How Did He Get Here?

Backstory

Good morning, before we get to Hebrews 11:20 this morning I want to consider who we are talking about and for what they are being called faithful.

So, we are going to start not in Hebrews but rather in Genesis. Genesis chapter 27:28-29 — The blessing of Jacob — We are going to jump right into some scripture this morning so bare with me as I flesh this out a little bit:

Genesis 27:28–29 KJV 1900

28 Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, And the fatness of the earth, And plenty of corn and wine: 29 Let people serve thee, And nations bow down to thee: Be lord over thy brethren, And let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: Cursed be every one that curseth thee, And blessed be he that blesseth thee.

That is a good blessing, but I am afraid it isn’t quite that simple. — See, back in verse one of chapter 27 Isaac had set his mind to giving a blessing to his oldest son Esau. That you might remember Esau because Jacob and his brother Esau are probably most famous for the incident where Esau foolishly sold his birthright to his brother Jacob.

But in verse 5 we find Rebekah working against Isaac, follow with me here:

Genesis 27:5–10 KJV 1900

5 And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it. 6 And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, 7 Bring me venison, and make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death. 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee. 9 Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savoury meat for thy father, such as he loveth: 10 And thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death.

So the good blessing that we read in verses 28-29 are the result of deception. — But it might not be what you think, it is Rachel who is being obedient to God here, not her husband Isaac.

We have to go back to Genesis 25:21-23 to understand this

Genesis 25:21–23 KJV 1900

21 And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, And two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; And the one people shall be stronger than the other people; And the elder shall serve the younger.

God's blessing was not that's a promise should be fulfilled through his elder son Esau but rather that it should be fulfilled through the younger, Jacob. “The Elder shall serve the younger” — but that wasn't what Isaac wanted. Isaac wanted Esau to be the one who was blessed, he was trying to push his will over the will of God. Rebekah, Isaac’s wife caught wind of what Isaac was trying to do and she set out to set things right by deceiving Isaac into giving his blessing to the Jacob.

It’s a soap opera. And it's amazing to me that the promise of God being passed down through the patriarchs, meaning through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; get’s a lot of interference by the patriarchs.

I mean look just one generation ahead to Abraham. Abraham’s wife Sarah was unable to concieve and so she got the terrible idea to have one of her servants bed with her husband to bring about he heir of promise. — All she managed to do was create a situation of contempt and ultimately the heir, Isaac, would be conceived through her. — God’s promise was fulfilled in God’s way

Here was have that heir, Isaac, and he decides that he doesn’t like the prophecy that was given about his sons so he tries to force the issue — But again, God’s promise was fulfilled in God’s way.

We aren’t going to get to it, here in Hebrews but Jacob takes the cake. Look with me at Genesis 30:1-3

Genesis 30:1–3 KJV 1900

1 And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. 2 And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? 3 And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.

Really Rachel. Do you not know hat happened with your husbands grandparents? — In verses 22-24 we find out what was going to happen anyway if she would have just waited on the Lord

Genesis 30:22–24 KJV 1900

22 And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb. 23 And she conceived, and bare a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach: 24 And she called his name Joseph; and said, The Lord shall add to me another son.

Context

So I've set all this up and almost half of our time this morning has gone to bring us back to where we have big John every message in Hebrews 11, and that is with the context we find in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1.

Hebrews 11:1 KJV 1900

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Or has the commentator Cockerill has summarized it

Faith is living as if the things hoped for are real.

Isaac?

And so we come to this mornings passage, Hebrews 11:20

Hebrews 11:20 KJV 1900

20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

I’m sorry, by what? All of the deception and all of the treachery and all of the stubbornness and Isaac shows up in the Faith Hall of fame? And he shows up because it's by his face that he blessed Jacob and Esau. You are the blessing that he accidentally gave to the youngest son therefore fulfilling God's will against his own. That Isaac is in this chapter. — Yeah, he is.

And so we continue our serices this morning with a message entitled: How did he get here?

Let’s Pray

Imperfect Servants

Clearly Jacob is an imperfect servant. But then again, aside from Christ who isn’t?

John Newton, who is most famously know for writing the hymn amazing grace was called by a friend to have breakfast. Their custom was to read the Word of God following mealtime, after which Newton would make a few short remarks on the Biblical passage, and then appropriate prayer would be offered. That day, however, there was silence after the words of Scripture “by the grace of God I am what I am” were read.

Finally, after several minutes, Newton spoke, “I am not what I ought to be! How imperfect and deficient I am! I am not what I wish to be, although I abhor that which is evil and would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be, but soon I shall be out of mortality, and with it all sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor yet what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was: a slave to sin and Satan. I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge that by the grace of God I am what I am!” Then, after a pause, he said. “Now let us pray!”

I would advise caution with anyone claiming to be a servant of Christ who claims to be anything other than unworthy of their calling.

In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul calls himself the chief of sinners when he says

1 Timothy 1:15 KJV 1900

15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

In Romans 7:24 he writes

Romans 7:24 (KJV 1900)

24 O wretched man that I am! .....

Set a find a hero of the faith being someone who is very much in perfect as no surprise. What is a surprise, is that it is this act for which Isaac is commended for his faith. — But we see it when we get to Esau’s blessing. Let me read that blessing to you, and you can follow along in Genesis 27:39-40

Genesis 27:39–40 (KJV 1900)

… Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, And of the dew of heaven from above; 40 And by thy sword shalt thou live, And shalt serve thy brother; And it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, That thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.

This is a concession. — At this point Isaac stopped trying to bend God’s will to his own and simply had faith. — Esau’s blessing from his father was nothing more than an affirmation of what God promised to Rebekah “the elder shall serve the younger.”

Isaac realized that he opposed God. And he feared God. — That was a significant portion of what I presenting the last message. That Isaac's father Abraham acted faithfully because he feared God. Here we find Isaac fearing God. Well you might ask how do you know that, well I see at the beginning of verse 33 of Genesis chapter 27 — But let’s pick up in v30

Genesis 27:30–33 (KJV 1900)

30 And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. 31 And he also had made savoury meat, and brought it unto his father, and said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me. 32 And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. 33 And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed.

Isaac trembled very exceedingly. — He knew that he had messed up. And he did the thing that you want to do when you find out that you've messed up. Maybe you've heard the expression: When you find out you are in a hole, stop digging. — instead of continuing to try to fight God, Isaac conceded and gave the poor blessing to his favored son.

And I know that he didn’t do it the right way, but Isaac only acted the way he did, because he believed God. What have we been saying faith is?

Faith is living as if the things hoped for are real.

Isaac was only acting according to his belief that God was going to carry out the promise of Abraham through him, by his sons. — He, just like his father, just wanted it done the way he though it should be done.

Get Out of the Way

Some of us just need to learn how to get out of the way. — And I'm talking about people with faith. — we know what God wants, we know what God expects from us, we know what we are to be doing. — even more we know that God blesses his faithful servants, and we know that we have a reward waiting for us in the life to come, a city that has foundations whose builder and maker is God.

See, we can know all of that and then act exactly like Isaac. We try to mold in shape and distort God's plan to be more convenient for us. — this isn't a new problem, this isn't some novel thing that impacts Christians today this is a problem that we find happening repeatedly in the Old Testament even here with the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I want you to realize all they managed to accomplish was to fill the time between their rebellion and God's blessing with hardship.

The Time Between

So, I want you to consider this question: what are you doing with the time between. I have good news, and that's good news that I hope it's good news for you. If you have repented turned away from your son and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your savior then you can count on spending eternity in a place that God has prepared. — If you haven’t given your life to Christ then nothing I am saying really matters to you yet and I hope you will grab me after the service today and allow me to share with you about the salvation of Christ — But for those who are saved, your destination is secure.

A life with faithfully is the way God has determined for you to best get from here to there. — every time we do things in a way that's different from how God has instructed us all we are doing is making that time before the filament of the blessing more difficult. — we see example after example in scripture but let's be honest we see example after example in the church and we see example after example in our own lives. — how much heartache are you going to go through because of your stubbornness. — I've had enough, haven't you? — so I asked her to join with me this morning and committing to doing things God's way and sparing ourselves lots of pain and suffering along the way.

Let's pray