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 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” 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 his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. –Genesis 25:29-34
The Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil, i.e., the Tree of Judicial Knowledge, stood before Adam. He would someday be ready for it, but not yet. Satan tempts them to hurry up and take the authority quickly. They did. It is sin to take even what the Lord has for us before he gives it to us, and it is costly.
Jacob is destined, like Adam, someday to have the authority. Satan comes along and offers a shortcut. God has already promised that “the older shall serve the younger.” But Jacob felt clever enough to snatch it before he was ready for it. This was sin, and it was costly.
Esau was willing to exchange what is of eternal value for a brief moment’s pleasure. He scarfed it down, jumped up, and left without a thought. It was costly. We would have room to criticize him if we didn’t do the same thing every day.
One of these men regards the blessing of eternal value less than a bowl of soup, and the other treats it as a commodity to be bought and sold. Which one should the Lord save? That answer proves that the grace of God is synonymous with the sovereignty of God.
Instead of a Jacob or Esau, what we have is a Savior whose birthright was to be equal with God and superior to all in creation. Yet he did not grasp it greedily or early, but freely gave himself up for others. He washed feet, touched the sick, and ate with sinners. While his people trampled underfoot their birthright, he bought it back with more than silver or gold: he bought it with his own precious blood, and that was costly.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Come, Christians, Join to Sing
The Beatitudes
Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us
Our Community Lunch is this coming Sunday following the worship service. For more information, click here.
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. –Genesis 25:24-26
It looks like the descriptions of these twins make fun of them. First you have a hairy monster. This hairy guy’s name in Hebrew sounds like Seir, the place he ends up living—outside the Promised Land, no doubt. His beast-like nature, not unlike Ishmael’s (a “wild donkey of a man,” Gen. 16:12) is no compliment. The prophecy of his life to come is one of opposing the covenant of blessing God has promised. We see this all the way up to the birth of Jesus. Jesus is cruelly opposed by Herod, who is Esau’s descendant.
Besides the hairy monster, we also have the heel-grabber. But that’s not all his name is. Its etymology is an abbreviated phrase meaning “El (God) protects”. Several commentators mention that this is a common Semitic name. And God does protect him from himself and everybody else, especially Esau. Most of us are more familiar with the other aspect of his name. His self-reliant and self-justifying efforts sully the honorable “God protects” name with his deceit. Thus the pun of his name as one who “seizes by the heel, or goes behind someone to betray.”
Jacob, like all believers, is at the same time saint and sinner (simul justus et peccator). He is at the same time chosen/protected by God and the deceitful betrayer. Jesus says to his disciples in John 15:16: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you…” He chose betrayers like Jacob. This is because he has mercy on whom he has mercy, for “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that pleases him” (Psalm 115:3). The sovereignty of God’s choice does not depend upon him who wills or runs, but upon God who has mercy and offers hope to sinners.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Crown Him with Many Crowns
Beneath the Cross of Jesus
Jesus! What a Friend for Sinners
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” –Genesis 25:21-23
Like Sarah, Isaac’s mother, Rebekah conceived not merely by natural means (if there are any!), but by the Lord’s direct intervention. Like Abraham, Isaac’s father, God announced beforehand the outcome of the lives of the children. This outcome is downright shocking.
One of these boys would have his blessing and be the blessing bearer of God’s people going forward. The other one is under curse. Malachi 1:2-3, “I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” With tongue-in-cheek apologies to our brothers and sisters at one parachurch ministry, God did not love Esau, nor did God have a wonderful plan for his life.
Jacob got the blessing before he had done anything good or bad. It was God’s choice by God’s grace for God’s glory. God blesses and protects and prospers Jacob in spite of Jacob’s sins: the deceptions, the scheming, the betrayals that Scripture apparently doesn’t hide one bit. Jacob was not worthy of blessing. From his perspective, he stole it: he seized the advantage of his older brother’s weakness and he lied and cheated his father. From God’s perspective, he is granted the blessing.
Sometime people get angry about this. It just seems so unfair. But that is because we don’t quickly acknowledge our sin and utter unworthiness to be accepted before a righteous and holy God. God loved Jacob not because of Jacob’s loveliness; God loved Jacob because of God’s loveliness. He’s God and he gets to call the shots and he loves his people in spite of their unloveliness. He loves people who must rely on the righteousness of another since their own righteousness is foul. And that other, perfectly righteous one is Jesus Christ, the lamb who takes away the sin of the world. He’s the one who has promised that those he washes will share in the Kingdom of Heaven, like Jacob.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Christ the Lord is Risen Today!
Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah, O My Soul (Psalm 146)
Be Thou My Vision
MEN’S PRAYER BREAKFAST
Calling all men: this Saturday, May 1 is our next prayer breakfast. It starts at 8:30 (the food is great!) and we’re done around 10. Enter at the northeast corner of the building (we have signs posted).
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 These are the days of the years of Abraham’s life, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. 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.—Genesis 25:7-10
Abraham (1) breathed his last; (2) died; (3) was gathered to his people; (4) was buried. We often think a phrase like “was gathered to his people” refers to something that happens at or after burial, but Abraham was not buried with his ancestors. His ancestors were in the land he left, the land to which he never returned. People were buried in their homeland and even though Abraham had to buy this cave at an enormous price (Gen. 23:16), it allowed him to declare to all the generations to follow: “This was our home!” So of course he was buried there even though the “gathering” would go on for a long time.
Abraham and Sarah in their day could hardly be described as residents of that land. Even Abraham calls himself a “sojourner and a foreigner” there. Yet the passage above says that he died “in a good old age, an old man and full of years.” This is apparently the ancient Near Eastern version of “happily ever after.” While Ecclesiastes 12 suggests that old age and the days of trouble go together, Abraham seems to have had it better than that.
Why? How come? Don’t we want to know because that’s how we want to die! Hebrews 11 reveals this in the most practical of answers. In that long roll call of faith, each saint is afforded one verse each except Moses who has 6 and Abraham who has 12. And in those 12 is a verse that should shake us to our foundation: But as it is, they [the saints mentioned there] desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.—Hebrews 11:16
There it is: why did Abraham die with a fully satisfied life? Because God was not ashamed to be called his God. Why was God not ashamed to be called his God? Because Abraham learned disdain for earthly things and was looking for a divine consummation, a new heaven and a new earth, ie., the true Promised Land.
When we cherish Christ and his work to bring us to that new heaven and new earth, when we live by faith rather than obeying ourselves to indulge in excessive love of this present life, then God is not ashamed to be called our God. That’s a good way to end life in this present age.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Thine Be the Glory
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Amazing Grace
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel and said to the servant, “Who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. –Genesis 24:62-67
There are no unimportant words in scripture. It means something that Isaac had come from Beer-lahai-roi. That’s the place, the well, where pregnant Hagar was when she was running away from the land and people of blessing (Promised Land and Abraham) to the land and people of the curse (Egypt). That’s the place God intervened and she gave up trying to save herself.
God promised her there that the child would be born, become a great nation, and she would be blessed (although she had to return to the land and people of blessing). He quenched her thirst, body and soul, there at that well: So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. (Genesis 16:13,14)
Who knows how long Isaac had been waiting for his dad’s servant to bring him back a wife! It may have been 3 or more years. He’s in his late 30’s already too. That’s why he went to Beer-lahai-roi; he went there to call on the name of the Lord who sees his affliction. And no sooner than he gets back, he lifts up his eyes, and behold, Rebekah! The Lord was looking after him.
When we wonder if God is looking after us, especially our thirsty souls, we should remember that Christ is the well of wells, the spring of living water. He is our Beer-lahai-roi, the one by which God sees us. He is the way we see the one who looks after us. It is in him that we drink to true satisfaction, that we call on the name of the Lord, and that we receive all the blessings of God. He is the one who stops our running back to the curse and turns us around to run to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. He is the one brings us to repent of trying to save ourselves by saving us himself.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in baptism and in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
The Day of Resurrection!
Baptized in Water
My Jesus, I Love Thee
Our first adult baptism of the year is this Sunday…don’t miss it!
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 They said, “Let us call the young woman and ask her.” And they called Rebekah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will go.” So they sent away Rebekah their sister and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant and his men. And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, “Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them!”—Genesis 24:57-60
Just before this passage, there is some disunity among Rebekah’s family. First off, Laban, Rebekah’s brother and apparent spokesman for Bethuel’s house, is more than a little excited about shipping off his sister in exchange for the riches Abraham’s servant is offering as the bride price. But then mom would like the customary waiting period of a couple of weeks to take place. Abraham’s servant gives an implicit warning that they shouldn’t act against Providence: “Do not delay me, since the LORD has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.” (v. 56)
So then picking up on the passage above, they ask Rebekah an unethical question—unethical because they had already consented to the marriage. With Jacob many years later, Laban’s greed is foreshadowed here. She gives the only decisive comment in the entire narrative, “I will go.” Instead of trying to please her family, she follows the Lord’s direction, just like Abraham did when he left much of his family in that same land over 60 years before.
Perhaps, though, the most beautiful part comes with the poetry of their blessing, “Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them.” What’s really beautiful about it, of course, is that it speaks of Christ. We already saw in the blessing of Abraham in chapter 22, these same words following his obedient submission to bind Isaac. Indeed the ultimate offspring of Rebekah, Jesus Christ, will possess the gate of those who hate him and his people.
In this Easter season, this should remind us to rejoice in the victory wrought by Christ. There is so much focus in Christian interests today about “victorious Christian living.” Five steps to… whatever. Purpose driven this, purpose driven that…with what goal? “Victorious Christian living!”
But when are we going to learn that victorious Christian living comes from being a Christian? Christians are victorious because Christ was. Your life may be full of hardship and pain from the first day to the last day of your life in this world, but that has nothing to do with victorious Christian living. That’s because Jesus has conquered and possessed the gate of those who hate him and his people.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in baptism and in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Christ is Alive!
Baptized in Water
Rejoice Ye Pure in Heart
This Sunday (April 11) is our Community Lunch following the worship service. All are welcome. Click here to request more info.
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he [Thomas] said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” –John 20:24, 25
G.K. Chesterton has a quote in his 1906 essay Skepticism and Spiritualism, which speaks to this situation:
I do not mind spiritualism, in so far as it is fierce. In that it seems to me to be akin to sex, to song, to the great epics, to all that has made humanity heroic. I do not object to spiritualism in so far as it is spiritualistic. I do object to it in so far as it is scientific. Conviction and curiosity are both very good things. But they ought to have two different houses. There have been many frantic and blasphemous beliefs in this old barbaric earth of ours; men have served their deities with obscene dances, with cannibalism, and the blood of infants. But no religion was quite so blasphemous as to pretend that it was scientifically investigating its god to see what he was made of.
Skepticism, spiritualism, and scientism all collide each Easter when we, like Thomas, are faced with the truth-claim of a ton of people that Jesus died bodily and was raised from the dead, bodily in real time and real space. Scientism scoffs, skepticism puffs up, and spiritualism keeps seeking but never finding.
Chesterton’s quote above is great because he succinctly exposes the deception of each approach. Spiritualism that is fierce is no longer spiritualism: it is worship. Spiritualism that is spiritualistic is not for seekers, but for those who have found, which is not what “spiritual” people usually mean.
Perhaps Thomas is afraid to hope, or maybe he’s afraid to put all his eggs in the Jesus basket. Whatever the reason, no amount of inquiry or seeking leads him to the truth. That comes from Jesus:
Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” –John 20:26-28
The gospel is not that we scientifically investigated our god to see what he was made of, liked him, and began worshipping him. The gospel is not that our spiritual search led us to worship him. The gospel is that the risen Jesus walked through the walls of our life, came right in, and crushed our skepticism. It is not that we called upon or loved him first. It is that he called us to believe and we gave the only answer possible to his effectual call: “My Lord and my God!”
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Christ the Lord is Risen Today
Up from the Grave He Arose
Crown Him with Many Crowns
This Saturday (April 3) is the Monthly Men’s Prayer Breakfast at 8:30. All men are welcome. Click here to get more info.
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor. And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water. And he said, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’–let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.” Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder. –Genesis 24:10-15In this second scene of Genesis 24, Abraham’s Servant fulfills his oath and goes to the land from which Abraham came to look for a wife for Isaac. He gets there and prays. This is a very capable and obedient Servant, but in spite of his talents and merits, he shows that all his hope for success is not in his own genius, but in the Lord.
It’s inspiring to see how he would rely on the Lord to give him all that is necessary to be obedient. Most of us are probably convicted by that. But the real hero of the story is not the Servant; it is the Lord! Right there, apparently in the middle of his prayer, the text says, “Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah.” The Lord’s provision was well on the way before the Servant even prayed.
Should we pray? Yes! Are our effectual prayers our idea? Hardly. That’s why we can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love; for all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they cannot so much as move. All these things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand. Christ has assured this for us by his perfect life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
All Glory, Laud, and Honor
Hosanna, Loud Hosanna
And Can It Be that I Should Gain
The next Monthly Men’s Prayer Breakfast is next Saturday (April 3) at 8:30. Plan now!
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. And the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” –Genesis 24:1-4
Father Abraham was blessed in all things, but he had learned well that a man is easily swayed from trusting the promises of God and relying on himself and bowing to his own whimsical emotions. And there’s nothing quite as powerful as a woman to help him down the wrong valley. Throughout the Older Testament the temptation to take foreign wives proves irresistible for too many. And the Lord doesn’t hesitate to use this very earthly practice as a demonstration of infidelity to him, dangerously pressing on to apostasy.
Abraham tells his servant to swear by the “seat of the pants” <wink, wink> that he will not get a wife for Isaac from among the foreigners. Abraham knows the promise of God for a great nation depends on the offspring from the “seat of the pants” of Isaac. It is critical that Isaac bear this torch faithfully until he can pass it on to Jacob, who passes it to Joseph, who passes it until the buck stops with the One True Son, Jesus Christ.
God has an only begotten Son who also took a wife. This is not only his body, but his bride, as we are told several times in the Newer Testament, the church. He has a wedding feast with her at the Table where we see that the two are one flesh. He gave himself up for her to present her in splendor, in spite of her worst, and spotless. And she is made up of aliens and strangers who become citizens and friends of his Kingdom.
Abraham’s great desire was that the fidelity of the son would bring about a holy nation, the Kingdom of God. And his desire was realized in that perfect husband who never cheats, who never leaves, and who always protects his bride. His name is the only one under heaven by which we may be saved.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder
O Sacred Head, Now Wounded
Jesus Shall Reign Where’re the Sun
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
Sarah lived 127 years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” –Genesis 23:1-4
Abraham, we’re told in many places, believed. He had faith in God’s promises and is commended for it. Sarah did too. Hebrews 11 mentions her fatih. Just like Abraham she was promised a son and a land. She had the son, but she died while they were still “sojourners and foreigners” in the land.
So Abraham buys, at great cost, a burial place for her. This was abnormal. In their culture you always buried your dead back home, even if you hadn’t lived there in a long time. We still do it pretty much the same way today. So what does it mean that Abraham broke with tradition and bought a plot of land among the Hittites to bury Sarah? It means that he still believed God’s promise, and in fact, testified to all future generations that he did bury her back “home.”
Hebrews 11:39, states plainly what was going on: “And all these [people just mentioned], though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us.”
That means “the land” was only a shadow of something much greater: the New Heavens and the New Earth—the whole recreated cosmos! And did you notice the pronoun at the end of Hebrews? Doesn’t it seem like it should say, “since God had provided something better for them”? But it says, “God had provided something better for us.” What good news! We too are included in the faithful who will receive that “something better” when the Kingdom of God comes in all its fullness. There is a very expensive grave in Canaan, but it was only occupied for 3 days.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing
Man of Sorrows! What a Name
Lift High the Cross
Don’t forget this Sunday is the beginning of Daylight Saving Time (spring forward). This is the one where those who forget show up an hour late!
Our Community Lunch will be this Sunday after worship. Click here if you would like more information.
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
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Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” 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 his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. –Genesis 25:29-34
