The Struggle for Blessing

Morning, church. My privilege to lead us in a time of reflection on God's word. We're gonna read a passage together and then hear a brief explanation of it. If you have a Bible handy, the reading this morning is gonna come to us from the book of Genesis, Old Testament, Old Testament narrative, a story that I think perhaps many of us would be familiar with, but nevertheless, one that we do well to have another look at this morning. Genesis chapter 27.

I'm reading from the English Standard Version. Genesis 27 from verse one. When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau, his older son, and said to him, my son. And he answered, here I am. He said, behold, I'm old.

I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, and prepare for me delicious food such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die. Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau. Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord before I die.

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat so that he may bless you before he dies. But Jacob said to Rebekah, his mother, behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I'm a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.

His mother said to him, let your curse be on me, my son. Only obey my voice and go bring them to me. So he went, and he took them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared delicious foods such as his father loved. Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau, her oldest son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob, her younger son. And the skins of the young goats she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.

And she put delicious food and the bread which she had prepared into the hand of her son Jacob. So he went in to his father and said, my father. And he said, here I am. Who are you, my son? Jacob said to his father, I'm Esau, your firstborn, and I've done as you told me.

Now sit up and eat of my game that your soul may bless me. But Isaac said to his son, how is it that you found it so quickly, my son? He answered, because the Lord your God granted me success. Then Isaac said to Jacob, please come near that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not. So Jacob went near to his father, who felt him and said, the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

And he did not recognise him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. And so he blessed him. He said, are you really my son Esau? He answered, I am. Then he said, bring it near to me that I may eat of my son's game and bless you.

So he brought it near to him and he ate, and he brought him wine and he drank. And then his father Isaac said to him, come near and kiss me, my son. So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said, see, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine.

Let people serve you and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you. So far, the reading from God's word. Well, this morning, and then for maybe a couple of weeks after that, when I'm invited back to preach, I hope to bring some reflections on the life of this man, Jacob.

And far from being a historical figure, someone that we may relegate to the realm of insignificance and ancient history, we're going to find that he's quite a contemporary individual really. He's easy for modern people to relate to. In fact, I'd suggest that he's perhaps easier to relate to than say Abraham, or Isaac, or even David. It seems to me Jacob has more struggles, more failures, more doubts than anybody. When you think about it, he's perhaps the most unheroic figure in the whole of the Bible, if you want to call him that.

And if you put his story in the context of the book of Genesis, we've got to remember what Genesis is all about. The first part of Genesis, the first 11 chapters, tell us how the human race has been spiralling down into even greater degrees of violence, degradation, and evil. And then, in chapter 12, God comes to just one man. He visits Abraham, and he says to Abraham, I'm going to save the world through you. All peoples on earth will be blessed because of you.

Basically, God says, I want to teach your family my ways, and I'll make your family into a new humanity, a new society of human beings who will walk in my ways. A community, a kingdom no less, of peace and justice. But in every generation, from that time onward, God says there's going to be a seed, a messianic seed, a Christ-like figure. Because someday, out of your people, out of your family, will come just one person, one figure, one of your descendants who will be the Messiah, and he will end sin and death once and for all time in the whole world. And of course, God went on to seal that with a covenant with Abraham.

He bound himself to his word, and Abraham was to respond in gratitude and obedience. And therefore, in every generation since, there's been a covenant people from whom there was to be just one child of the promise, one who will bear the messianic seed. One child who was to be the leader of the clan, the head of the family, who would teach the family to walk in God's ways, and then pass the faith on to the next generation, the next seed, the next bearer of the messianic seed until this seed, the ultimate prophet, priest, and king arrives. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say, and to your seeds, meaning many people, but and to your seed, meaning one person who is Christ.

Now, Abraham had two sons, Ishmael born of Hagar, and Isaac born of Sarah. And it was Isaac who was the son of the promise, the bearer of the messianic seed. Isaac goes on to marry Rebekah. She has twin boys, Esau and Jacob. The first one to come out into the world is Esau, the older.

The second one out is the younger, Jacob. Now, who's the bearer of the seed? Who is the son of the promise? To whom will the blessings go?

Now, the passage which is actually part of a longer narrative starting midway through chapter 25 and goes all the way to the beginning of chapter 29 gets us to the answer. Right here, at the end of Isaac's life, Isaac's very old, he's going to die. He's almost completely blind. He calls Esau to come to him. He says, Esau, my son, my firstborn, go hunt for me wild animal, cook it up for me in a meal, bring it to me just as I like, and I'll give you the blessing before I die.

Rebekah's listening in. She overhears what's going on. And Rebekah is furious that Isaac has chosen Esau rather than her favourite son, Jacob. So she goes to her son Jacob with a plan. I'm going to dress you up as Esau.

I'm going to put his clothes on you so you smell like Esau. We're going to put goat skins on your hands and on your neck, so you will feel like Esau. You'll be hairy just like your brother. And then, lastly, we're to prepare that meal just the way Esau cooks it, and then slip it into your father's tent, and you, my son, will get the blessing. Now, Jacob's not naive.

He realises the potential consequences. He's scared. What if my father finds out? What if instead of blessing me, he actually curses me? And Rebekah shows a very chilling, very cold side to her personality when she says, my son, let the curse fall on me so that you can have the blessing.

Now, that's the introduction here. That's what's going on. I must tell you that our concept of blessing, our English word blessing, is so lame, so shallow that we really can't understand the narrative at all, unless we come to grips with what we are talking about when we talk about this word blessing. You may have heard it before, you may have read this before, but until you get a richer understanding, you can't understand the text because it's all about blessing. In fact, Jacob's life as we shall see is all about a struggle for blessing.

It's the reason we've called the series A Struggle for Blessing, and I'm indebted to a great book called The Blessing. I've used it for years by Gary Smalley and John Trent. In preaching this morning, I want us to know about the blessing, the significance of it. One, this is going to show us something of the power of blessing. Two, it'll show us how we all have this deep need for blessing.

And three, how we usually try to get it and it doesn't work, and so four, how to find the blessing. Now, at this time of the year, we can be very thankful that many of our kids have finally got the chance to go back to school. I have a nephew doing his year 12 studies this year. I know he at least is grateful to be going back into the classroom. There's a lot hanging on this year about how it will go for him.

And how he performs this year will play a big role in determining what will happen in his future. But hard times for his parents. What do parents go through during lockdown? How are they supposed to make sense of what's happening in a young person's life? How can they be most useful?

Parents try, as they do, to create a stable home environment, they value their kids, they give every reason for them to proceed with confidence in life. When they do that, they might say they're actually blessing their children. Children are getting their blessing. I knew an elderly lady once, a good friend of my mother, who every time she saw me would say, Bless you, darling. I had no particular relationship with this lady, I didn't really know her that well.

But I knew every time without fail, as soon as she saw me, she would say, bless you, darling. And I wasn't really sure what she meant by that. Maybe I should have asked her and quizzed her on it. But to me at least, it was a kind of a throwaway line. Or did she mean something more?

Something meaningful? What I want us to do this morning is to confront ourselves with what we understand with this use of the word bless or blessing. And I certainly came to realise that I didn't understand it very much at all. Certainly not the way Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob would have understood the word. Look at the significance of blessing in this passage.

First of all, Rebekah and Jacob thought they could actually steal the blessing. Of course, they knew that as soon as Jacob leaves his dad's tent, his twin brother Esau is going to show up. And only then would father Isaac realise what he'd just done. It amazes me that Jacob and Rebekah thought they could steal the blessing. It also amazes me that Isaac and Esau thought the same way.

They understood that Jacob had stolen it. You can see that at the end of the passage, they thought it had been stolen. That's the reason they're so upset. But then why doesn't father Isaac just call Jacob back in and say, I take it back. I didn't know it was you.

You tricked me. You fraud. You crook. All of my good wishes, my prayers for you, all the wonderful things I said about your future, the compliments that I gave you, I take them all back. I'm sorry, but I don't mean any of them.

And that would be the end of the story. But I came to realise that it's clear they don't feel like it can be taken back. Why? What is blessing? What's going on here?

Well, over time, under the providence of God, things worked out exactly the way Isaac had spoken. Jacob was indeed blessed. The blessing once given to him could not be taken from him. Why? The well-known commentator and Hebrew scholar Gerhard Elders helped me here, and he says that blessing in the Bible is like a will, a last testament.

Down in verse 29, when Isaac gives the blessing, he says, you'll be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. That's like a will, he says. You can do that, he says. Isaac says, I give you the legal rights to be head of the clan. You are, in essence, the firstborn.

What about the other things Isaac says? Let's back up a bit in verse 28. May God give you heaven's dew and earth's richness, an abundance of grain and new wine. And he could be thinking, it's just a kind of prayer like, oh, I hope you're going to be prosperous and successful in life. But if you go to verse 37, when Esau cries out, bless me, me too, my father.

Without that blessing, Esau feels devastated, destitute. And you know what Isaac says in reply? How can I do that? I've already given Jacob wine and grain. I've already given him a successful life.

What's going on here? If your first response is, well, these are primitive people. We believe this is some kind of magic spell. Well, no, that won't cut it. That won't do.

What's going on? Just quoting from Elders again, he says, the narrative presumes that symbolic words and actions have genuine and abiding power, that the spoken words, and especially of a parent to a child, do shape our human life. Words here are not a matter of indifference which may be attended to or not as is convenient. Let me put it this way. If I could quote the old nursery rhyme along Biblical lines, it would go like this: sticks and stones can only break my bones, but words can make or break my very soul. Words have meaning. Words have power.

And this is something I think we all need to remind ourselves, and especially when speaking to our own children or younger people. You know that words once spoken by an authority figure in your life become part of you. They seem to resonate right throughout your life, and they have the potential to shape who you are even over a lifetime, either for good or evil. The ancient people knew this too. They believed the things that were spoken about them or over them had lasting validity.

Both Isaac and Jacob, and Esau for that matter, had the expectation and the very real anticipation that the spoken blessing was reality, that things would happen just the way it was said to them. Father Isaac realises that the words and gestures he offers Jacob have a power of their own, because it distressed him, grieved him, when he realised he was speaking to the wrong son. He was affirming Jacob, and not Esau, as he had intended. He made Jacob somebody, giving him the blessing of the firstborn. Now, Jacob, as we know, is going to struggle with that.

He'll struggle for blessing for the rest of his life. We'll talk more about that next time. We're going to see that when we get to the climax of his life, which is that famous strange dream in the dark when he wrestles with an angel of the Lord. And what does he say there? To this mysterious figure, who he begins to realise is not just a human being, he will say, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

Such is the power of blessing. Without it, he's left destitute, devastated, destroyed. But we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves this morning. We need to backtrack just a tad. Jacob comes to his dad, desperate for the blessing, and here's the reason why.

It's in the beginning of the text. When father Isaac hears Jacob come, he says, who is it? And he's a little surprised. He doesn't think Esau should be back quite that soon. After all, he has to go out and hunt for his food, then cook it up just the way his father likes it.

And so Isaac begins to query who is in his company. Who are you? And Jacob answers when he says, I'm Esau, your firstborn. Later, down in verse 32, Isaac asks the real Esau the same question. Who are you?

Look carefully. And all the commentaries point this out. Esau replies, I am your son, your firstborn Esau. In other words, when you asked Jacob, who are you? He said, I'm Esau, your firstborn.

When he asked Esau, the word order changed just a little, but it's significant. I am your firstborn Esau. Elders says the last word in the sentence is the word that our attention is drawn to. It's in the emphatic position, the position that it holds in the sentence, and what Jacob is saying here is he's getting past the lie quickly.

He comes to what he really wants to say, and that is, I am your firstborn. In other words, get over the fact of who I really am, because I want to be your firstborn. And in that patriarchal society, in a hierarchical structure, the oldest son, not daughters, the oldest son, not any other son, was the one who got the lion's share of the wealth of the inheritance. And as a result, the father in that patriarchal society looked at his firstborn and doted on his firstborn. Because you see the future of his name and the future of his family was wrapped up in that firstborn.

And therefore, all other sons and daughters were, by comparison, virtually ignored by him. We know this because of what we're told way back in Genesis 25, where it says, the boys grew up and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was a quiet man, staying among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. We might imagine then that Esau was this well-built guy, skilled with weapons. Isaac loved that.

Maybe Isaac wanted to be like that himself. When he saw Esau, he saw himself. He was the firstborn. And Jacob, well, Jacob wasn't quite the man's man, so to speak. He was probably smaller.

He stayed in the tents with his mum. And so over the years, Isaac doted on Esau and gave Esau the blessing of the firstborn. Whether he realised it or not, it probably happened in lots of informal ways, ways that made Jacob feel neglected, and Rebekah jealous for her son. Can you see why Jacob is deceiving his father here? Why Jacob is taking this risk?

Why Jacob is doing this very risky, very cold, calculating thing. He's jealous. He's had enough. He wants to take control of his own future, and in so doing, he knows the value of blessing. Now, I wanna suggest that in so many ways, to one degree or another, we're all doing that.

Ask yourself the question this morning, how are you getting blessed in your life? From others, from the world. How are you doing it? How are you getting the things that you really need? And I'll tell you how we do it. By not letting people see who we really are.

We're not letting people see the flaws, the fears, the weaknesses. And boy, is that unsatisfying. Let me try to illustrate. You might have a job you really hate. It's not the job you really want.

It's not a job that fits your gifting or your passion. It's not really where you're at at all. You took it for the wrong reasons. Maybe you took it for status, for money. You took it because the world would bless you. So you dressed up like something else.

Or you might be at a time in your life when a relationship with someone from the opposite sex is so important. So when you see someone who is smart, who's rich, or beautiful, you say, well, if that person loved me, if that person were to say, you're my one and only, wow, then I would be blessed if I just had that. So what are we doing? Well, sometimes we literally dress up to be someone that we're not really. We all do it.

We do it to get the attention we think we deserve. We can do it at church as well. We come to church. We go to small group. We dress up like really good Christians.

This is more than just looking good for an hour or so a week in front of a camera. These days, we've been more on camera than we ever have been before. And before I saw myself on Zoom, I thought I had fewer wrinkles than I really do. But I'm talking about getting dressed up on the inside. We don't want people to think we have too many problems.

We don't want anyone to think that we're a basket case or anything like that. So what do we do? We dress up. We all do it. Because we want the blessing of other people.

We wanna hear them say, oh, you're great. You're special. And that means we can't be ourselves, and at the end of the day, it doesn't work. We fail. And when we do, it hurts, it hurts others, and it hurts us.

So one of the saddest places in this story is where Isaac says to Jacob, come here, my son, and kiss me. It's the climax. And one of the commentators says, this is a sly, desperate way the ageing, blind Isaac has of giving one more test. Because if he is kissed, he'll get a chance to smell him. And so Jacob comes and kisses him.

And see what he says in verse 27. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. And you know then that he really believes this is Esau. The well-built macho guy, Esau, the rugged outdoor type. If you're making commercials for the new model Ford Ranger, you wouldn't want someone like me driving it.

This guy, the guy you want driving it, out in the country and through the bush, has got to be someone like Esau. The rougher the country, the better he performs. At that moment, riding high, Jacob, not Esau, got the look from his father, from his father's face that he'd always longed to see. A radiant, loving, joyful look, and to hear the words that he'd always wanted to hear from his father. Do you think it helped?

Do you think it changed him? Well, the blessing sat in Jacob's life without any consequence for many, many years. It didn't change him because he knew it wasn't him. It wasn't him that his father was blessing. He might have been incredibly happy to get that close, to finally get your father to love you, but it's not you.

You put on the wrong clothes, and you're not really blessed at all. Now, what's the moral of the story? What are we going to take home this morning? In future messages, we're going to come across this question again and again. We're going to have a look at the whole sweep of Jacob's life, and we'll see the ongoing nature of this struggle he has for blessing.

But here, we have a very bleak story. It's a warning really because it ends with a family falling apart. The fact of the matter is Esau becomes so bitter that when he sees what Jacob has done, he makes a vow and says he's going to kill his brother the moment his father dies. Rebekah has to send Jacob away for his life, away to his family relatives. And Rebekah loses the only one left in the family that she has a relationship with.

Jacob is the one she loves the most. She sends him away and potentially never sees him alive again. Jacob himself is supposed to be the firstborn of the clan, but he goes away without a cent, without a family. When will he ever be able to come back? For as long as Esau is alive, he won't be able to come back at all.

There's no doubt there are lots of lessons here for families. In fact, there are many good character studies on the great personalities of men and women throughout Genesis, indeed, the Old Testament. I think the lessons here are real for us and for parents today. But clearly, if we leave it at that level, at the level of saying, well, let's be better parents, let's affirm our children, let's be sure we bless all our children and not play favourites, then we're stopping way short of what this text tells us about salvation, about the significance of blessing, and God's unfolding plan of redemption. As we said at the beginning, Jacob is a very relevant, very modern figure for us to be looking at.

He teaches us that our need for blessing is insatiable, without limit. We all have this ferocious appetite inside of us to be blessed. The question is, where are you going to get it today? Where are you looking for your ultimate sense of blessing? What's the problem?

Ours is a spiritual problem of eternal significance. And the solution is hinted at by what Isaac says at the very end. You realise only when you listen to it and you hear him change the tone of his voice. Isaac trembled violently and said, who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me? And he's starting to realise that it was Jacob.

I ate it just before you came and blessed him. Now look at this, and indeed, he will be blessed. And indeed, he will be blessed. Another translation, behold, he will be blessed. This is a complete turnaround for Isaac.

And he's beginning to realise that God will work for the crooks and for the deceivers in the world. Yes, even this deceptive son of his. And he begins to realise what God is actually doing. That the blessing depends not on him, but on God. The blessing that God gives is far greater than any earthly parent could ever offer.

What's happening here is God's grace, even against what Isaac thinks should be happening. God brings blessing into the lives of the most weak, to those who most don't deserve it at all, and God comes in and blesses the most screwed-up member of the family. Why? Well, because the real moral of the story is this: God brings His grace into the lives of people who don't deserve it, who continually resist it, who don't even appreciate it after they have been saved over and over again. That's the first thing Isaac gets a grip on.

And the first thing you and I have to get a grip on if we're going to deal with our problem of blessing is that when God works, He works absolutely according to His sovereign grace. But something else Isaac is saying here is, indeed, he will be blessed. He's not only saying God is going to do this, but he's also saying, I'm going to accept it. He's saying, I'm not gonna call Jacob back into my tent. I'm not going to resist it.

You might remember it had been revealed to him and Rebekah even before the boys were born, that the older will serve the younger. The younger will have the rights of the firstborn. And finally, he can accept that. And on that issue, Isaac has been fighting God all along. Isaac wants to go the world's way, which is to say the younger will serve the older.

He wants to go on his own feelings, the strong feelings he has for Esau, the man's man, not the younger one. And now he realises he's been resisting God's whole approach of grace. Indeed, he surrenders his resistance. How can you and I stop resisting God's grace working in our lives?

How can you and I keep getting this blessing from God? You know, Jacob clearly was wrong when he said to his father, I am the firstborn. I lied. What are you telling your Father in heaven today? I wonder what kind of clothes you're wearing before Him.

According to Galatians, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. He, Jesus, redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to us, the Gentiles, through Christ Jesus. Think about this. Jesus Christ got dressed up like you and me, and he got the curse we deserved. He didn't lie to God, His Father in heaven, when He took on your clothes and my clothes.

Today, therefore, there's no dress-ups before God. He knows us through and through. He knows the secrets of our hearts. And as to Him, all men will have to give an account on the day of judgement. But the way of blessing is open to us.

And it's not about putting on your best clothes or getting dressed up ourselves before God. Get that notion out of your head this morning. You can't get dressed up before God. The way of the gospel is knowing Jesus Christ got dressed up as Tony van Drumelin, as Moray, as Rob, Regina, and Lisa too. And now he gives his clothes, His clothes of righteousness, and puts them on you and me, and all those who will believe.

He does it for us. God accepts me just as if I had done everything Jesus Christ had done. It's like we swapped positions before Him. There was this great exchange. Because Jesus Christ has been treated as if He had done everything that I had done.

And so you and I get the blessing of the firstborn, the son of God of God. Rightfully, Jesus is the firstborn of His Father in heaven. But for a time, He gave that up on the cross, so you and I could participate in the blessing that is rightfully His. He makes us feel loved in the position of the firstborn, one of His. And He says to you and me, there's no one else like you.

You're my child because Jesus Christ took on your identity, all your sins, and bore them on the cross so that you could become my firstborn. And so, even as the Father has loved you, He has loved me. Not sort of loved you, not kind of loved you, but even as He has loved His own son, Jesus Christ. When you have that blessing, the blessing of the firstborn son of God, when you see Him losing the blessing so that you could have it, and when you see Him dressing up like you, so that you could be dressed up like Him, He's the only one who really did what Rebekah said she would do. Remember what Rebekah said back in the tent, talking to Jacob?

She said, my son, may the curse be upon me, so that you can get the blessing. She didn't even know what she was saying. But Jesus graciously does that. He says, I'm gonna take the curse on me. He got the curse I deserved.

He got dressed in our sins. He went to His Father. He died, paid the price so that we can become the church of the firstborn of God. We are all loved so very, very much. Amen.

Let's pray. Gracious Lord, You've shown us in so many ways this morning of the significance of the blessing of the firstborn that comes from You. Lord, we don't wanna be like Jacob who struggled with this, and none of us wanna play dress-up games before You and before each other. So help us to admit our faults, so we can accept criticism, so we can show who we are because we have that blessing that comes from You in and through Your grace because of the wonderful work of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, bless us each one.

Humbly we pray. Help us to know with renewed enthusiasm the wonder of Your great love and how much You loved Your Son, the firstborn of all creation, so we could be Your firstborn. Make us a people who bless, who know how to touch the lives of others with Your love. Give us the power of Your blessing so that it makes a difference to those who we engage with even throughout this coming week. Humble us in the knowledge that Your grace outstrips our weak and feeble efforts and accomplishes for You those eternal purposes that are set out for us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we thank You and praise You for Him. In Jesus' name. Amen.