Booth Was Its Name

Announcements

Folks Helping today

Let us know you are here, prayer requests, questions about sermon

New Virtual Topical Bible Study, Pastor Rob

Creation

Heaven and hell

Baptism

Communion

Trinity

Resurrection

Virgin birth

No communion next week it will be the 13th, Chris Hester preaching

On the 13th New sermon series on the parables of chapter 13 in Matthew called Kingdom Mysteries and run 2 weeks

We need a few volunteers 9am tomorrow to help get the last of the debris into the dumpster.

Also, we will need some help with landscaping around the ramp in the near future.

The church will be having a workday/moving day on Saturday September 5, 2020 starting 8:30 AM. We will meet at the church and we need trucks and strong arms and anointed hearts for this move! MASKS needed when we cannot socially distance.If we do not finish, please plan to help on Sunday September 6th after church. Meet at 1:30 PM at the church. 5226 McEver Road

Thanks and God bless! Lloyd Smee, chair, Rick Brown, and Jim Prezel.

OPENING PRAYER Liturgist

Lord of summer sunshine and autumn harvest, be with us this day as we gather to encounter your word and your way for us. Remind us that we can place our trust in your eternal love. Enable us to be more effective in our witness to that love by word and deed. Guide our steps and pick us up when we falter. Dust us off and place us on the pathways of grace and service. These things we pray in Jesus’ name. AMEN

HYMN: To God Be The Glory

PROCLAMATION AND PRAISE

PASTORAL PRAYER For Students and Teachers Liturgist

Dear Jesus, we thank you for our students and our teachers. Some of these students are nearing the end of their secondary education and will advance toward higher education or jobs in the workforce and some are just starting their educational process. So we pray for a good start to elementary education for some, a good end to secondary education for others and a good start for college or trade school students. We pray for self-discipline for the students who are completing virtual classroom time and classwork, as well as for the students going into classrooms or even splitting time between both. Please keep the students, teachers, and staff safe when they are communing together in one building; we pray for their health and for the right precautions to be taken to ensure their wellbeing.

Lord, we pray for the teachers who have to learn new technology or attain new resources to be able to teach their students. Please give them parent advocates and other teacher friends who will support them and help them. We also pray that these students would have respect for their teachers and be patient with all the changes rolling out. We know this will be a challenging school year for students, teachers, and parents with many adjustments. Father God, please settle all the hearts that are worrying right now and bring peace to the hearts that are restless or fearful about the future. Holy Spirit remind these teachers and students that they can depend on you for all things through all circumstances. Help them to remember that they are not alone.

Additionally, we pray that You would help these students to find the balance between social interaction, rest, learning, preparing for the future, and spiritual growth. Please bless them with godly friends and teachers; bring alongside them adults who care about their futures and seek to encourage them in their choices and options. We pray that all these students, parents, and teachers would draw closer to you in this uncertain time, and we pray that they would seek Your purpose in all that they do. In Your name Jesus, AMEN.

Scripture

Genesis 33:1–17 NRSV

Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids. He put the maids with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all. He himself went on ahead of them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he said, “Who are these with you?” Jacob said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.” Then the maids drew near, they and their children, and bowed down; Leah likewise and her children drew near and bowed down; and finally Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down. Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” Jacob answered, “To find favor with my lord.” But Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” Jacob said, “No, please; if I find favor with you, then accept my present from my hand; for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God—since you have received me with such favor. Please accept my gift that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have everything I want.” So he urged him, and he took it. Then Esau said, “Let us journey on our way, and I will go alongside you.” But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are frail and that the flocks and herds, which are nursing, are a care to me; and if they are overdriven for one day, all the flocks will die. Let my lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.” So Esau said, “Let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.” But he said, “Why should my lord be so kind to me?” So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. But Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and made booths for his cattle; therefore the place is called Succoth.

HYMN: Broken Vessels

Prayer of Illumination

Introduction

The soap opera continues. We left Jacob at the Jabbok River after wrestling with God and now Esau comes. He comes in force! Four hundred men are with him. But in keeping with this soap opera theme we need to see a flashback. A flashback to what happened before Jacob wrestled with God.

Exegesis

Genesis 32:3–12 NRSV

Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, instructing them, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived with Laban as an alien, and stayed until now; and I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’ ” The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies, thinking, “If Esau comes to the one company and destroys it, then the company that is left will escape.” And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children. Yet you have said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.’ ”

This is what happens directly before Jacob decides to appease his brother. He receives a report that Esau is coming to meet him, but with 400 hundred men! No wonder he sends the droves of livestock not only to appease his brother but to slow him down as well. Jacob is afraid and takes defensive action by dividing the people with him.

We then see Jacob do something he has not done before. Jacob prays. Before this, it has been God seeking Jacob. That is, all Jacobs interactions with YHWH have been initiated by YHWH. This time Jacob initiates the contact.

Let’s take a look at this prayer.

What may be happening here is kind of a foxhole conversion for Jacob(More in this later on.) His only hope is for God to intercede on his behalf. Jacob must pray. What choice does he have but to call on the God of Abraham, and Isaac, to come to his rescue. I mean in the covenant in Bethel God promised:

Genesis 28:15 NRSV

Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Jacob surely remembers this promise and calls God out on it. This is why many scholars think this is not really a sincere prayer.

Genesis 32:9 NRSV

And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’

And

Genesis 32:12 NRSV

Yet you have said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.’ ”

This sounds a lot like what he said at Bethel, you know, I will be your follower if you come through on these promises.

But in 32:10 we do see some vulnerability and repentance in Jacob:

Genesis 32:10 NRSV

I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies.

So, afterwards Jacob wrestles that night. The next day Esau Shows up and Jacob humbles himself as a subordinate to his superior. Could Jacob be feeling guilt here? We did see some evidence of true repentance in his prayer.

You know I have touched on this, but Esau is still the first born. Jacob did not have to take his birthright and blessing to assure he received the covenant as God promised. Does he now see how his and his Mother’s actions tore the family apart?

He lines up his wives and children from least to first. Then he goes out and actually prostrates himself 7 times before Esau. You could say he goes crawling to Esau the first born.

Quite unexpectedly Esau runs to him falls on his neck and kisses him. What is this!? Is this a ruse? Or has Esau’s conscience haunted him as well for vowing to kill his brother?

What a great piece of literature!

Jacob addresses Esau as his superior calling him Lord and referring to himself as his servant. The family is presented to Esau and they bow to him as well.

The ensuing conversation about Jacob’s company and then the first refusal of the gifts is purely cultural. Like we do if somone is going to pick up the check. But Esau does take the present. He then promises to ride with Jacob back to Seir, or in Edom thinking that is where Jacob is going.

Jacob refuses that because he is not going to Seir although he gives Esau the impression that that’s what he is going to do. In fact, he turns in the opposite direction and heads north while Esau heads south. Jacob then settles in Succoth (SUHK ahth) or Booths.

Application

The brothers do not see each other again till Isaac’s death. (Although some scholars speculate that Jacob did go to Seir. I don’t buy that. No evidence for it.) And an argument ensues over the funeral arrangements! So is there reconciliation? Did God answer Jacob’s prayer even if it may have been insincere?

No, there doesn’t seem to be total reconciliation here. It seems to be they both dealt with the guilt from their previous actions. It looks like Jacob wanted to get as much distance between himself and Esau. However, I do believe there is redemption. I do not believe the brothers completely reconciled and the evidence for that is Isaac’s burial. However, I do believe God redeemed the relationship. So yes God answered the prayer.

Jacob never prayed for Esau’s demise. Jacob realizes he has done his brother wrong and is undeserving of God’s protection although God does protect him as promised.

In his book “A Table in The Presence” Lt Carey Cash, a Marine Chaplain, tells the story of Lance Corporal Jeff Guthrie after the gruesome firefight to take Saddam Hussein’s palace. Cash writes:

“Sitting down on the grass in front of him [Guthrie], I asked what was wrong,”

“‘Sir ... I’m, I’m just so sorry,’ he said, tears welling up in his tired eyes.

“‘Sorry for what, Guthrie?’ I had no idea what he was talking about.

“‘It’s just what I’ve done in my life. All I can think about is that I’ve just been through the worst experience of my life, and yet, God protected me through it all. But why did He do it? How could He do it after all the things—the bad things—I’ve done? I don’t know what else to say, what else to feel. I’m just so sorry.’

The next day Cash baptized Guthrie.

This is what I mean by redemption. The prayer changed both brothers. It is obvious. Whether sincere or not, God hears all prayers. The brothers did reconcile in a way but the redemption of both is seen in Jacob’s repentance and Esau’s refusal to carry out his threat.

The other thing we need to look at here is God as the covenant preserver. It is certainly not Jacob even though God has entrusted him with it. The nation of Israel was entrusted with this covenant too and they failed it often. So much so that is what the prophets blamed the Babylonian captivity on. Yet God preserved the covenant and brought them back and promised them an even better new covenant. A covenant written on the heart. There were in fact many covenants with God’s people. And God preserved every one.

And no matter what we do God will preserve this covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then the nation of Israel. We can take matters into our own hands, we can pray insincerely, we can threaten our brothers and sisters. But if we humble ourselves and turn back to God the covenant is there. He will be our God and we will be his people. That is God’s promise.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 NRSV

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

You see we are all Guthries, we are all Jacobs, we are all Esaus. God protects us through it all not based on what we do or don’t do but based in God’s character as a redemptive God. As a God of grace and mercy. Paul said it best:

Romans 8:31–39 NRSV

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We will always be God’s people and God will always be our God. No matter what. What wondrous love is this?

HYMN: My Tribute

SENDING FORTH

BENEDICTION Liturgist

Jesus has called you and placed his trust in you. Go into this world, bearing the words of hope and healing. Reach out to others in compassion. For it is Jesus’ name, that you are sent out to serve.

Go forth to serve: Love Christ; Love People; and Helping People Love Christ AMEN.