Reconciliation and Home

Verse: Genesis 33:1-20

Series: Nil

Location/ Event: Nil

Date preached: XX XXXXXXXX 2026

V1-3: Jacob was still thinking according to conventional wisdom. Remember this whole problem between Esau and Jacob started because of favouritism. Yet Jacob is showing favouritism here.

V4: Esau ran to him - Remember the father of the Prodigal Son. God has to save us because there is no one who seeks after Him. Jacob was absolutely helpless - limping. Reconciliation: is not forgiveness. Reconciliation is forgiveness + acceptance. We are accepted in the beloved.

V5: God has no need for our gifts

We fool ourselves if we think we can buy grace.

V10: To see the face of God was death. Jacob saw death in the eyes and lived.

V17-20: Succoth means booths/ shelter - it was his temporary dwelling place. Shechem means safe and sound, it is in Canaan the Promised Land. God brought Jacob home. He did not erect the altar in Succoth. One day, God will bring us home into the Promised Land.

'Twas grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through.

An American tourist visited the nineteenth-century Polish rabbi, Hofetz Chaim. Astonished to see that the rabbi’s home was only a simple room field with books, a table, and a bench, the tourist asked “Rabbi, where is your furniture?”

“Where is yours?” replied the rabbi.

“Mine? I’m only a visitor here. I’m only passing through.”

“So am I”, said Hofetz Chaim