March 2, 2003
Evening Service
Text: Genesis 25:23-31:55
Subject: Blessing
Title: Don’t Just Stand There; Do Something
We hear much in the church world about faith. We know about saving faith - trusting in Christ alone for your eternal life. I have personally been encouraging you to take steps of faith. I’ve explained how faith plays a significant role in healing. We have seen that by faith we receive blessings from God. Three weeks ago, on a Sunday night, I challenged you to begin to ask God, in faith, for things larger than you have ever considered or even imagined. God wants to bless us like that.
But tonight I want you to consider something more than just standing back and receiving blessings.
First of all, the Lord isn’t going to just pour out blessings on you because you look good or appear to be a good Christian. If we are going to receive blessings something is required of us. We have to ask for those blessings. That means prayer.
Second, just because we have prayed and believed that we receive God’s promises doesn’t mean that there is nothing else required of us.
Third, in many instances, in order to receive God’s promised blessings, He has given us the wherewithal to do things in order to receive them.
Let me give you and example. The apostle Paul wrote much about faith and the promises of God. He told the church in Philippi that God supplies all your needs according to His riches in glory, yet wherever Paul went he worked as a tentmaker. Even though he wrote to the church in Corinth that he had every bit as much a right to receive pay for his ministry, as did those so-called super-apostles, he still worked. Why? Because God gave him an ability to make a living through a trade and he allowed God’s blessing to come to him through his talents.
Tonight we are going to look at the life of Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the faith, of whom it was told to his mother that he would receive God’s blessing. I want to show you tonight that even when we have the promise of blessing we don?t have to sit idly by and wait for those blessings to be poured out. Our activity plays a big part in God’s plans for our lives.
Let us look at Jacob’s life and we will see:
One, like Jacob we are favored and blessed.
Two, like Jacob we can build our relationship with God.
Three, like Jacob our actions can be the method of blessing that God chooses for us.
I. Jacob is favored and blessed. Let’s begin our story with Esau and Jacob still in the womb. Gen. 25:22, "But the children struggled together within her; and she said, ’If all is well, why am I like this’? So she went to inquire of the Lord."
Verse 23, "and the Lord said to her, ’Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body; one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger’." God gave word before his birth that Jacob would rule over his brother. Nothing more than that; no explanation given, just the promise of blessing and favor in God’s eyes.
Now Esau was a skillful hunter. When you think of a hunter what comes to mind? A rugged individual who can survive on just what he takes from nature. He doesn’t need anything else. Esau would probably be one of those guys who says he can be closer to God in the woods than in church. Esau chose wives that were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah. Esau was so independent that he didn’t even think he needed the birthright that was coming to him so he sold it for a bowl of bean soup. He didn’t expect much from a blessing and he got what he expected.
Jacob was a mild man. (NKJV) KJV calls him a plain man; the NIV a quiet man. In Strong’s concordance we see the word translated these three different ways is tam. (tawm) Meaning "complete in a moral sense, specifically pious, gentle, dear, coupled together, perfect, plain, undefiled, upright." Jacob was all these things rolled into one person. Why did God bless one child and not the other? He knew them in their mother’s womb. God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5, "before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you."God, being the eternal and all knowing God that he is, knew Jacob’s heart from the beginning. He tricked his father into giving him his blessing. You can look at this from different angles. One tells us that Jacob means deceiver. Jacob tricked his father into giving him the blessing. He prevented his father from going against God’s will.
Isaac loved Esau - he was a real man’s man. Rebekah loved Jacob because he was a complete man and the one God had chosen to bless. Verses 28-29 record Isaac’s blessing to his son. "Therefore may God give you of the dew of heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. Be master over your brethren, and let your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be those who bless you."
II. Dream the dreams of God. Seeking a relationship. 28:10-22, Jacob is sent to Haran to find a wife. Why do you think it was important for Jacob to go away? 1)Obedience to parents. 2)Safety. 3)Get away from temptation to marry pagan wives. His mother and father thought it best for him to get away from his angry brother and to find a wife from his own people. He was obedient to his parents. Though he knew he was the recipient of God’s blessings he did not put on airs. We talked about King Saul this morning and how he thought since he was God’s anointed he could do anything he wanted. But Jacob was a complete man. Being a complete man means that he was concerned about being in God’s will also. On the way he has a dream. God confirms the covenant that He made with Abraham.
In what ways did God reveal himself to Jacob in the dream? Jacob was now the third generation of the covenant. Why was he chosen? Not because of his righteousness! Because of God’s call to Abraham and His faithfulness to hold up His part of the covenant.
We don’t see anywhere that Jacob had ever heard God’s voice before so God identifies himself as the God of Abraham and Isaac.
Read God’s message to him in verses 13-15.
What is the promise?
What is Jacob’s response?
Verse 18 and Verse 19.
The house of God.
Verses 20-22
This was a new relationship for him. Before his relationship with God was through his mother and father. Now it becomes personal.
If God will be with ME ?
If God will keep ME ?
If God will give ME bread and clothing ?
Keep ME safe till I come back to my father’s house.
Is Jacob testing God? I think he is trying to be sure of what is going on. He wants to know for sure what God’s nature is. - Wants to really see if God cares for him.
If He does then -
Verse 22, Notice that the concept of a tithe appears here over 400 years before the Law of Moses and the command to give tithes to the priests. It is part of the covenant of grace that begins with Abraham.
Notice how Jacob is maturing. First he manipulates his brother and gets the birthright. Second he tricks his father and steals a blessing. Third, he begins to seek God and to have a relationship with Him. Is Jacob asking for more from God than He is willing to give?
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God" and what?
"All these things shall be added unto you."
What things?
All God’s promises.
III. Our actions can be the method God uses to bless us. What actions? Prayer! Obedience! Our abilities. I challenged you three weeks ago to begin to pray for big things. Things you never even considered before. Now hold on to that thought and let us look at what Jacob did in response to the promise of God’s blessing. He was obedient to his parents.
He found the girl of his dreams. Gen. 29:1-14. At this point he could have said, "God this is the one for me. Now You promised me children so in Jesus’ name give me this wife." That is name it and claim it. That is not what we believe. The times required for a man to provide a dowry to a father for his daughter. Jacob had nothing so he was willing to work in order to receive the blessing God wanted to give. Deut. 14:28-29.
The reason God wants us to work is so he can bless us.
Jacob was willing to do what he did best - shepherd the flocks - in order to receive the promise that God gave him. Even though he was lied to and required to work another seven years to get the wife he wanted he was willing to wait. He waited 20 years for a blessing.
The way it came makes no physical sense. (30:31-43)Emphasis on 37-42 Not some superstition but faith that Jacob somehow associated with some sticks. We don’t have to understand how God’s promises work. Just have faith that they do work and then do what you need to do. That is not taking matters into your own hands but it using God’s wisdom. Is. 40:28-31; 55:8-11.
Jacob was promised a blessing. He would be a partner in the covenant of grace began with his grandfather Abraham. He would be blessed with many descendants and with material blessings.
He waited to receive those blessings by faith. But in the process he used the talents that God gave him as an avenue of blessing.
The promises that God has given us require something on our part.
Salvation requires faith in Jesus Christ.
Sanctification requires commitment on our part. If we are set apart and we keep on living our same old lifestyle will we mature as Christians?
If God has promised that we can ask for things beyond our wildest dreams and we can receive it, does it mean we just place our order, sit back and wait?
We receive the good things of God by faith. Jacob worked twenty years in faith waiting for the promise. Paul worked and preached about faith.
Do you want to receive God’s promises? Do you believe that we haven’t even asked or imagined all the things God wants to do for us? Do you believe that whatever we ask in Jesus’ name we can believe that we receive them and we shall have them?
Three weeks ago I prayed that God would give this church a tithe of the town and surrounding area in people. How is that going to happen? It is going to require work on my part. Witnessing and training witnesses.
Some of you prayed for increased finances and better jobs. Better pay comes with higher skilled jobs, which come from advanced training which requires something on your part.
Many of you prayed for your lost loved ones, believing that God is going to bring them into His church and save them. What are you going to do about it?
There is no doubt that God is a supernatural God and He does things in ways we cannot understand. We must also believe that God will answer our prayers, bless our work and honor our plans when we do all for the glory of His name.
Work done with pure motives will bring blessed results.
Was it the twenty years of labor by Jacob that brought about God’s blessings? On the contrary, it was Jacob’s faith in God’s promises that enabled him to continue that work.
The African impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall. Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see, and with faith we are freed from the flimsy enclosures of life that only fear allows to entrap us.
When God called me into the ministry I didn?t see how it could ever happen. But I knew the call was real. I didn?t wait for God to just pour out blessings and knowledge and supernatural gifts on me to make me a pastor of a church. I relied on His word and went to work. Six years later I am still studying to become the best I can be.
Don’t be afraid to ask God for great things. Don’t be surprised when He calls you to do things you don’t think you can do. And don’t be alarmed when you can’t see the end results.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible."
When you can’t see the end - keep working! By faith it shall be yours.
