Come on up, Van Carlsen this morning is going to talk about the vision of ministry. I hope that many of you will be a part of that. I'm going to ask you to open your Bible with me now to Genesis chapter 25. I'm going to begin reading in the 19th verse of the 25th chapter of Genesis. Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son.
Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the airman of Pate and Aram, the sister of Laban the airman, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren. And the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her. And she said, If it is so, why then am I this way? So she went to inquire of the Lord.
And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be separated from your body. And one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. Now the first came forth red all over like a hairy garment, and they named him Esau. And afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau's heel. So his name was called Jacob.
And Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them. When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field. But Jacob was a peaceful man living in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for game. But Rebekah loved Jacob. And when Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished. And Esau said to Jacob, Let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, that red stuff there. For I am famished. Therefore his name was called Edom.
But Jacob said, First, sell me your birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am about to die, so what use then is the birthright to me? And Jacob said, First, swear to me. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew. And he ate and drank and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. Couple of weeks ago my wife and I received a note from some friends of ours who are new parents.
They are parents who are not particularly young and they have long anticipated the arrival of their child. The note on the back of the picture of this little baby was, Pray for us as we adjust to new sleep patterns. When I read that I could identify with it and so can many of you. The birth of a child changes life forever. And that's not all bad. The birth of a child brings great joy to a family. And when it's twins, it doubles the joy, not to mention the diapers and the stress level and so on.
Isaac and Rebekah had been married for 20 years before they had any children. Like Abraham and Sarah, they apparently struggled with infertility. But Isaac prayed to the Lord that God would give them children and the Lord answered. With the birth of these boys comes another fork in the family tree of Abraham. We have seen the development already of several branches in his descendants. This is in fulfillment of God's promise to him to make him the father of many nations.
And truly Abraham is that. But only one in each generation can be the bearer of the seed to advance the promise of a redeemer for the race of Adam. And God makes the choice as to which one will carry forth that promised seed. As we look at the text today, I want to approach it from two perspectives. I'm going to take two slices at it, one a horizontal slice and the other a vertical slice. In the horizontal slice, we're going to see it from the perspective of a family in conflict.
Isaac and Rebekah were very much in love, but that did not preclude conflict in their relationship or in their parenting as we see in our text today. Some people mistakenly think that the home lives of Bible characters were perfect, that they really had no problems like we have. But people who think that have not read the Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the Bible never glosses over the reality that the people of old like we today live in a fallen world.
And that fallenness affects us. It affects us in our marriages and it affects us in our families. It is interesting that as you read the book of Genesis, one of the themes that rises to the surface is the theme of family conflict. Have you ever thought about that? In the first place, there was Adam and Eve after the fall in chapter 3.
God was questioning them and Adam's response was, well, the woman whom you gave me, she, and you can just see Eve with her hands on her hips saying, well, conflict. And then the conflict between Cain and Abel in chapter 4. The conflict in Noah's family in the ninth chapter. Then the conflict between Abraham and Lot in chapter 13. The conflict between Ishmael and Isaac in chapter 21. The conflict here in this chapter between Esau and Jacob, and it goes on by the way.
The conflict between Jacob and Laban, his brother-in-law, chapters 29 to 31. And then the conflict between Joseph and his brothers, chapters 37 through 50. So what I'm pointing out to you is the Bible has a lot to say in this first book about family conflict. Now why is that? Perhaps God is illustrating for us the fulfillment of the curse in chapter 3 verse 15 where God speaks to Satan and he says, I will put enmity between your seed and the seed of the woman.
Now we understand that to mean enmity between the spiritual descendants of Satan and the spiritual descendants of God. That is between those who are unredeemed and those who are redeemed. But it points to the fact that there is enmity in human relationships. In the New Testament, James tells us the conflicts arise because of the hedonism or the evil lusts in our hearts. That is, conflicts sometimes come because of self-centeredness, which is a part of our fallen condition.
Conflict is the result of the fallen world in which we live and the fallen people which we are. Even God's saints still battle the effects of indwelling sin. I like that bumper sticker that was popular several years ago that said, Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. We aren't perfect. In our marriages, in our homes are not perfect. We experience conflict and very often that conflict is because of our fallenness.
In the text today, we see at least three expressions of conflict in the home of Isaac. In the first place, there is a prenatal conflict, a strife that takes place within the womb between Jacob and Esau. We see fetal movement here that was apparently abnormal as these two babies struggled with each other, wrestled with each other within the womb of their mother. The mother did not understand what this was about. She says, why is this taking place? She went before the Lord for an answer.
God in some way, we don't know exactly what the means was, answered her and gave her the response of verse 23. There is prenatal strife. Secondly, we see conflict in parental favoritism because our text says that Isaac loved Esau and Rebecca loved Jacob. Let me tell you something, that's conflict big time. When you have two parents who choose sides over their two children and then we see the conflict of the personal disposition of the boys, they were so different.
They were different in physical appearance. They were different in their natural interests. They were different in their attitudes and their outlook. They were different in character. Jacob was scheming. Esau was impulsive. Jacob thought long term. He looked at issues that way. But Esau was just the opposite. He saw everything short term. What matters is what I've got in my hand today. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. That probably originated with Esau. Jacob was refined.
He enjoyed living in the tents. Like me, Jacob felt that a good camping trip was at the Holiday Inn. Esau, on the other hand, was an earthy man. He loved camping. He loved hunting and fishing. He would not be in church today either, just like some people. He would be out fishing somewhere in Minnesota's lakes. He was an outdoorsman. He was a man's man. He would fit in well in the sports bar culture of America.
That was Esau. Esau was a man of the world who despised the eternal and lived for the temporal. On the other hand, Jacob had respect for the eternal and what the birthright stood for. He had respect for God's blessing in his family. These boys are so different. That builds conflict into the family. A family conflict can come from a lot of sources. The important thing about it is to learn to manage it. That is, to use it for good.
Conflict in your home needs to be a time when you learn, for example, how to communicate better with those that you are in conflict with. Conflict in your home gives opportunities to learn the skill of reconciliation, of resolving conflicts on a righteous basis. You see, conflicts in our homes can destroy us or they can build us, depending upon what we do with them. They are inevitable.
Some few folks, I hope, have the idea that the ideal is never having conflict and that ideal should be experienced in the Christian home. But the fact is that even in the finest Christian homes, there is conflict from time to time. Hopefully it doesn't dominate the relationships of the home. If that's the case, then there may need to be intervention. But understand that conflict is normal. It is going to happen. But use it for good. Let conflict build you up in your character, not tear you down.
And by the way, your children need to see you, mom and dad, in conflict and how you resolve that. I don't mean screaming at one another in their presence or throwing lamps and pictures and books. That's not the conflict I'm talking about. That's conflict that's out of control and wrong. But they need to know that mom and dad, from time to time, see things differently and how to resolve that because that shows them that conflict can be resolved peaceably.
You see, and that's one way, at least, that they learn by your mentoring them through conflicts. Well, that's the approach, the horizontal approach we want to take at this text this morning. It's the most family that is in conflict. Unfortunately, it did not get managed very well in this home. And we're going to see the result of that in the lives of the people in our studies to come.
Now there's another way I want to slice this text this morning, and that is a vertical slice right down the middle from top to bottom as we look at not the family conflict but the divine choice that is exposed in this chapter, in this text. There's another theme in Genesis that the reader will notice, and that is the theme of God often choosing the younger and the weaker rather than the firstborn as he fulfills his promise to bless the nations of the world.
That is, in the book of Genesis, very often we see God overlooking the firstborn who had the natural rights of being firstborn and choosing another child in the family as the one through whom he would work to bring about redemption and the blessing of the nations of the world. For example, we see this with regard to Cain and Abel. Cain's offering was rejected. He was the firstborn, but Abel's was accepted.
Then again, the line of Seth, the younger of the children of Adam and Eve, was chosen to bear the promised line of redemption. And we see Ishmael, the son, the firstborn son of Abraham sent away, and Isaac, the child of promise, the younger one selected. We see in chapter 29, or we'll see, Rachel chosen over Leah who was her older sister. Later we will note that Judah was chosen to bear the line of redemption and not the oldest one in the family of Jacob.
And then Joseph was selected over his brothers. And so there is this theme in the book of Genesis. Now why is that? Why is it that we see God very often choosing the weaker over the more advantaged? It is to reiterate, I say it is to reiterate, his blessing was not given based upon natural rights or abilities. But his blessing is given solely on the basis of grace.
God writes right into the narrative of Genesis that his blessing is a gift of grace that is apart from human position and human works. Our friend Dr. John Sailhammer writes in the Expositors Bible Commentary, quote, God's blessing is extended to those who have no other claim on it. They all received what they did not deserve, close quote. See there's the point. God wants us to see that his blessing is given by grace, not by works. Now that's hard for us to grasp folks.
And I'll tell you why, it's because of our mothers and fathers. Because we mothers and fathers train up our children with statements like, you be a good boy and you can go with me. Since you're a good little girl, I'll let you do it this time. That's normal. That's part of child rearing. I'm not criticizing that. But what I'm saying to you is that it teaches us a principle that's the opposite of grace. God does not bless us because we're good little boys and good little girls.
God blesses us because he chooses to bless us. God blesses us though we don't deserve it. God blesses by grace. We need to get a hold of that. God chose Jacob over Esau before they were born. Before either one of them had done good or bad, God chose Jacob. And God said to their mother, the older shall serve the younger. You say, well, that's not fair. We humans are caught up with fairness, aren't we? But listen to me. Here's the reason this text is here in the book of Genesis.
In the course of events, this divine choice of Jacob over Esau worked itself out in their lives. This story shows that God's sovereign choice did not run counter to the wishes of either brother. You need to think about that. God's sovereign choice made before they were born nonetheless did not run counter to the wishes of either one of these brothers. I need to talk about the birthright for just a moment because it's hard for us in this 20th century culture to appreciate it.
What is a birthright? The birthright belonged normally to the firstborn of the family. It involved several things. First of all, a double portion of the father's inheritance. When the estate was divided up at the father's death, the firstborn who had the birthright got twice as much as everybody else. That's probably because of the second thing I'm going to tell you about the birthright, and that is the person who had it was looked upon as the leader of the family or the tribe.
He was in the position of headship. That doesn't mean a lot to us necessarily, but it meant a whole lot to those people living in a patriarchal society where a clan or a family had one leader, and it was that one who had the birthright. That brings me to the third thing I want to say about the birthright, and that is that it involved that person becoming the spiritual priest of his family.
He was not only the authoritative head, he was the priest of the family who would go before God on behalf of all. So the birthright involved temporal blessings as well as spiritual blessings. Jacob valued the birthright, which belonged to his brother Esau. Esau, on the other hand, had no appreciation for it. Surely he understood the privileges involved, but he did not care because you see, Esau's bent on life was for the here and now. He had no appreciation of the eternal or of the spiritual.
He was an ungodly man. That is, God was not important to this boy. He was profane. He was earthly. He was a fornicator. All this comes from the New Testament. He was a man of this world, and the birthright to him was meaningless. He despised it. That is, he looked down upon it with disdain. It meant nothing to him, but Jacob valued it, and he wanted it. And Jacob knew his brother didn't like it, didn't care for it.
And so, probably for some period of time, he looked for a way to gain the birthright. And he knew his brother's character well. And so the story is set up for us that Esau came back in from his manly hunting and his outdoors activities, and the man is famished. He is really hungry. And Jacob is waiting. Jacob did not deceive Esau, but he did play upon his brother's weaknesses very cleverly.
He had prepared this pot of stew, of lentil stew, this red stuff, as this uncultured man called it, this red stuff. But Jacob had prepared this with great care. We think that Texas chili recipes are guarded carefully. This is one of those recipes. Jacob put this together with whatever spices, and this pot of stew smelled wonderful. It could not have smelled better by design. And Esau wants to eat it, and Jacob begins to bargain with him for the birthright. And it is meaningless.
It is worth zilch as far as Esau is concerned, and he gives it to him and swears that he may have it. And so in gaining the birthright, though it was done with a scheming that was not a faith, nonetheless there was not injustice done to Esau. It went along with his desires. And so although he did not deserve it, that is Jacob, nonetheless he obtained the birthright from his older brother.
Now there is another reason this story is here, and that is so that it could become a New Testament illustration. I invite you to open your Bible now to Romans chapter 9, where the Apostle Paul is going to use this event as part of his explanation for what happened to Israel. Why Israel was passed by in the giving of the blessing of God, and why that blessing came to the church, which is largely a Gentile body, not Jewish. You need to understand the connection between chapter 8 and chapter 9.
Notice for example the word elect in verse 33. Who shall bring a charge against God's elect, the chosen of God? He says in verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Do you see the security there? He says something similar in verses 38 and 39 when he says, nothing in this long list is able to separate us from the love of God. But the people in Rome who may have been reading this would have been thinking, Paul, if that is true, then would you explain Israel to us?
Because Israel was also chosen by God, but now you're saying Israel is set aside. Israel did not get the blessing, but you're saying to us we are chosen by God and will not be separated from God's blessing. Paul, we need to understand about Israel. And so Paul goes into three chapters now to explain that relationship of Israel to the church.
He goes on to say in verses 1 through 5 that he himself would be willing to be separated from God if only the Jews, his brethren, according to the flesh, would believe in their Christ. But he wants them to know that it's not God who has failed. It is not God who has failed in his word. Look at verse 6. It is not as though the word of God has failed. God didn't fail. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.
That is, they are not all spiritually Israel who are descended from the man Israel, that is Jacob. Neither are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but through Isaac your descendants will be named. In other words, just because someone claims bloodline to Abraham doesn't mean they're the children of the promise and will get the blessing.
Verse 8 he says, that is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is a word of promise, at this time I will come and Sarah will have a son. And not only this, says Paul, but there was Rebekah also when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac.
For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose according to his choice might stand, not because of works, but because of him who calls, it was said to her, the older will serve the younger. Just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. And it's not talking about God emotionally hating Esau, this is language that simply reiterates the fact that God chose the one and overlooked the other.
Before they were born, God made the choice. He says in verse 14, what shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? He says is God fair? Is there injustice with God? May it never be. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
God's blessing does not depend upon human position, it does not depend upon human works and human effort, it depends upon God's choice. God's will to be merciful to whom he will be merciful. Paul is saying all of this to lay the foundation for the fact that, as he will explain, Israel did not appreciate its birthright. Israel did not value the blessing of God and the Christ of God, but rejected their Christ. God's word did not fail, Israel failed as a nation. And so Israel has been set aside.
The firstborn did not receive the blessing. It was passed on to another, a second body, which by the way is the church and which, it says in Ephesians chapter 1 that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. We are in the church by the grace of God. God chose us to be a part of this elect body. Before we were born, before there was good or bad, he chose us to be a part of this, that he might have vessels of mercy.
And so Paul is using that illustration about Esau and Jacob to explain this greater dispensational question as to what about Israel and the church. Today or this week we celebrate with the Jewish people the 50th anniversary of the modern state of Israel. Keep in mind it is a secular state, not a religious state, but it exists. What an amazing thing. And we are glad for that. In fact the problems that are there and tremendous conflict still going on within Abraham's family.
Nonetheless, we thank God that Israel is there as a nation. Is God through with Israel? No. Paul goes on to explain in chapter 11 that the same group of people who have been set aside because they despised their birthright will be grafted in again when the times of the Gentiles have been fulfilled. That is when the church is completed. Israel then will be grafted in again to enjoy the blessings of the God of Abraham. And so there is this slice of the story you've got to get a hold of.
It is the slice of divine choice. And that divine choice is always made by grace. The fact is that no one deserves the blessing of God. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast. Bounty is a gift given by grace. And all that we do is to respond to the promise by faith. But then isn't that what Abraham did?
He believed God and it was counted to him also for righteousness. Now because this is Mother's Day, I want to close with some considerations for mothers and fathers regarding the children. Please arise out of this story that we've looked at in Genesis. First of all, with regard to your children, respect their differences. Respect their differences. Please don't compare your children to one another.
One of the greatest ways to break the spirit of a child is to say to Billy, Billy, why aren't you like Johnny? Johnny is so good and you're so bad. Johnny is so smart and you're not very smart. That will destroy both children. You will see as your children grow older how much difference there is in them. God did not create children out of cookie cutters. Each child is unique. Each child has a bent as experienced parents here are well aware. Respect those differences.
Don't play favorites with your children as did Isaac and Rebecca. It only reinforced the conflict between those two men. Secondly, with regard to your children, reinforce right values. Model before your children the qualities that God desires in their lives. It is hard for children to learn good values when they don't see them lived out in mom and dad. That may well have been part of the problem with Esau and Jacob. We don't read a lot about Isaac's faith.
He was a believing man and in many ways a godly man, but he seemed somehow to be very quiet about it. He seems to be a private man with regards to his faith. I wonder if Isaac really built into his sons the kind of spiritual values he could have. So I want to exhort us to reinforce right values in their lives. Thirdly, with regard to your children, release them to God.
Alfred Torrey writes, it needs courage to let our children go, but we are trustees and stewards and have to hand them back to life, to God. As the old saying puts it, what I gave I have. We have to love them and lose them. From the moment the children are placed into our arms after birth, we are beginning to nurture them to become adults and to go out into the world on their own. Some moms and dads have a hard time letting go. I want to encourage you to do that.
When children are small, you can control them. You can say it's time for your nap and put them in the bed, put the crib side up and they're there. They will take a nap. When they're teenagers, you can say it's time to go to bed and negotiate with them. I'm stretching the point a little bit, but the fact is that we lose the ability to control and dominate our children, and rightly so. They need to become independent from us. Part of that independence is our gradual release of them into the world.
I tell you, it's scary. There's risk involved in that, but we have to do it for our sake and for theirs. I want to say to some of you parents who have done that and have found then that your children turn to the right or to the left, I want to say to you, don't be discouraged by that. Yes, you made mistakes. You blew it at times. I know that because we all have as parents. We would all go back and do some things differently if we could, but we can't.
If you did your best by God's grace and God's help to nurture your children and to give them right values and to bring them up in the Lord, when they turn to the right or to the left, don't be discouraged. Pray for them to come back to the right path. God may well bring them back. God has a time for doing that. Some of you are laboring under guilt about your children having done that. You say, oh, if only I had done this or that, they wouldn't have done this or that.
Listen, when they are grown up, when they're out there on their own, they make their decisions. Stop holding yourself responsible for their decisions. You need to release that guilt. Let it go. If there was failure involved, confess it to the Lord, confess it to them, but let it go. Don't continue to live under that kind of guilt that is unnecessary. There's enough guilt that's necessary. So don't live under the unnecessary guilt. Let your children go.
Commit them to the Lord and trust that if today they're not following the Lord as you would like them to, that in God's time they will come back to that way. Trust God. We need to pray and close. Would you bow with me, please? You may be here and that's your case. Today you're laboring, you feel guilty. There's regret in your heart. Will you give that to the Lord? Will you give that to Jesus, please, right now? Tell them about it. Acknowledge the failures if you've not done that before.
Insofar as it's reasonable and possible, talk to your children about your failures. Apologize to them. Ask their forgiveness if you've never done that before. But friend, don't live under the cloud of guilt about it. Live free of that and in prayer for your children. And all of us need the strength of the Lord. Don't win our parenting. May God give that to us. The power of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of God as we nurture them. Let's stand together, please, as we close in prayer.
Our God and Father, thank you for the home. Thank you for the family. In the midst of the conflicts that many of us are facing today, we look to you and pray for wisdom to learn from our conflicts, to grow through them, to teach through them. And we pray that whatever stage of parenting we're at, whether at the early stage or in the grandparenting stage, that you will show us how to do that as godly men and women.
We pray for our descendants that they will follow after the paths of righteousness and serve you all the days of their lives so that one day we may have a glad reunion in heaven as part of your family. In Jesus' name, amen.