"Examples of Faith: Isaac & Jacob – The Blessing of Faith" Hebrews 11:20-21
- This message was preached by Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, on November 5, 2023.
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Audio Transcript
Well, I can see some of you didn’t know where to sit in your normal place because people from the other service are in your normal place today.
Does that ring true? It’s very good to be all together. Now. We do have a sermon to get through before you eat. All right.
It’s going to be a wonderful meal. So try to put the food on the back burner. And I know you’re just really looking forward to placing a bid to put a pie in Hunter’s face, but don’t think about that during the sermon either. And I’ve already got my bid. I was the first person to put a bid in, and I told him he’s superman today, and I gave him a cape to put on so that he doesn’t mess up his clothes.
But that’s where we are. And he’s also got his famous pie in a box over there. And you don’t want to miss out on that. You want to place a bid. And everything that we do today is to help send youth to districts.
And Mary and I went last year. It’s a wonderful experience for the youth. They get together and they’re like, wow, there aren’t just three Christians in the world. There are actually lots of people my age that love the Lord. And just a really good thing be praying for that, that there’ll be health and safety throughout all of that.
Today we are in Hebrews chapter 11, reading verses 20 through 21, Hebrews 11, 20, 21. And then we’ll be going to the Old Testament quite a bit today. So I hope you have your Bibles with us. And I know we have it on the screen, but it’s always good to open your word and follow along. Hebrews 11, 20, 21 says, by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. May we pray. Heavenly Father, as we look at your word today, we just ask that you will touch our hearts with whatever it is in our present situation, that we need to draw something from your word today. And it might just be that we need to grab onto you, what you offer to us each and every day out of your love and your grace for us. Or maybe we’re making choices in our life that we’re going to see in the passage today, Father, lead to consequences that are very sad that you would help us to change our direction by understanding what your word presents about these things.
In Jesus name, amen.
What we have in the text here today is we have two fathers each with two sons. Now you may say, well, it’s a father and it’s a grandfather. Well, if we read the whole thing in the Old Testament, which we will later, actually, we find out that Jacob adopted two of his grandsons in order to make them his sons. So we have two fathers here, each with two sons, and both fathers are going to bless two boys each. Now, in the midst of the story in the Old Testament, we’re going to look at today, it’s going to seem like this family.
Are they really great examples of faith? Because we’re going to see there’s parental favoritism, there’s sibling rivalry, there’s the customs of men versus the Creator’s will. It’s a story of deception, lies, conspiracy and sad consequences. But above it all, what we see in the story is that God remains sovereign, meaning he is in control. Yes, we make choices, but his ultimate will will be fulfilled.
But not only is he this sovereign Lord that makes everything happen, but he’s also good and gracious to his people. Even though they’re involved in all of these sins, God still at the end of day, loves them all the same and very much. One of our reasons why we trust God’s word so much is because it doesn’t sugarcoat its history. Heroes in any other book, the heroes always wonderful. They never do anything wrong.
But this is the way the Christian life is really lived out. We trust in the Lord, we’re on this road to becoming like Christ. But we are not perfect. We make mistakes. Sometimes we choose to sin.
Sometimes we just sin because we are sinful. But the overriding principle is that God still loves us and he is gracious. Now, when we look at this story today, there are so many takeaways from what is going on here that I can’t cover them all in a conclusion today. But you’re going to have to ask God to point out to you what you need to find out today. It’s like I have a book at home where you choose what page you’re going to go to next.
Depending on what you choose, you end up at a different destination at the end of the book. Or it’s like five people going into a pharmacy and they all have different ailments. They’re not all going to buy the same thing at the drugstore. They’re going to find what they need, particularly for their need. So there are a number of applications in the text to decide to today you need to decide what you need and where you are today.
And I’m going to go ahead and tell you what those applications are so you can be looking for them in the story. One is. Showing favoritism to your children is costly. Showing favoritism to your children is costly. Another thing we’re going to see in the story is that when we covet what our brother has, it’s going to lead towards negative consequences.
And that’s a wonderful thing about all God’s law. We tend to emphasize this is against him. But really all of his law, if we follow it, it brings about the best in our life. And when we break God’s law by example, like you’re coveting, it ends up hurting us. Number three is that the well intentioned customs of men are never superior to the Creator’s will.
Meaning sometimes what we do because we’ve always done it, or what our parents did, or what the world is telling us to do and it can seem really good to us, but God’s will is always superior. And we’re going to see that here. The elder child is the one that isn’t receiving the leadership, but it’s the younger. Number four. God does not need our help to accomplish his will.
What we’re going to see in the story today is that the characters try to help God do what God wants to do and it ends up having bad consequences for them. We don’t have to help God. He allows us to participate and to be obedient with what he is doing, but we don’t need to help him out. Number five, never be surprised when God’s people do ungodly things. Often we say, why do good people do bad things?
There’s a book by that title out there. And the fact is Godly people, because we are not completely sanctified and glorified yet will do bad things, but God still loves us. And that’s number six. God is unchanging in character. Therefore he never quits being sovereign and he never quits being gracious and loving.
Which leads to number seven, no matter what we do, God is still in control and he lavishes on us love, compassion and grace. You may see in the story today. Wow. I’ve been doing some of those things and now I’m concerned about the consequences because I’m not being obedient to the Lord. Yes, you are going to suffer consequences.
That’s number eight. But number seven, God still loves you. And number nine, if we live a life of faith in God, we can affect the lives of our children and our grandchildren by blessing them. And that’s what’s stated in the two verses here in Hebrews 11. Because of the life of Isaac and Jacob, they were able to bless their children and their grandchildren.
Two fathers. The first gives a blessing that results from deception and lies. The first tries to give a blessing that goes against the will of God.
Instead of desiring to give a blessing that lines up with God’s will, he wants to go along with the customs of men. The second father gives a blessing after he suffered the consequences to the means of the earlier blessing. And the second gives a blessing in line with God’s will, even though it is contrary to the custom and the will of man. Let’s overview the story. Today we’re going to be reading a lot of scripture and I won’t have time to make comments on everything again.
You have to listen for what you need. Let’s look at the definition of blessing. That’s what we’re talking about today, a blessing. It means to invoke God’s blessing upon a person. Not your blessing, but you’re invoking God’s blessing upon a person, which is to call upon God to act, intervene in their lives to accomplish his will.
That should be the desire that we have for our children. And the end result of the text is if we live our lives, then we can actively bless our grandchildren and our children with confidence. But we have to live a life of faith so that we can confidently bless them. And by the example of our faithful living, our children and our grandchildren are able to accept that from the Lord. Let’s go back now to Genesis 25, and I invite you to turn in your bibles there.
Genesis 25, 22, 26. I’m going to read through the story today. We’re going to start out with God’s blessing on Jacob.
We have a mother here. She’s pregnant, and inside her, the children are struggling with each other. She’s like, wow, what is going on? What is happening to me? The two boys were wrestling like they will later on, growing up inside of the womb.
And the Lord said to her, he spoke his will. He said, two nations are in your womb. Two peoples will come from you and be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. Now, according to man’s customs, the younger should serve the older.
But God has declared what his will is. He’s made this promise here to Rebekah. Rebekah knows what the will of God is going to ultimately be, that the younger will serve the older. That Jacob will surpass Esau. And I would assume it doesn’t say so, but she’s shared this with her husband.
So they know from the beginning what God’s will is, because God has blessed Jacob in a special way. We come to verse 26. We start to learn a little bit about Jacob’s character after this. His brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob.
Isaac was 60 years old when they were born. Even coming out of the womb, they’ve been wrestling. And it’s like a wrestling match where there’s a definite winner. But as he’s going off the mat, the loser just has to grab his heel so that he falls down. This characteristic is already beginning to develop in Jacob.
And that’s what his name means. He’s a heel grabber. Verse 27. When the boys grew up, Esau became an expert hunter and outdoorsman. But Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home.
And here we find out that dad loved the older one, Esau, because he had a taste for wild game. But the mother, Rebekah, loved Jacob.
Giving preference to one child over another is going to lead to some of the problems that they have in. The text tells us in verse 29 that once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field exhausted. He was so hungry that he was thinking in his mind, I would give anything for a good meal. Have you all ever felt that way? Maybe when you go camping and you’re not eating very well and you’re looking forward to coming home to a great meal?
Well, that’s what he was feeling. And he smells this stew that Jacob was making. Sounds like he was a pretty good cook at this time. And he said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stuff because I’m exhausted. That is why he was also named Edom, which means red.
Jacob replied, first sell me your birthright. Look, said Esau, I’m about to die, so what good is a birthright to me? Jacob said, swear to me first. Pinky, pinky swear. Whatever type of thing that boys did back then.
So he swore to Jacob, and he sold his birthright to him. And then Jacob gave bread and lentil stew to Esau. He ate, drank, got up and went away. So Esau despised his birthright. So when you eat soup today and you have bread, it’s a good time to discuss the sermon here.
What does this tell us about Jacob’s character? He was an opportunist. I mean, he saw this opportunity that he could get something that he wanted from his brother. Now, what had God promised? God had promised that Jacob was going to be the number one son.
But here he is helping God. He’s doing something wrong. What did it mean to have the birthright? Usually it went to the firstborn son. And it was a special honor given to them that they were going to be the head of the household.
After the father died, they were going to inherit the father’s estate for a double portion. So if there were two boys here, the estate would have been divided up into three parts, and the older would have gotten two parts, and the younger would have gotten just one. That is what Esau was willing to sell to his brother for a bowl of soup. What Jacob did was wrong. And what Esau did was willing to give up was just as wrong.
Jacob was trying to fulfill God’s prophecy in Jacob’s strength. And instead of depending upon God to do what God had promised, he was trying to manipulate the circumstances. He was an opportunist who exploited the immediate circumstances without any moral principle about what he was doing.
It’s possible that Jacob’s character was kind of passed on to him from his grandfather Abraham, who was deceptive twice in line about Sarah, saying that she was his sister. And then even Isaac, his father, was deceptive in the same way, lying about his wife. In Genesis 26:8, when the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, she is my sister, for he was afraid to say my wife, thinking that the men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is a beautiful woman. Jacob wasn’t right in his deception. He didn’t have any right to blame it on his father and his grandfather.
But he did have that example there, which is something for us to realize with our kids and our grandkids, that if we continue in our faults and our sins, the example that it sets for them is very poor. Genesis 26:23 to 25 we read this from there. He went to Beersheba, and here we’re talking about Isaac. And the Lord appeared to him that night and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you.
I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of my servant Abraham. So he built an altar there. He called on the name of the Lord, and he pitched his tent there. And Isaac’s servants also dug a well there. In spite of the deceptiveness that Jacob had seen in his grandfather and his father, what he also sees is there’s a Godly heritage there.
Both households had parents of faith, both his parents and his grandparents because of that godly heritage. When Jacob heard God’s word, he knew that God had promised these things to his dad and to his grandfather, and that God had been faithful all along.
Genesis 20:7. When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could not see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, so now we’re getting to this first blessing that’s about to happen, keeping in mind what’s gone on in the past, my son. And Esau answered, here I am. Isaac said, look, I’m old and do not know the day of my death. So now take your hunting gear, your quiver and bow, and go out in the field to hunt some game for me.
Then make me a delicious meal that I love and bring it to me to eat so that I can bless you before I die. Both son and father enjoy what they both like, a good meal. They’ve also kind of passed that on. And what we’re going to find out is I think Esau has learned to cook now because his dad is looking forward to this.
Isaac desire here is that he wants to do what he wants to to bless his older son Esau. But if we remember back to the story, what had God said, God has said that the younger would be the one to receive the blessing.
But Isaac isn’t going along with God’s will. He’s putting the customs of men ahead of the will of God. And we’re going to find out listening on the other side of the tent wall is mom, who knows the promise also. But this all leads to what we call the great ruse here. There’s going to be this great deception that’s going on where they’re going to try to help God to do the very thing that God has already promised that he will do.
Verse 5. Rebekah was listening to what Isaac said to his son Esau. So while Esau went to the field to hunt some game to bring in, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, listen, I heard your father talking with your brother Esau. He said, bring me game and make a delicious meal for me to eat so that I can bless you in the Lord’s presence before I die. Now, my son, listen to me and do what I tell you.
And this is the plan that we come up with. Rebekah will cook a delicious meal like Esau would, but she’s going to use a goat instead of wild game. After all these years, she knows how to make her husband’s favorite dish. She’s going to use that against him. The second part is Jacob will wear Esau’s clothes so that he smells like Esau.
I don’t know if you’ve ever wanted to smell like your brother or not. Can anybody say that you’ve been that way?
Obviously, Esau had a very distinctive smell that was on his clothes. And then Jacob will put on kid gloves. And literally, they’re kid gloves because they’re made out of a kid goat and a kid collar. Because Jacob is like, but if dad touches me, my brother is a very hairy man. So they put these.
These hairy gloves and around his neck because they’re planning this out. They know exactly how Isaac is going to respond, and they’re going to trick him. And then Jacob will trick his father by pretending to be esau. Verse 18. When he came to his father, he said, my father.
And he answered, here I am. There’s a question here. Who are you, my son? Jacob replied to his father in a lie, I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me.
Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may bless me. Lies all over the place. But Isaac said to his son, he’s a little suspicious. How did you ever find it so quickly, my son? I like to pick on hunter.
Esau was probably looking for a deer, and it just took him a little bit longer than he was hoping. Okay, how did you ever find it so quickly, my son? And he replied, because the Lord your God made it happen for me, bringing God’s name into the line. And then Isaac said to Jacob, he’s still suspicious. It doesn’t sound like Esau.
He says, please come closer so that I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau or not? And Isaac is thinking, I knew it. Dad was going to want to touch me. I’m prepared.
I have this on my hands and my neck. So Jacob came closer to his father, Isaac. And when he touched him, he said, the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.
He did not recognize him. He didn’t recognize that it was Isaac because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau. And so the ruse caused the father to. To bless him. But again, he asked one more time, are you really my son Esau?
He replied, I am.
Then he said, bring it closer to me. Let me eat some of my son’s game so that I can bless you. So Jacob brought it closer to him, and he ate. He brought him Wine. And he drank.
And then his father Isaac said to him, please come even closer and kiss me, my son. He reached out to touch his hands. He had reached out to touch his neck. But now he wants to be face to face with him, because he’s still not certain. So he came closer and he kissed him.
And when Isaac smelled 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. Therefore, he gave him the blessing. May God give to you from the dew of the sky and from the richness of the land, an abundance of grain and new wine. May peoples serve you and nations bow in homage to you.
Be master over your relatives. May your mothers sons bow in homage to you. And those who curse you will be cursed. And those who bless you will be blessed. As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had left the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau finally arrived from his hunting.
Story goes on that he comes into the tent and he says, father, I’m here for you to bless me. And Isaac realizes that there’s been foul play, and he gives somewhat of a blessing to his son. But he couldn’t give him the blessing that he’d given to Jacob. So when we go to verse 41 in chapter 27 because of this ruse, we see the consequences of sin beginning. Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him.
And Esau determined in his heart that the days of mourning for my father are approaching. And then I will. How mad is he? Yeah. First degree murder, motive, a plan.
He knows when it’s going to happen. All we don’t have here is the method yet, but he’s going to figure that out. The consequences of. Of sin in this family. Because they did not trust God to do what God had promised that he would do, they felt like they had to insert themselves and help him.
Verse 42. When the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she summoned her younger son Jacob and said to him, listen, your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. Imagine how that must have hurt her heart. So now, my son, listen to me. Flee at once to my brother Laban and Haran, and stay with him for a few days until your brother’s anger subsides.
Well, a few days ends up being multiple years until your brother’s rage turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from here, she never gets a chance to send for him because she dies before he returns. Why should I lose you both in one day? And part of the consequence is that she practically loses her favored son because he has to leave her. The consequences of the ruse Jacob was away from home for about 20 years.
Jacob never saw his mother again. Jacob was deceived by his father in law in a tfod. You know what that stands for? It’s a two for one deal. Okay, we’re not going to that story.
But he wanted the one sister and he ended up with both. Jacob then was cheated by his father in law 10 times the deceased deceiver he’s deceived 10 times over what anything he had ever done. And all this time, Jacob is living in the fear of his brother Esau, who can easily travel just as far as he did to get back at his brother. There are consequences when we don’t obey God’s word. And there are consequences when we try to help God achieve what he has promised to do.
Genesis 48. We jump to the next blessing. Now, now Isaac is not the one being blessed. Isaac, I mean now Jacob is not the one being blessed. Jacob is the one that’s about to give the blessing.
And I have to believe that he’s remembering to the blessing that he received. And hopefully, after all the consequences he suffered, he has determined he’s not going to go along with the customs of men. He’s not going to help God out or try to change things because he’s learned his lesson. Sometime after this, Joseph was told, your father is weaker. So he set out with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.
And when Jacob was told, your son Joseph has come to you, Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed. And Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. The blessing that he sought from his father, that he was willing to suffer the consequences that he didn’t even know what they were, becomes very small after he leads his family. Because then he receives the real blessing he gets. The true blessing of God when God Almighty appeared to him and blessed him.
More important than the blessing that his dad gave him was the blessing that Jacob received from the Lord. And here again we see God’s great love and grace and his forgiveness. Because in spite of all, all Jacob’s conniving, his sin, his deception to his very dad, and using the Lord’s name as part of his lies, God, instead of chastising him, is still gracious. And loving and forgiving to him, just as he is to us, no matter how much we mess things up with sin in our life.
He goes on to say, he said to me, I will make you fruitful and numerous. I will make many nations come for you. I will give this land as a permanent possession to your future descendants.
Your two sons born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are now mine.
So Jacob has established that the reason why I’m here to bless you today, to bless your kids, is because God blessed me. And I’ve lived my life in confidence and faith. And knowing that God is going to bring this about. And with my certainty and my faith, I’m able to pass this blessing on to you. And he says, now your two sons, just forget about them.
They are now my sons. He said, ephraim and Manasseh belong to me, just as Reuben and Simeon do. And in essence, he’s given Jacob, I mean Joseph, a double blessing here because each of his sons are going to get a full portion. And then he says, children now born to you, after them will be yours and will be recorded under the names of their brothers and in regard to their inheritance. In essence, Joseph is getting the birthright here.
He’s getting a double inheritance, but his father is passing it on to the two grandsons. Verse 7 says, When I was returning from Paddan Aram to my sorrow, Rachel died along the way, some distance from Ephrath in the land of Canaan. I buried her there along the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem. And when Israel saw Joseph’s sons, he said, who are these? And Joseph said to his father, they are my sons.
God has given me here. So Israel said, bring them to me and I will bless them. Now his eyesight was poor, just like his father’s had been. Because of old age, he could hardly see. And Joseph brought them to him and he kissed and embraced them.
And then Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face again. He had lived in despair for all those years that Joseph had been killed.
But now God has even let me see your offspring. So Joseph took them from his father’s knees. He bowed with his face to the ground. And then Joseph took them both with his right hand, Ephraim, toward Israel’s left, and with his left hand, Manasseh, toward Israel’s right. And he brought them to Israel.
He was putting them there in order of firstborn and secondborn. He was expecting his father to reach out and according to the customs of men, give the proper blessing in man’s eyes to the older son. But it says Israel instead stretched out his right hand and he put it on the head of Ephraim the younger. And crossing his hand, he put his left hand on Manasseh’s head. Although Manasseh was the firstborn, Jacob had learned, I’m not going to go along with the customs of men if they go against what God’s will is.
Because he knew the consequences that he had suffered because of that. He’s doing what God has instructed him to do, to bless the younger over the older. Then he blessed Joseph and he said, the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day. Here is his testimony of faith. The angel who has redeemed me from all harm.
May he bless these boys. He’s not saying, I lived a great life, I have great wealth, I have a great name, and I’m passing these things on to your kid. What he’s passing on to him and the children is his faith that he has in the Lord. And not that they’re going to have faith because of their grandfather, but they’re going to have that example of faith how God has been consistently faithful to him over the years. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac.
And may they grow to be numerous within the land. But Joseph, the godly man, who he was, he’s been the example of never seeming to do anything wrong. Even here he is tempted to go along with. With what are the customs of men? Because when Joseph saw that his father had placed his right hand on Ephraim’s head, he thought it was a mistake.
And he took his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s. Joseph said to his father, not that way, my father. This one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head. But his father refused and said, I know, my son.
I know he too will become a tribe, and he too will be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother will be greater than he, and his offspring will become a populous nation. So he blessed them that day, putting Ephraim before Manasseh, when he said, the nation Israel will invoke blessings by you saying, may God make you like Ephraim. Secondly, Manasseh’s Israel said to Joseph, look, I’m about to die, but here’s his faith again. But God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of our fathers.
Over and above what I am giving your brothers, I am giving you the one mountain slope that I took from the Amorites with my sword and bow. He’s pretty specific about what God has promised. It’s not a well. God might do this or God might do that, or God said this, but I don’t know about it. He is confident that God is going to bring them back into the land.
Hebrews 11:20. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. And by faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph. And he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff, two fathers each with two sons. Both fathers each blessed two boys.
The first gave a blessing that was a result of deception and lies. The first gave a blessing that was going against the will of God, instead going along with the customs of men. But we have a child through the consequences of his sin, and his father, not following the Lord, he makes a different decision. He gives a blessing after having suffered the consequences, and he gives a blessing that is in line with the will of God, but it’s contrary to the customs of the will of man.
The question from this part of our lesson today is, do you live a life before your children as an example of faith in God that will lead them to seek a blessing from you? These fathers did not have to run after their kids and grab them and say, I want to bless you. They saw the lives of their fathers and how God had blessed them and their life of faith. And they came to their fathers, to their grandfather, wanting his blessing. And we should live our lives in faith in such a way that our children see a difference and they want us in confidence to pass a blessing on to them.
But I go back to the blessing that was most important to Jacob, and that was the one that he received from God Almighty after his father’s blessing. And we go to Ephesians Chapter one, and here we see God’s blessings for us. These are the blessings that are far more important than any blessing that we can have. Some of us may not have godly parents or godly grandparents, and you don’t have a chance to even get a blessing from someone like that. But more importantly, God gives you the ultimate blessings.
In Ephesians 1:3, we say, Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. That’s you, that’s me. That God blesses us, not with some blessings, but with every spiritual blessing. In verse four, we are chosen by God. In verse five, we learn that we are predestined to be adopted as sons.
In verse seven, we have redemption through his blood. We also have the forgiveness of our trespasses. We have received an inheritance and we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. You may feel all alone today. You may feel like nobody cares for you, but in verse four, you know who does?
God does, because he’s chosen you. You may not feel like you have family. Maybe you’ve been abandoned, or maybe you’ve lost them. Maybe they just didn’t follow the Lord and you’re alone. You can know that God has predestined you with the blessing of being one of his children.
We can say we have sin in our life if we understand there’s no way we can approach God. And we continually sin. Well, he’s solved that predicament for us because we have redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. And we. When we talk about redemption here, we’re talking about the kinsman Redeemer.
And we have to think back to the story of Ruth, that what Ruth could not do for herself, someone with the resources, someone that was her closest relative and someone who had the right, was able to come in and do for her what she could not do for herself. That’s what God does for us. Jesus redeems us through his blood. He has the right to do that. He has the power to do that.
And he has the relationship with us that he can do for us what we can never do for ourself. And that results in the complete forgiveness of our trespasses. So that when God looks at us, part of the blessing is that he sees us dressed as a bride for her wedding, without any spots, her dress. Because he wipes away all of our sins and our trespasses. A blessing from God.
Then not only does he save us, but he promises us this great inheritance. We have no idea how we can fathom how great that will be that we have one day. And he’s sealed it with the Holy Spirit. A seal that cannot be removed from anyone, cannot be removed by anyone. These are our blessings.
These are the most important ones that we have from the Lord.
Jacob did so much to get his father’s blessing, but the most important blessing that he received was from God after the one that he worked so hard to get himself. We can’t work out our salvation. We can’t work to get our blessings. And we shouldn’t try to add anything to what God has already done for us. Just let him do the work of salvation in your life.
Accept the blessing that he’s given us.
Paul tells us how we are blessed by God if we have faith in Him.
Grace to you, peace to you from our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what God offers to everyone here today. And if you don’t feel like you’re blessed, it may be because you either don’t understand how God has blessed you, or maybe you don’t have a right relationship with the Lord. It’s very simple. All we have to do is believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life.
He died on the cross as a substitute for our sins. He was buried and he rose from the dead. But we don’t just believe that in our head, but we fully trust it in our heart as these Old Testament saints were just as certain that God was going to bring them back to the land. When we have true faith, we have that same certainty in our lives that God is going to bring us to our eternal home in heaven. There’s this heart, belief, and rest on that.
But secondly, Scripture says that we have to be willing to profess to others that now Jesus is the Lord of my life, he is my Master, he’s my Savior, and I follow him in everything. If you have that faith in your heart and you’re willing to profess that to others and you tell God, I am trusting on you today to save me from my sin, to redeem me and to forgive me, and I want to receive that gift from you, then you have all of these blessings that are promised here in Jesus Christ.
I close today by reading the blessings from number six 22 through 27. This is the Aaronic blessing. I’d like you to read it with me as if we are all blessing one another today. Because part of the intent has been that both our early service and late service could come together so that we could at least occasionally do this. Because we’re one church, we’re one people.
We all need to bless one another. Will you read it with me? May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.
Worship team, will you come and lead us.