Blessings Lost
Text: Genesis 27:1-29
By: Ken McKinley
Now before we begin this morning, I want to remind you of chapter 25… it was in chapter 25 where we read about how Jacob stole Esau’s birthright. Remember? Esau was more concerned about the flesh, and fleshly desires than he was about his own birthright. We also read in chapter 25 that God had told Rebekah that Jacob was going to inherit the covenant promises. So we need to keep those things in mind as we read our text this morning, because they will serve as a backdrop to what we’re going to see.
(Read Text)
So we know that Esau was worldly and that he was the kind of guy who only wanted what HE wanted, when he wanted it. But when we read through this… it’s actually Jacob who ends up looking like the real scum-bag of the story. And we’re never told if Isaac was made aware of what God told Rebekah about the older serving the younger… and we don’t know if Isaac knew about Esau selling his birthright to Jacob. But we do know that Isaac loved Esau, and that Rebekah loved Jacob. And I’ve heard all kinds of sermons on how playing favorites with your kids can lead to trouble… but I’ve never heard a sermon on this text that discussed how Isaac didn’t even know what his kids were doing, and so if we’re going to say that playing favorites can lead to trouble… then we also need to say that fathers who aren’t a part of their kids’ lives can also lead to trouble. And I think both of those things are true, and we see them in our text.
So in verses 1 – 4, we see that Isaac plans on passing the covenant blessings on to Esau. And that’s simply the custom of the day. The oldest son got the majority of the inheritance. Now again; we are never told that Rebekah told Isaac about what the Lord said, so if Isaac was told, then we could assume that he was directly rebelling against God, but we can’t assume that because there’s no record of Rebekah telling him… instead, most likely, Isaac is just following – like I said, the customs of his day. And so Isaac calls Esau and tells him to go hunt some game and make him some food, and then he’ll bless him. And like I said a while ago; Jacob ends up looking like the dirt bag here, and Esau ends up looking pretty good. But let’s remember two things about Esau. 1st – we’ve already been told that he despised his birthright… that’s why he sold it. He would rather seek instant, worldly gratification. He cared more about satisfying his fleshly desires than he cared about the covenant. 2nd – He’s breaking his oath that he had made to Jacob back in Genesis 25:33… You can turn there and look at it if you want. He swore an oath to Jacob that Jacob would be the one to get the birthright. So in all actuality; it’s Esau who’s trying to steal the birthright. Jacob didn’t steal it… Esau sold it to him for a bowl of stew… now Esau’s trying to steal it back.
There’s something else I want you to see here in these first verses, that again shows us that Isaac was clueless about the way his son Esau was. Because he’s about to confer the covenant blessings upon a son who shows no spiritual interest in the meaning or significance of the covenant. Most likely; Esau wanted this because of the material things he would gain. In other words; the one who got the blessing, got the majority of Isaac’s possessions. Esau didn’t care at all about the covenant with God… he was worldly and driven by his fleshly nature.
That brings us to verses 5 – 17.
Rebekah hears what’s about to happen… and remember, she’s the one who heard God say, “The older will serve the younger.” And she knows that Isaac loves Esau… but she loves Jacob and so she hatches this plan for Jacob to be the one who gets the blessing. And so we have kind of a conundrum here. She knows that it’s supposed to be Jacob who gets the blessing, but Isaac is about to give it to Esau. Now she has options here… she could’ve gone to the Lord in prayer and asked Him to somehow intervene. She could’ve approached Isaac and told him exactly what the Lord had told her about Jacob being the one. But she doesn’t do either of those things. Instead she decides that she’s going to help God out, by doing things her way. Now the last time we saw something like that take place, we ended up with the Hagar and Ishmael mess. And Rebekah’s little plan… even though it works, ends up having some serious consequences. Esau is going to be so angry with his brother that he’s going to want to kill him. And it’s going to result in Jacob having to run away from his family, and go into hiding.
And so Rebekah hatches this devious plan to trick her husband. And it’s fairly elaborate in the details. She gets the hair from the goats and sticks it on Jacob… she puts Esau’s clothes on Jacob, she cooks up some savory goat, like Esau cooked, and then sends him in to Esau’s tent.
In verses 18 – 25 we see Jacob’s sin.
Jacob deceives his own father. Who for all we know, might have been on his deathbed. He invokes the name of God, he lies to him over and over again. I count at least three lies just in this conversation between Isaac and Jacob, and then; he even goes so far as to seal the deal with a kiss. And I touched on it a while ago, but there’s a consequence for these sins. Jacob is going to have to leave the Promised Land in fear of his life, and remain gone for about 20 years. He’s going to have to live in relative poverty for those same 20 years, and be repeatedly deceived by his uncle Laban. He’s going to seriously damage the relationship he has with his immediate family.
There are always consequences for our sins! God is not mocked!
And the point is… that the ends don’t justify the means. Now there are a lot of people who say, “yeah, but it all worked out in the end, so why not?” And it’s true, God does work it out in the end, but had not Jacob and Rebekah done this, then God still would’ve worked it out in the end, and there most likely would’ve been a lot less strife and hardship along the way.
And so what we’re seeing here in this passage is God’s sovereignty on display, but also man’s responsibility. Theologians call this “compatibilism.” And what compatibilism is – is that everything God decrees will come to pass, and that man is incapable of thwarting the decrees of God. While at the same time, man bears total responsibility for the choices he makes or doesn’t make. And that’s an entire sermon series in and of itself, so we’ll have to leave it at that for now, and go on with our text.
Verses 26 – 29 (Read). And so despite all of Rebekah’s and Jacobs scheming and sinning; and despite Isaac’s desire to pass the blessing on to Esau, God’s sovereignty triumphs. And that’s what we need to learn from this. A lesson on God’s grace and God’s sovereignty. What we’re seeing here is that God’s will is fulfilled in spite of man’s will. You know… often times we think that God’s will can’t come to pass unless we somehow help Him out. But our text is showing us something entirely different. It’s showing us that our God is sovereign. He is all powerful, and all knowing, and that He will bring about what He has promised to do.
Turn with me really quickly to John 1:6 – 13 (read). He say’s here that those who received Christ, God has given the right to become children of God. And those same people who receive Him, are those who believe in His Name. And look at verse 13… they born not of blood (in other words, they didn’t get it because of their family lineage); not of the will of the flesh (in other words, this new birth didn’t come about through any of our old natures desires… remember there were none who sought after God), it didn’t come about through the will of man (and that’s because the will was in bondage to the flesh, sold under sin), but it came about BY GOD! So how were they born? By the will of God! So if you are a Christian, how do you know you are secure in Christ? Because God wills it. No scheme of man, or desire of man, can overturn the will of God. And our text in Genesis is showing us that. That God’s will reigns supreme. Isaac couldn’t change it, or overturn it by his will, and Rebekah and Jacob couldn’t mess it up by their sinning.
We also see God’s grace here. Because there is no way that Jacob deserved the covenant blessing. Absolutely no way! But why did Jacob get it? He was God’s choice. God willed it that way! That is election. And there’s a lot of people who don’t like that. But let me explain this if I can. If you believe that God is God, meaning that He is all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent, and that He is good and just and righteous in all He does and decrees, and you believe that, and you know it, and you trust in that… then you don’t have a problem with election and God’s sovereignty. It’s when you have a doubt about God’s goodness, or His justness that’s when you start disliking the doctrine of election. It’s not by our works, or anything we do or ever will do… it’s all by God’s grace and love.
So Jacob gets the blessing.
And I’ll close with this. If you look at verses 28 and 29 and then go down and look at verses 39 and 40, you’ll see a big difference between the blessing that Jacob gets and the one Esau gets. The biggest difference is that in Esau’s blessing, God is never mentioned. God makes all the difference.
It’s not that Jacob was righteous, or better, or more deserving… it’s that for some reason, God willed that Jacob be the one to be brought into the covenant relationship with Him. In Romans, God said it this way, “Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated.” So God’s love is the difference maker in these two brothers. God set His love on Jacob, and that love is what eventually transforms him into a man of God.
So I guess we could say it was the blessing of Gods sovereign love that made the difference between Jacob and Esau. And it’s the blessing of God’s love on you and me that makes us acceptable in His sight, and that saves us from His wrath and judgment.
Ephesians 2:4 says, “But God, Who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”
1st John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be THE propitiation for our sins.” And a little further on in 1st John, it says, “We love Him, because He first loved us.”
So as we go to the Lord in prayer, I hope and pray that you have experienced the love of God in your lives, and if not, that you will this day.
LET’S PRAY
