Restoration to the Broken
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Genesis 32:1-23
Genesis 32:1-23
Pray
Summarize what brought us to this point.
Jacob fled the anger of his brother Esau.
Jacob worked for a man named Laban for around 20 years.
During this time Jacob became very prosperous.
He found a wife and had children.
The Lord stirred in the heart of Jacob to return home.
Remember, when he left initially all those years ago, there was never any reconciliation.
Jacob was returning to the brokenness that he left.
I am sure there was all sorts of things going through his head.
Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God!” So he named that place Mahanaim. Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. He instructed them: “This is what you are to say to my lord Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now. I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, male and female servants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.’ ”
As the camp draws closer to Esau, Jacob send messengers to inform Esau of his return.
Click #1
1. Jacob was not sure how he would be recieved.
When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”
The messengers report that they met with Esau.
Esau is coming to meet you and he is bringing 400 men with him.
Jacob thinks that Esau is coming to make war. Esau is coming to make good on his threats all those years ago.
Jacob had has no contact.
When he left Esau was threatening to kill him.
As Jacob approaches his homeland, I am sure all of the unresolved issues are swirling in his head.
Because Jacob thinks Esau os coming to attack, Jacob decides to split his entourage into two camps.
He thinks that if Esau attacks them, at least one group will be able to escape.
Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, Lord, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’ ”
Click #2 and #3 and #4
2. In light of all this anxiety, how does Jacob respond?
3. He prays.
4. He calls upon the Lord for encouragement.
Jacob recognizes that he has only been taken care of thus far because of the hand of God.
Jacob admits that he is unworthy of the kindness and faithfulness shown to him by God.
Jacob admits his fear.
He admits the thing that is causing him to fear.
He calls out to God for help.
Then in verse 12 Jacob remembers the Lord’s promise.
He trusts that God will keep His Word.
I do want to pause here for a moment and talk about the application of this event to our lives.
In this time of difficulty, Jacob responded correctly.
He saw the difficulty.
He recognized the things that was causing his to be anxious and he called it out.
He asked the Lord to intervene in this situation. Jacob recognized that there was nothing he could do in his own strength to bring positive resolve to the situation.
He called upon the Lord to help.
Click #5 and #6
5. All of us have things in our lives that bring anxiety.
We all have things that feel overwhelming or impossible to resolve, like Jacob.
6. In those situations, call out to God.
Like Jacob call out to God.
Here is something that I cannot handle.
Here is something that is far too difficult for me to deal with in a positive manner.
Here is something that is overwhelming to me.
Call these things out to God.
Bring them to Light and ask God to help you cope with the situation.
The devil works in the shadows.
If we allow conflict.
If we allow the difficulties we deal with.
If we allow the things that bring us anxiety to remain in the shadow, the devil will play all sorts of tricks in our mind.
And inevitably the situation will grow worse.
Think about Jacob.
As he thought about returning to Esau, he immediately though that he was going to be killed. He thought that Esau would attack him.
The repressed anxiety of the conflict cause Jacob to imagine all sorts of horrific things that had no bearing on reality.
This happens to all of us.
When we are facing difficulty, we can dream up all sorts of things in our mind.
Click #7
7. The solution is to submit ourselves and the situation to God.
Ask Him to bring resolve.
Ask Him to bring clarity.
And call out to Him those things that we cannot handle on our own.
I am not saying that this will be a miracle cure and all your problems will magically melt away.
What I am saying is that in humbling yourself before God and recognizing that there are times in our lives when we need to rely on Him for help, He will be there.
He will be with you.
He will be a constant source of strength.
He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds.” He instructed the one in the lead: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘Who do you belong to, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?’ then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.’ ” He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: “You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. And be sure to say, ‘Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.’ ” For he thought, “I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.” So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp. That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
Jacob prepares a gift for Esau in the hope of peace.
He is not sure yet how things will go, but he is trusting that the Lord will bring resolve.
The result of Jacob’s return and Esau’s reception will take place in chapter 33.
So you will have to come back to hear the rest of the story.
To wrap things up this morning, I do want to talk about two things.
Jacob did not know how he would be recieved.
Would he be attacked?
Would he be welcomed?
At lease 2 Applications
Click #8 and #9
8. We all have brokenness.
It is valid to approach brokenness with caution.
Like Jacob, he did not just rush back into the situation.
He used caution as he returned because he was not sure of how he would be recieved by Esau.
Jacob returned to the situation with humility.
He recognized that it was up to God to bring resolve.
Jacob sought the Lord to help bring restoration.
9. The lesson for all of us is that God can bring restoration.
In those things that are broken our first response should be to call out to God.
Call out to the Lord in humility asking Him for help.
And be patient.
Allow God to lead.
I know that we all have made the mistake of getting out in front of God.
What I mean by this is we perceive in our limited understanding how God is working and then we take the reigns ourselves.
We say to God I got this.
I see what you are doing.
We need to remain patient.
We need to submit to God.
This is a hard lesson to learn because it often comes through experience.
We learn this lesson through mistakes.
The second application is this.
Click #10
10. We do not ever have to be afraid to return to God.
We have visitors here this morning.
This is invite a friend Sunday.
Not sure what all of your backgrounds are.
Some of us maybe have not been to church in a while.
We all can wander. We all can stray.
But we never need to fear returning to God.
Unlike Jacob who was afraid to return home to meet his brother.
Click #11
11. God will always embrace your return with open arms.
He will always run to meet you in your return.
Like the prodigal son.
The father ran to meet his sin as he saw him approaching.
Your God, your Savior will always run to you and embrace us in our return.
Jesus will always reach down to lift you up in restoration and in love poured out by His grace.
Brothers and sisters, you are all invited to a relationship with a God and Father who will embrace you in love.
Jesus will Redeem you according to His authority.
And He can and will bring restoration to all those things that are broken.
I pray that you all know this.
Benediction: Acts 3: 18-21
“But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.