Jacob Birth

We are starting a new series this morning tilted. What is Your Name: The Life of Jacob

This six-week series explores the highs and lows of Jacob in Genesis. Through Jacob’s birth, family conflict, and relationship with God, we see God’s redemptive plan on the move. God transforms Jacob from a deceptive young man into Israel: the one who wrestles with God.

This week we will be starting birth of Jacob. We will be look at why this his birth was so important.

So if you have you bible turn to Genesis 25:19-28. If you not have a bible the passage will be on the screen in a few moments.

Before we look at today passage I have a question for you. So think for a moment.

Have you ever received a promise?

did the person give you the promise come true on that promise. Or did it fall flat and you were left wondering what happened.

Sometimes these promises are fulfilled and other times they fall thought. We cant truly relay on most people. One of two things happen with promise that are not fulfilled. One the person make the promise forgot they promised something to you. Second the person making the promise promised something they could not fulfill. This could be a promise for a promotion for an assistant to your boss. Or a promise for a friend to help do thing they cant do.

When someone promise something we should take it as it is and weight it out if we think it would come true or not. If people promise are like this. Then what about a promise from God. Does God always answer the promise? Lets take a look at the brith of Jacob and see the promises of God.

Genesis 25:19–28 CSB

19 These are the family records of Isaac son of Abraham. Abraham fathered Isaac. 20 Isaac was forty years old when he took as his wife Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord was receptive to his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. 22 But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 And the Lord said to her: Two nations are in your womb; two peoples will come from you and be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. 24 When her time came to give birth, there were indeed twins in her womb. 25 The first one came out red-looking, covered with hair like a fur coat, and they named him Esau. 26 After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born. 27 When the boys grew up, Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home. 28 Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for wild game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

We can see three different Promise in this passage

The first being

God’s promise to Abraham

This promise was starting to come true. You see with the brith of the Isaac kids the line of Abraham was continued. God promised Abraham that he would be the father to the nation of people that would out number the stars in the sky.

Genesis 22:17–18 CSB

17 I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the city gates of their enemies. 18 And all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because you have obeyed my command.”

God’s promise of a child for Rebekah

Rebekah faced fertility issues, like other women in her family line. “Rebekah’s struggles with pregnancy mirror Sarah’s: Isaac’s marriage, like Abraham’s, was for a long time unfruitful; not to extreme old age, however, but only for 20 years. The seed of the promise was to be prayed for from the Lord, that it might not be regarded merely as a fruit of nature, but be received and recognized as a gift of grace. At the same time Isaac was to be exercised in the patience of faith in the promise of God” (Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996], 1:171).

God’s promise that the children would father two nation

This two children would become the father to two different Nation. Jacob will become the father to the Israelites. Esau father the Edomites which depicted has a constant enemy fo Israel. This two boys.

Jacob and Esau

God’s answer to the promise of a child for Rebekah. God promised that she would have a child but she had two. This two bothers will have conflict from now on.

Esau is the first born and the one that Isaac like the most. In those days Esau would and should have take over for Isaac when he did but that didn’t happen. We will be looking at that in a couple of weeks.

In verse 26 Jacob is born holding on to Esaus heel. So Isaac and Rebekah name him Jacob. In Hebrew the name Jacob is similar to the term for heel but it also can be said to be a deceiver.

“To grasp someone by the heel was apparently a figure of speech meaning “to deceive.” Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 94). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Jacob is the main force of are series over the next 5 week. Jacob is the chosen one. The one that will be the father to a nation. We will see his deceive nature in a few weeks.

As we chose out this morning time. I want to live you with this main point. The main take away from today.

Yes Jacob is the chosen one. The main person we are talk about for this series but there is a key principal to take away from today.

When God makes a promise it will come true

It might that years. It will not be in the time that we think it should happen but it will come true.

God’s promise to Rebekah about her children sets the stage for all that he will do in and through the lives and conflicts of Jacob and Esau.

We can look to God for the promise that we will be coming back one day. We can look the promise that he is there for us all the time.

Going back the question that I ask at the start. We cannot rely on other people when the make a promise but you can rely on God when he makes a promise.

Has God made a promise to you?

He has made one promise to us all. That was we would send is son for us to cover our sins. You see if you have never received this promise why are you waiting. Run to God right now. Turn you life around and start living for him.