Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Who are the most influential people these days? Who shapes what we think about, talk about? Who sets the agenda and leads our thinking about what life is all about?
It’s hard to go past Silicon Valley. They create all of the technology we use. They make the social media that consumes most of our attention. Their CEOs have more power than most governments - as seen by the failed attempts to reign in their apps.
Silicon valley is a place geared around the idea that success in life is about winning and winning comes from being smarter, working harder, and most of all, being willing to ‘disrupt’ the ordinary way things are done. In Silicon Valley, if you’re not successful, it’s because you’re not trying. Maybe you’re lazy. Maybe you expect someone to give you an easy ride in life. Or maybe you’re just too tied down to traditional ways of thinking to be a winner.
Traditional ways of thinking like, seeing eating as something of a joy.
I’m told that more than a few Silicon valley types use soylent. You know Soylent? It’s the food for people who are so obsessed with productivity and work that they view eating as an obstacle and want to maximise the efficiency of their nutritional intake. Soylent, the grey, tasteless, textureless goop that has all the vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein and other nutrients needed for human life, needs no refrigeration and can be consumed through a straw so that you don’t even have to leave your desk!
Today we come to the start of the story of Jacob, a man who lived more than 3000 years ago and yet seems so modern. He seems to have imbibed soylent in the womb, this idea that the key to success in life, the way to get ahead is by striving, hustling, grinding, and doing whatever it takes! And if you’re not a success, you’re just not trying hard enough.
Context
If you’ve just joined us, or you’ve missed the past few weeks, we’ve been working our way through the book of Genesis - the opening book of the bible.
We saw back in Genesis 1-2 that God made the world good and placed human beings in it to be his partners. But we saw in chapter 3, human beings have this tendecy to become cynical, to think that God is somehow holding out on us. This suspicion leads us to take matters to ignore the way God has designed us to live, reject his boundaries and go our own way - to disasterous consequences. But just at the moment when we might expect God, to reject us, we saw that instead he offered grace.
And for the rest of Genesis we God promises to redeem everything through one family, the family of Abraham. And we’re now up to the 3rd generation of this family - and the action centres on Jacob.
As we’ll see, Jacob is a man who is driven to succeed at all costs, but all he succeeds in doing is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Grace to graspers
Grace to graspers
State
Show: Genesis 25:19-34
You’d think by now, that this family would be set up for success. All the promises, all that’s happened with Abraham, all the confirmation that these guys are THE FAMILY WHO WILL BLESS THE WORLD, it feels like this next step should be easy.
But right from the get go, we see that something is up.
In verse 21 we learn that Rebekah can’t have children and it’s only after Isaac prays that she becomes pregnant. Despite everything, God’s intervention is required just to get this family started.
And then, when Rebekah conceives twins, rather than being happy about it, she’s devestated -
I’m told pregnancy is pretty uncomfortable, and I’m guessing being pregnant with twins is worse, but something else is going on because look at what Rebekah says in verse 22:
The children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.
She knows that these kids are not going to be besties, and God confirms it,
And God confirms it,
And the Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the elder shall serve the younger.”
This family is going to be topsy turvey.
Teaching point
Already, God is saying that he is going to do something unusual, unconventional, that goes against what everyone knew about how the world is supposed to work.
This the era where the firstborn is supposed to inherit everything. It’s also the era where the strong lead the weak.
This is what everyone just knew. But the whole situation around these twins suggests God has other plans.
Show
The first born, Esau comes out covered in red hair. So he’s called ‘Hairy’. Fair enough. But even as he is born, there is the other boy holding onto his heel, so his name is ‘grasper’ aka Jacob - what it means.
Now, his name is ambiguous, it can mean to grab, to supplant, to betray. Unlike Esau, Jacob is smooth, slippery.
From the very moment they arrive, they divide their parents.
We learn in verse 27 that Esau is a loud, brash, outdoorsy type. His favourite shop is probably BCF, and he’s the kind of guy that doesn’t so much talk as grunt about bacon, and beer and beards. And he’s his Dad’s favourite.
But Jacob is quiet, resevered, bookish. Holds his cards close to his chest. He likes to be inside reading philosophy and listening to Miles Davis, tucked up under a blanket with a coffee. And he’s mum’s special boy.
Surely he knows about the prophecy? Surely, if he’s Mum’s favourite, Rebekah has told him?
Surely he’s heard the stories of how God looked after his family, and that would tell him there’s no need to worry?
Illustration
Some of us have had the great blessing of growing up in a Christian family. Some of us we can’t even remember a day where we didn’t know God loved us, where we didn’t know that Jesus died for us. We can’t point to a day where we decided to follow Jesus because it happened before we could really talk.
The great benefit of that, is that so often there are family stories of God being faithful. Some of us can look back over generations and see how God has kept promises, answered prayers, even prayers that our grandparents or great-grandparents prayed for us. As we spoke about last time with the story of Isaac, hindsight is often where we can see God at work most clearly.
That should’ve been Jacob.
But Jacob seems to have missed out on this. If he heard stories of God’s faithfulness to Mum and Dad, Nanna and Pop, they haven’t sunk in.
Explain
Because he is determined to be slippery.
Jacob lives as if life doesn’t come from confident trust in God, but by confidence tricks played on others.
And in verse 29 Jacob sees his chance:
Esau comes in from the field, Jacob is cooking a stew and he says what every boy says ‘I’m staaaaarving’! Let me have some of that!
Jacob says, sure, you can have some, if you give me your birthright!
We have to wonder, what kind of blockhead would say yes to this. Is it just the kind of joking competition that brothers play all the time? Well no, Jacob is serious. It seems he knows his brother well enough to know it’ll work because Esau says, birthright, smirthright, just give me the food!
Explain
It’s hard to feel sorry for Esau. But equally, it’s hard to admire Jacob.
At this point, Jacob probably thinks he’s winning. His story seems to reinforce his view of the world. Success in life is there for anyone willing to play hard and dirty enough to take it.
The phrase, “God helps those who help themselves” is not in the bible - but Jacob seems to think it is. So he helped himself to his brothers birthright. And it worked.
We know from the prophecy in verse 23, this is the guy who will carry God’s salvation plan forward.
Surely God can’t be endorsing this can he? God can be unconventional sure. God has chosen the younger son before. God has ‘disrupted’ things before, to use a Sillicon Valley phrase, but this?
Explain
Part of what Genesis is saying is that, God gives incredible latitude to human freedom, even the humans he has bound himself to, even the humans he has pinned his hopes for redeeming the world on.
And with that freedom comes the risk that people looking on will think - well if that’s what Jacob did and it worked for him, I guess God’s fine with it. We can take Jacob out of context and say ‘see, God does help those who help themselves’.
That’s the risk.
And in a way, it only gets worse the next time Jacob and Esau pop up in Genesis 27.
Jacob the grifter
Jacob the grifter
Show:
Genesis 27:1-40
Years later, when Isaac is at the end of his life, Jacob takes advantage of Isaac’s senility and favouritism.
Jacob and his Mum Rebekah come up with this scheme to steal Esau’s blessing. The scheme isn’t really clever. It’s not high minded or appealing to Isaac’s better instincs.
It just involves out and out lying. They overhear Isaac essentially telling Esau he’s about to get the family blessing, but just before I die, could you cook me a BBQ like old times son?
They hear Isaac saying that and they get Jacob to dress up as Esau, put on goats skins to cover up for his lack of body hair, and they hope that Isaac is senile enough to be fooled.
And it works!
Through his slippery schemeing he manages to get this amazing blessing.
In Gen 27:28-29 Isaac says, you, my son, are the chosen one, through whom God will bring the blessing to the whole world.
No doubt now, Jacob is certain he’s won. He’s done it. He’s helped himself to his brother’s blessing and he’s set for life.
But how is Esau going to take it?
Even someone as dull as the hairy man can understand that he’s just been duped out of his inheritance.
Explain
This is the great irony of Jacob’s life. He thinks he has secured blessing. He thinks he has proved that great universal truth: God helps those who help themselves - so I helped myself to my brother’s birthright and blessing.
Illustration
They say, where there’s a will, there’s a family. You know the story. As Mum and Dad reach their 80s the children start to think - I’d better make sure I’m in with the olds. Then their late 80s - I’d better make sure I’m in the will!. Then their 90s they start to think, I’d better make sure I’m in the room when they go so I call dibs on executor!
What happens when you win? You might get some stuff, but it costs you the truly valuable thing your parents built - your family.
This is why Jacob seems so modern. We all know someone like him!
But the great irony is that in helping himself to this blessing, Jacob ends up cursed, removed from the blessing that was promised to Abraham and all of his descedants.
Remember what Abe was promised? 3 things - land, people, blessing.
Jacob has to run from the promised land because Esau is in a murderous rage, he actually reverses the trip Abraham took and goes all the way back to Ur. His family is ripped apart. And despite Isaac’s huge wealth, the only thing Jacob has to his name at the end of this little episode is his walking stick.
Apply
And this is so helpful when we are looking on at people who seem to succeed in life for all the wrong reasons. We find ourselves asking, why does God allow them to get ahead? Why do their tricks and cons work? Why does their crime seem to pay? How is it fair that such a horrible person ends up getting the prize?
Part of the answer is the irony of Jacob’s life. As Paul says in Romans 1, sometimes the thing you want is the worst thing God can give you. Getting the very thing we set our hearts, the thing we idolise and are willing to throw everyone under the bus for is the thing that will bring the most ruin to our lives, as it does with Jacob.
Jacob’s grasping shows us a deep irony about life: if you grasp after God’s blessing, even if you get it, you may well end up feeling like your under God’s curse.
But there’s a greater irony, and that’s Jacob’s grace.
Because, Jacob really does become the carrier of the blessing of Abraham! He really does end up the Father of the nation of Israel! He really does end up with this amazingly priviledged status!
This irony of grace is even deeper. Remember that this is not just any family. This is the family that will one day produce someone to undo Genesis 3 - the family who will produce the serpent crusher! Here’s the greater irony, God’s ultimate victory over the serpent, the one who stokes the very worst inclinations of human hearts, this victory will make its way through someone who is so like a serpent he may as well have a forked tongue.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I’m not sure what you hope to get out of a sermon when you come to church. Perhaps you might be looking for an uplifting story about moral people? Perhaps you might be hoping to hear something about how it pays to be good. Maybe what you really want is brevity!
Sorry to disappoint you (on all counts), but the bible wasn’t written to give us a morally uplifting stories or edifying life lessons. If you want that, watch Bluey.
No, the bible wont always give us some easy moral, but it will show us relatable characters. It will show us the kind of people who exist in real life, the kind of people we sadly recognise.
This disfunctional family filled with flawed characters? It sounds so familiar doesn’t it? The blind and passive father, the manipulating mother, the coniving brothers who won’t ever speak to one another again, the favouritism, the greed and power. Even if we’ve been lucky enough to avoid experiencing this kind of family, we all know a family like this.
The bible will show us reality, in all it’s brokenness and mess because it wants to hold up this mess, these despicable characters, and these painful realistic families and show us how God’s rememdy to all of it is not some universal moral principles, or heroic individuals to immitate - but grace.
God’s remedy for broken people in broken families is not hard work and thrift, grit and determination. God’s remedy for people so blined by their cunning that they snatch defeat from the hands of victory is not to say ‘do better’. It’s not even to say, learn from Jacob’s mistakes. Because the thing is, often we can’t.
Often, no amount of hard work and cunning can fix a broken family. Sometimes, even when we know we are on a destructive path, we just can’t seem to find a better one.
That’s why God doesn’t simply tell us try harder, work smarter, be wiser: instead he offers us grace.
Grace. Undeserved, unearned favour.
That’s what the story of Jacob is really all about. Grace.
Unlike being told, do better, be smarter, grace won’t crush us when we are confronted with the unlikeable parts of ourselves. If you and I turn away from all of the distractions of life long enough to take a good hard look at ourselves, we can feel like the flaws we have are hard-coded into who we are - especially if we’ve been aware of them for a long time. Our names might not mean greedy, but you may feel like greed is who you are. Your name might not be anxiety but it may as well be. Narcisism, pettyness, addictions, vanity, rage, all of these things can feel heavy enough to sink us. We may have tried and tried, and failed.
If that’s you, you wouldn’t be the first person whom God has chosen in spite of obvious character flaws. Your flaws don’t mean that God has overlooked you, cannot work through you or in you.
God didn’t choose Jacob’s family because they were nice or noble. He choose them in spite of the fact that they aren’t.
God doesn’t choose you or me because we are decent, friendly, hard working, or generous. He doesn’t choose us because we have potential. He doesn’t even save us because we’ve been ‘doing our bit’.
He chose to love us in spite of the fact that he is fully aware of how deep our flaws run.
Grace is how God takes an individual like Jacob, a family like Abraham’s, a people with a history like Israel - full of murder and adultery, racism and religious hypocrisy - and uses it to bring Jesus.
If that’s what he can do with Jacob’s family, imagine what he can do with us.