideful, or sometimes we're just tired.
Like we're worn out from the week and we make a bad decision, worn out from the day, we make a bad decision, or like your parents always said, nothing good comes after midnight, right?
How many people made bad decisions after midnight?
I shouldn't make a decision after 7 p.m.
That's where I'm at at this point.
Used to be midnight, now I'm 42, it's 7 p.m.
That's the cutoff point.
No evaluation of life or decision making after 7 p.m.
If it rains several days in a row, don't ask me to make a decision.
The first day, I'm okay.
I work a little bit longer, just get some stuff done.
Second day, I'm hanging in.
Third day, I'm like researching being a lifeguard in Costa Rica.
Anything's up for grabs the third day of a rainy series of days in the wintertime.
Anything could happen in my life.
Don't evaluate, I don't evaluate, right?
We're emotional.
You can't always trust your feelings, can't always trust your emotions.
Sometimes our brains aren't working.
So we can kind of understand Esau in a way.
He's tired, he's worn out, he's hurting, and in haste he makes a horrible decision.
This week, early in the week, a cold front came in.
Do you remember?
It was last week at this time.
From Sunday to Tuesday, we went from 70 degrees to 30 degrees.
Which, if any of you are like me and you get headaches, it left me on my bathroom floor, curled up, in a ball on the cold tile.
But I'm laboring for you as a pastor.
And so I'm contemplating Esau there on the bathroom floor.
I can't raise my head up as I'll get nauseous and throw up, so I'm just curled up.
Christy, you can't put a blanket over me.
Just lay there till it passes.
But I'm laboring for you because I love you so much.
I'm just laboring as a pastor.
Contemplating Esau, thinking to myself, what if Esau felt like this?
What if this is what Esau felt like?
What if he felt worse than this?
Because at one point I called for Christy to come and help me.
She could have negotiated anything in that moment.
Like she could have gotten anything.
She's been wanting to renovate the half-bath.
That could have been all done and sealed up.
Like it anything could have been traded for the help I needed.
Anything.
Of course she didn't.
Or you'd say, because she's a loving person, a spouse.
But just like a decent human being wouldn't take advantage of somebody in that way.
And then you go, oh.
That's how manipulative Jacob is.
That he would do that.
So we have a manipulative, selfish Jacob, and then we have a weak, short-sighted Esau.
Now, some Jewish history says that Esau might have been around 15 years old, which adds a whole thing to it, right?
Because think about the decision making you had when you were 15.
You made some mistakes.
Now imagine if you're a rebellious 15-year-old.
So some Jewish history says that Esau was 15 and he was a rebellious son.
He doesn't care.
That kind of helps us make sense of the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 12, when it says in 15 and 16, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.
Makes me think something more than just exhaustion's going on.
That he he was rebellious.
He's a punk.
Just didn't care.
Point number two is this nobody's perfect.
Everybody's sinful and weary.
But God is patient with us.
There's no hero in this story.
I mean, Jacob is manipulative and selfish.
Who does that to his brother?
God's the hero.
Working out his redemptive plan, even in all this dysfunction.
Out of this dysfunction, this lineage, this manipulative Jacob comes the Messiah, comes Jesus to forgive all of our sins and weakness and deem us righteous.
The story goes on in Genesis 27.
Isaac's become old.
He's blind.
He calls Esau to him.
He says, It's time.
Esau, go and fix a meal.
Bring me the meal.
I'm going to bless you.
It's time for me to bless you.
But Rebecca's been listening.
Remember, Rebecca favors Jacob.
So Rebecca hears it sneaky, sneaky conniving woman.
She hears it and she says, Oh, Jacob, hurry, hurry, hurry.
Go fix the meal.
Hurry, hurry.
Because you can get back, and we'll put you in Esau's clothes.
And she did it.
She put them in Esau's clothes and she put like some hairy stuff behind his neck, made him kind of feel kind of nice and hairy, you know, like a sweater guy, you know, right on the back of the neck.
And Jacob goes in to see Isaac.
And here's the story.
Bit of reading.
Genesis 27, 18 through 29.
So he went in to see his father and said, My father.
And he said, Here I am.
Who are you, my son?
Jacob said to his father, I'm Esau, your firstborn.
I have done as you told me.
Now sit up and eat 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?
He answered, Manipulative Jacob, here's what he says, Because the Lord your God granted me success.
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.
So Jacob went near to Isaac, his father, who felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.
And he did not recognize them because his hands were hairy, like his brother Esau's hands, so he blessed him.
He said, Are you really my son Esau?
He answered, I am.
Then he said, Bring it near to me that I may eat of my son's game and bless you.
So he brought it near to him, and he ate, and he brought him wine, and he drank.
Then his father Isaac said to him, Come near and kiss me, my son.
So he came near and kissed him.
And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and 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 the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you.
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.
Man, this is this is dirty, right?
I mean, this is dirty.
I mean, think about this Jacob sitting here doing this.
Think about this wife and this mom doing this to her oldest child and her husband.
In so many ways, Genesis is offensive.
I mean, read it, Genesis, you read about polygamy, the treatment of women.
It's very incredibly offensive.
God favors younger sons who are manipulative and selfish over older sons.
Tim Keller cites Robert Alter's book, The Art of Biblical Narrative.
Alter's a Jewish scholar at Berkeley, who states that the book of Genesis, in the book of Genesis, you actually see two things going on with these issues of like treatment of women and polygamy, and also this idea of choosing the younger even when they're manipulative.
And the first is that in every generation, as we read the story working itself out, polygamy wreaks havoc, disaster.
See, the Bible isn't supporting it, the Bible's telling about it and revealing the horror that it is in the treatment of women like this and constructing families like this.
And then, second, when it comes to God, over and over again, God favoring the younger sons, the older, which is against culture.
God is subverting a cultural value that says, you know what?
You always have to be first.
And you always have to be the strongest.
I mean, that should matter a lot to your heart.
Because you know you're not always first.
You're not always the strongest.
You're not always put together.
You're not always in the right position.
I mean, what if the only way that you mattered was being the firstborn?
Or the only way that you mattered was holding the certain position, or the only way that you mattered was being the strongest or the most put together?
That would be awful.
And it would be endlessly tiring for you to maintain or try to get that position.
But if God favors the weak?
If God's love fully meets you, not halfway as you get your act together, but fully meets you right where you are right now, that changes everything.
Last point, there's this scene after Isaac has passed on the blessing to Jacob.
Isaac's just giving this blessing to Jacob, and then Esau shows up.
Right?
Esau's been out preparing.
He thinks he's walking in and get the blessing.
And comes Esau, Genesis 27, verse 34.
As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, Bless me.
Even me also are my father.
But he said, Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.
Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob?
For he has cheated me these two times.
He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.
Then he said, Have you not reserved a blessing for me?
Isaac answered and said to Esau, Behold, I have made him Lord over you, and all his brothers 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?
Bless me.
Even me also, O my father.
And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.
Here's point number three.
We could kind of pass this over so quickly in this reading of the story.
Many of us were robbed of parental blessing by God is the ultimate Abba of all blessings.
We're gonna see that work itself out in the story as we follow Esau in the coming sermons.
But some of you were blessed by your parents.
You were blessed.
They spoke care and they spoke blessing over you.
They esteemed you, they listened to you, they cared for you, and it meant everything.
But others of us, we missed out on the parental blessing.
Maybe you were always waiting for that parental blessing from your father or from your mother, but instead you received hurt or you received distance.
And because of that, there is a wound and there is a lacking.
And in that way, we read this story and we hear Esau weeping bitterly.
Do you not have a blessing for me, Dad?
At some point in your life, it'll be good to contemplate two questions.
What did my father or mother say to me that they never should have?
You've been carrying it around for a long time.
They should have never said it.
And you can begin to let it go.
Second question what did my father or mother never say to me?
That could have changed everything.
Right?
They just didn't speak it, and they should have.
They should have said it.
You know they should have.
Here's the good news.
Where our earthly parents, all of our earthly parents, even if you're sitting next to your earthly parent right now and the greatest parent in the world, all earthly parents, as good as they may be, they're not able to speak into your soul's deepest needs.
They're just not.
We have a heavenly father who cares for us and loves us into that place.
There's this place in Scripture where Jesus takes on the role of the Abba Father to little children.
Mark 10, 13 through 16.
One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them.
But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.
When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples.
He said to them, Let the children come to me.
Don't stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.
I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn't receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.
Then he took the children in his arms and he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.
See, we may miss out on the blessing from an earthly father or earthly mother, but the blessing of Jesus we always have, this Jesus who came through the lineage of the weak to save us and love us.
Even while we are weak, and even while we're not put together.
And maybe this morning, you just need to metaphorically allow yourself to crawl into the lap of the Father and let Him bless you.
And to hear that you are His.
You are His.
Jesus is enough.
Jesus is enough for all the forgiveness you ever need, all the righteousness you ever need, all the worth you ever need, all the beauty you ever need, all the blessing you ever need.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you that while we read crazy stories in the Old Testament that are so far outside of our cultural context today, that even today they mean everything to our hearts.
That you subvert worldly values that say we only matter if we're first and strongest.
Thank you, that you find us even if we are second or last or weak.
God, we are in fact sinners in need of your wonderful grace.
We are in fact only children to crawl into your lap and receive the blessing that speaks to the deepest core parts of our soul.
Not all the forgiveness we need, we have in Jesus all the righteousness we need, we have in Jesus and all the blessing we need, we have in Jesus.
We pray this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.