You're A Winner! - Genesis 25 Series

It’s fun to listen to the birds out there, isn’t it?

Alright. Question: Who knows the longest running game show on TV? What do you know? What do you think it is? Not Jeopardy. What else? The Price Is Right! Not the Wheel of Fortune. The Price Is Right. In 1956 The Price is Right came out. It’s this show I’m sure we’ve all seen at least once where the people who do well are the people who know the value of things. They’re the ones who can tell that this household product costs a certain amount without going over. So if you know the value of things you can do well on The Price is Right.

Today we’re going to talk about the value of things, spiritual things, and in particular we’re going to talk about how God has given us all kind of valuable things. What I hope today is that you’ll experience what the contestants experience when they are right. When they’re the ones chosen to go to the next level, what do they do? Oh they’re jumping up and down and they’re yelling. They’re doing this cheering. I think they must instruct people that if you win you must be emotionally exuberant in what you’re doing. It reminds me of praising the Lord. You know, “Praise the Lord!” Yes, that’s what we do when we experience spiritual blessings.

Today as we look at this passage of scripture we’re going to see that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob. He didn’t realize the spiritual blessing. He didn’t realize how valuable it is. He was a loser. I mean he lost the game in essence. But it was a huge game. It was a game of life and he missed out. We're going to look at him. We’re going to see what God has to say about him in this passage today.

I’m eager to share this with you because I want you to see the value that God has given to you. I want you to experience the fact that you’re a winner. This isn’t just a game. This is life. And when you understand the value of things, the value of spiritual things, great things happen inside your heart. You just want to say praise the Lord. God is good all the time. Right? That’s what we want to say.

So in order to get there we have to get to the story. We’ve been studying now since Genesis 12- 50 the story of the four patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. We’ve been mainly looking at Abraham and the things that are going on in his life. We’re going to shift today to the next patriarch.

So there are parts of this story that connect us here in Genesis 25 that I want you to see. I’m not going to read it all, but I want you to see the connection. I don’t want to skip over it totally, but I’ll make some comments about it. That’s what the first few verses of Genesis 25 say that Abraham took another wife. Now we know that Sarah was his wife. She passed away. And after she passed away then he took another wife. He has all these kids with her.

Notice verse 5. It says – Abraham gave all he had to Isaac. So he passed all of his blessings, all of the material possessions he had and so on to Isaac who is the child of promise. But just to kind of end what’s going on with Abraham there, we just see what happened later on in his life. In fact if we go further into the passage we see this. We see that it says – These are the days of the years of Abraham's life, 175 years. The guy lived 175 years. That’s a long time. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.

You know what he died of? He died of years. That’s what he died of. He was just old and he was full of years. He was gathered to his people. I like that phrase. When someone dies we say they passed away or they passed on. But they say he was gathered to his people. I like that. There are people waiting for me in heaven. They can hardly wait for me to die. Because then I’ll be up there with them. If I could see them. And I’ll be gathered to my people and I’ll see all those friends I’ve had over the years or believers who have passed away and I’ll be gathered to my people. I like the description of Abraham that he was gathered to his people.

Notice it says – Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife. I find it interesting that Isaac and Ishmael are together now in this. I’m sure you’ve seen this at a funeral. We’ve got people coming together that wouldn’t normally be together, there was strife in the family or whatever. But now they come back together to bury Abraham.